Public health emergencies can trigger individual death anxiety. Most previous studies focus on the negative effects of death anxiety via the Western materialistic view, neglecting both the positive aspects of death anxiety within the Chinese cultural background and the positive effects of death anxiety upon environmental consumption. By implementing the unique Chinese cultural background for the concepts of justice and interests, this study explores the positive influence of individual death anxiety on altruistic environmental consumption during the COVID-19 crisis by analyzing (...) personal life reviews and other sources. The results show that under the guidance of the correct concept of justice and benefit, individuals with high death anxiety during the epidemic period not only enhance their self-esteem through positive self-perception and social evaluation, but they are more inclined to benefit from other environmental consumption behaviors and attain a symbolic self-survival; and during the epidemic period, mental resilience, as a transformation mechanism of external defense and the internal growth of death psychology, can directly affect altruistic environmental consumption by consumers without relying on external standards. In the context of the Chinese culture’s concept of justice and interests, this study enriches the knowledge of fear management theory and the positive impact of death anxiety on environmental consumption. The introduction of mental resilience as a boundary condition has important theoretical and practical significance within the study of consumer behavior in public health emergencies and post-epidemic economic recovery. (shrink)

The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically altered the education sector. Rather than the impact of COVID-19, many higher education institutions are on the verge of insolvency due to a lack of digital transformation readiness and poor business models. The bleak financial future many HEIs will face while others may be forced to close their doors completely will erode HEIs’ ability to fulfil their societal responsibilities. However, HEIs that have survived and maintained their operations anticipate the transition to online learning or the (...) effects of any economic crisis, including university closures in the short, medium, or long term. The entire educational ecosystem was forced to transform its operations quickly and entirely to an online teaching-learning scenario in just a few weeks. Notably, HEIs that have long offered online courses worldwide can easily transition to digital teaching and learning when necessary. The second roundtable session’s result of the International Higher Education Conference, organized by INTI International University on March 31 2022, was used to organize a Delphi method to identify further factors that positively impact HEIs by COVID-19. The importance of these factors was then determined using Kendall’s coefficient of concordance. Recommendations on how HEIs should move towards institutional sustainability during the endemic phase are presented accordingly. (shrink)

This article examines online identity practices of Chinese doctors mediated through borrowed linguistic resources in a leading medical app. Setting against rapid societal changes in China which open up traditionally ‘powerful’ professions to market competition, and the development of a booming digital economy, this app and its semiotic work drawing on Chinese Internet vernacular, I will argue, offer a fascinating lens to probe into the highly dynamic online discursive practices in contemporary China. Drawing on the notions of entextualization and resemiotization, (...) I will trace and analyse the patterned ways in which pre-existing linguistic resources are creatively reworked by the app to achieve new identity-making purposes. Situating the changes of the field of healthcare in China within a worldwide shift towards neoliberal ideologies and practices, I will also briefly discuss how the emergence of such new social space in digital settings may impact the production and communication of health knowledge and services in China. (shrink)

This book examines the connection between central-local government relations and the transition of contemporary China, the urbanization process and social development. Based on empirical investigations and theoretical research, it argues that this is the key to understanding the transition of central-local government relations from the overall fiscal rationing system in the 1980s and the tax distribution system in the 1990s. The former system provided the incentive for local government to "set up a number of enterprises" and resulted in rapid local (...) industrialization, while the latter system enabled the local governments to move from "operating the enterprises" to "operating the land and cities". The book analyzes two aspects of the profound impact of the change in central-local government relations on the behavior of local governments: land quota acquisition and urbanization, thus providing valuable insights into the economic and social development of contemporary China. (shrink)

As observed by both western and Chinese scholars, despite the cultural and historical distance between them, the works of Confucius and J. L. Austin (together with other scholars of speech act theory) share similar views on the performative dimensions of language. Speech act theory underscores how utterances constitute actions instead of reporting inner mental states of the speakers, while Confucian texts also draw attention to the embeddedness of language in the wider contexts of personal affairs and social order. In this (...) article, we conduct a detailed comparison of the two to demonstrate that their views on language and communication, although sharing some important concerns, differ significantly in two main aspects: (1) The relationship between one’s ‘internal’ cultivation and ‘external’ behaviours; (2) The conceptualization of language and ethics. In conclusion, we discuss the implications of a Confucian outlook for the study of language and communication and point out some directions for future research. (shrink)

「大解讀」中的「大」，有三重含意：大視野、大背景、大系統。大視野，就是時代的視野、五千年文明史的視野、橫穿中西方文明的視野、面向未來的視野。按這樣的視野，在諸子百家的範圍上，我們勢必要加上科學家、經濟 學家、實業家、文學家、藝術家。大背景，就是諸子百家之前兩千年的背景、當時五百年的背景、此後兩千年演變的背景、中西方文化交會的背景、我們今天所在時代的背景。按這樣的背景，我們勢必要對諸子百家中的天人關係 、人文關懷、國家發展與經濟建設、民主與法制、科學技術、理性思維等內容予以特別的重視。大系統，就是天人系統、人文系統、學科系統、學派系統、諸子們個人的學術系統。按這樣的系統，我們勢必要對在歷史上遭到忽視 、誤解、曲解的一些諸子百家學術思想和理論，進行重新發掘、整理，取其精華、去其糟粕。只有通過這樣的「三大」，才能全面地、科學地、系統地解讀諸子百家，才能為中國文化正本清源，才能讓中國傳統文化走向世界、走 向現代化、走向未來。也只有這樣，才能實現中國文化的偉大復興！才能讓中國文化對人類做出更大的貢獻！為此，我們給這本書取名叫《諸子百家大解讀》。.