In recent years, entrepreneurship has been gaining more prominence as a potential tool for solving poverty in developing countries. This paper mainly examines the relationship between farmer entrepreneurship and rural poverty alleviation in China by assessing the contribution of farm entrepreneurs towards overcoming poverty. Data were collected from 309 employees of farmer entrepreneurships in Guangxi Province through survey questionnaires. Structural equation modeling was used to conduct an analysis of the effects of three identified capabilities of farm entrepreneurs—economic, educational and knowledge, and socio-cultural capabilities—on attitude towards farmer entrepreneurship growth and the qualitative growth of farmer entrepreneurship and how these in turn affect rural poverty, using AMOS 21. The findings show that socio-cultural capability has the greatest influence on farmer entrepreneurship growth (β = 0.50, p<0.001). The qualitative growth of farmer entrepreneurship also more significantly impacts rural poverty (β = 0.69, p<0.001) than attitude towards farmer entrepreneurship growth. This study suggests that policy makers in China should involve more rural farmers in the targeted poverty alleviation strategies of the government by equipping rural farmers with entrepreneurial skills. This can serve as a sustainable, bottom-up approach to alleviating rural poverty in remote areas of the country. The study also extends the literature on the farmer entrepreneurship-rural poverty alleviation nexus in China, and this can serve as a lesson for other developing countries in the fight against rural poverty.

Purpose: There is a recent growing interest to find a lasting intervention to rural poverty (RP) in developing countries based on farmer entrepreneurship and innovation. The purpose of this paper, therefore, is to examine the relation between entrepreneurship and RP alleviation in two resource-constrained provinces of China. This paper assesses the influence of three capabilities of farm entrepreneurs – educational, economic and socio-cultural – on farmer entrepreneurship growth and how these, in turn, impact alleviation of RP. Design/methodology/approach: Household survey data comprising 363 respondents were taken from four deprived communities in two provinces of China. The paper employed structural equation modeling (SEM), using AMOS 21.0 alongside SPSS 20.0 to test the relations between the constructs. Findings: The results show that a statistically significant and positive relation exists between entrepreneurship and RP alleviation in China. The findings of the study further reveal that qualitative growth of entrepreneurship has a stronger positive influence on RP alleviation than on quantitative growth, and socio-cultural capabilities of respondents significantly and positively affect entrepreneurial growth of farmers, rather than education and economic capabilities. Research limitations/implications: The use of data from four communities in two provinces tends to limit the ability to generalize the findings of the study. Furthermore, the survey did not collect information on non-farm entrepreneurs, making it impossible to compare the findings from farm entrepreneurs with non-farm entrepreneurs. Practical implications: The findings have practical implications for policy makers in rural China toward addressing targeted RP. This paper, therefore, suggests that entrepreneurship should be pursued vigorously among farmers in rural areas of China to help solve poverty. The paper also presents a useful lesson for various stakeholders in poverty alleviation programs in other developing countries. Originality/value: This paper contributes to the academic literature on the entrepreneurship–RP alleviation nexus by combining the theory of capability and SEM in the analysis of an emerging economy such as China.

With China’s rapid economic growth over the past three decades, the emission of greenhouse gases (GHG) has become more serious to the environment, with debilitating effects on both flora and fauna. This paper mainly investigates the relationship among economic growth, energy intensity, and CO₂ emission in China using static and dynamic regressions, Granger causality, and impulse response function. The results show that by comparing the values of different energy intensities, coal consumption is the highest with mean value of 4.296, which is followed by oil (0.817), electricity (0.226), and gas (0.098). Thus, China’s heavy reliance on coal consumption is possibly a dominant cause for the increase in carbon dioxide emissions. The results also indicate that CO₂ emissions have an inverted U-shaped link with per capita income, and this supports the existence of the environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in China. Furthermore, economic growth has a bidirectional relationship with coal energy consumption, while coal consumption also has a bidirectional link with CO₂ emissions. Based on the findings, we suggest that environmental technologies should be improved through efficiency-enhancing strategies to reduce CO₂ emissions. Finally, China’s Ministry of Environmental Protection should strictly enforce existing laws and regulations on the environment, and also encourage a shift from the use of fossil fuels to clean energy sources such as ethanol gas, as well as promote the use of eco-friendly vehicles such as electric cars and motors.

The present study intends to scrutinize the asymmetrical influence of economic growth, industrial production, CPI (consumer price index) and oil price on the trade deficit for the People’s Republic of China’s economy. The Toda–Yamamoto causality, non-linear ARDL method, and quarterly data for 1995Q1 to 2021Q4 have been utilized to investigate the results. The estimated results confirm the uni-directional causality and presence of non-linear co-integration among variables under discussion. However, bound test analysis also reveals the long-run asymmetrical association among TD (trade deficit), IP (industrial production), oil price, and GDP growth, but not the CPI (consumer price index). Further, long-run asymmetrical outcomes highlight that a decrease (increase) in industrial production and an increase (decrease) in oil price and GDP growth rate increase (decrease) the trade deficit. Short-run asymmetrical outcomes reveal a similar trend to the long run, but the impact of all variables in the short run is insignificant, which means that linkages between the trade deficit and the explanatory variables are a long-run phenomenon in People’s Republic of China. Thus, in terms of policy, to reduce the trade deficit, it is necessary to focus on attaining standardized GDP growth, increasing industrial-sector production using advanced technology, and replacing oil-using energy sources with green technology (solar panels, wind farm energy).

This empirical study applies the schema theory English writing teaching in a middle school in China according to the new curriculum standards.This study mainly seeks to address two issues: i). Does the application of schema theory in teaching English writing in middle school effective? ii). Compared with the traditional teaching of English writing teaching methods, can middle school students’ English writing method based on schema theory be more efficient?The methods used in this study are known as the literature analysis and experimental research methods. This paper analyzes the current situation of middle school students' writing level and teachers' English writing, based on the schema theory of education.A survey was conducted as a teaching experiment for about two months in two parallel classes in Donchang Middle School. The controlled class used the traditional teaching method, while the experimental class used the teaching method based on schema theory. After about a period of the experiment, the two classes were post-tested and data collected, analyzed and conclusions made. The findings show that the Schema Theory used in English teaching can effectively improve the writing ability of students and enhance their confidence in English writing. Therefore, it is recommended that the schema theory should be used as a method of effectively teaching English writing. Keywords: English education, schema theory, teaching and learning, Middle School, Dongchang, China DOI: 10.7176/JEP/11-15-03 Publication date:May 31^st 2020

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has been identified as the main cause of the outbreak of the respiratory disease in Wuhan, Hubei Province of China in December 2019. Since then, the epidemic has spread rapidly throughout China and many other countries in the world. This study, therefore, examines the spatiotemporal distribution of the confirmed cases of COVID-19 and its effect on human development in China, and suggested social and non-pharmaceutical preventive interventions to help curb the further spread of the disease. The public open data available from January to February 2020, from the National Health Commission of the People’s Republic of China and a medical knowledge sharing website were used, and spatial analysis was performed to visualize the spatial distribution pattern of COVID-19 in China. The results showed among others that COVID-19 had entered a dispersed spatial pattern, resulting in increased pressure to control the spread of the disease. In early March, there was a significant reduction in the existing number of cases, and the number of deaths also decreased. At the provincial level, the spatial distribution of the number of cumulative confirmed cases in China was divided into four patterns: Hubei was the initial core region; the eastern provinces adjacent to Hubei formed the second concentrated pattern; the western provinces adjacent to Hubei and the northeastern and southeastern provinces which were separated from Hubei by one province belonged to the third distribution pattern; while the rest of the provinces in the north, south and west showing sporadic distribution patterns formed the fourth. It has been estimated that about 80% of students’ online learning at all schools were not effective due to lack of access to reliable and uninterrupted internet services especially in the rural areas of China.