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Income inequality in China has become increasingly serious since the beginning of the economic reform period in the 1970s, with urban–rural income inequality playing a large role. Urbanization policy and monetary policy are currently important economic policy tools for the Chinese government. In order to investigate the influence of inequality on the economy and to provide recommendations for ensuring the sustainability of growth, we study the effect of urban–rural income inequality on economic growth in the context of urbanization and monetary policy in China between 2002 and 2021. Using a flexible time-varying parametric structural vector auto-regression (TVP-VAR) model and a robust Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithm, our empirical results show that the effect is time-varying, with inequality promoting growth in the early years but affecting it adversely at later stages. Currently, urbanization mitigates inequality and promotes growth simultaneously, while easy monetary policy worsens inequality and affects growth adversely in the long term. We suggest that the authorities need to consider the implementation of policy rebalancing to ensure that the sustainability of economic development is not jeopardized because of worsening income disparity. Proactive urbanization policy and prudent monetary policy are viable rebalancing options.

Fil: Feng, Lin. City University of Hong Kong; China. ; The "Anti-extradition Movement" in Hong Kong has been going on for months after it began in June 2019. Since it was sparked by an extradition bill, this article tries to answer the questions why the Bill has failed, for what reasons, and seeks to discern the lessons Hong Kong should learn from it. After reviewing the background and main contents of the Bill, as well as the movement, this article analyzes major legal issues relating to the Extradition Bill, which demonstrates that the contents of the Bill are reasonable and would remove two major obstacles for future conclusion of a desirable bilateral agreement between Hong Kong and mainland China. The article argues that though the contents and the necessity of the Bill is unquestionable, its consultation was too hasty, the timing was not appropriate, and the promotion was unsatisfactory. As a result, an opportunity to move closer towards the conclusion of a bilateral extradition agreement has been wasted. A well-intentioned and drafted Bill is meaningless if the Government cannot convince its people about it. Law and legal arguments have their limits. Since legislative process is bothlegal and political, law reached its limits when politics succeeded in mobilizing sufficient people against the Bill.

The 2018 constitutional amendments in China have attracted strong criticism both at home and abroad. This paper first uses contextual, historical, and empirical analysis to examine whether the three major amendments are as bad as widely perceived, and whether or not they will have a significant impact on actual constitutional practice in China. The paper then analyses how the constitutional amendments may challenge the two existing theories on Chinese constitutionalism. The paper argues that although none of the constitutional amendments will have any practical importance, they do send out a very negative signal, and that the trend of a constitutionalised fused system demands at least revision of the existing theories and possibly a new theory, for the purpose of not only justifying Chinese constitutional practice but also leading China towards at least a thin rule of law. (China Perspect/GIGA)

The judgment of the Hong Kong Court of Final Appeal ("CFA") in the right of abode case has created several constitutional issues, three of which will be addressed in this paper. They are: (1) whether the CFA has the authority to review Chinese legislation; (2) whether the National People's Congress Standing Committee ("NPCSC") should interpret or amend the Basic Law; and (3) whether an original legislative intent approach or a purposive approach should be adopted for the interpretation of the Basic Law. Prompt resolution of these issues is necessary to resolve constitutional uncertainty in Hong Kong. Successful resolution of these issues may require both the NPCSC and the CFA to adopt their own interpretive approaches and exercise their own constitutional authority in strict compliance with the procedures of the Basic Law. Adoption of this unique constitutional mechanism would preserve Hong Kong's common law system while allowing the concept of "one country, two systems" to be implemented.

AbstractThe implementation of the poverty alleviation relocation policy in northwestern minority areas of China has had a significant impact on the production and living spaces of residents. Our investigation and research have shown that the social participation of ethnic minorities is influenced not only by their social and cultural norms but also to a large extent by public policies. China's policy of relocating people to alleviate poverty has indirectly affected the social participation of elderly ethnic minorities through the relocation of households and the reconstruction of community living spaces and infrastructure. On the one hand, the family production of elders has decreased significantly, while the number of elders participating in housework and leisure activities has increased. On the other hand, although the relocation has accelerated the modernization process in ethnic minority areas, the market work of elders who aged over 50 has not increased much to compensating the job losses. As a result, the overall productivity of the elderly has declined, and their social participation has weakened. Elderly men have been more affected by social changes than elderly women and have borne more adaptation pressures. There are significant differences in leisure activities between elderly men and women. Ethnic and religious activities have remained largely unchanged, while social activities are insufficient and may not promote good health. It is important to encourage elderly individuals, particularly men, to acquire marketable skills and assist them in finding employment. Additionally, promoting social activities for elder individuals can help create a more harmonious community.

Abstract
The Chinese national legislature has enacted a national security law (NSL) for Hong Kong. This paper applies the theory of national security constitution as developed by Professor Koh to examine the impact of the NSL upon four core constitutional principles in Hong Kong's mini-constitution which underly its national security constitution and to evaluate the nature of the impact. The paper argues that the NSL has, instead of applying and supplementing the existing underlying constitutional principles in the mini-constitution, changed them to various degrees, and the pre-NSL bifurcated national security system for Hong Kong and mainland China has been replaced by an integrated national security system under the NSL. The impact caused by the NSL is so significant as to amount to a permanent paradigm shift to a new post-NSL national security constitution. The paper also argues that the theory of national security constitution has its limitation in its application to subnational Hong Kong because its mini-constitution and the underlying principles therein can be modified by national legislation, such as the NSL, of its sovereign, China. Through a comparative study with the USA, the paper proposes that the theory of national security constitution needs to be modified by adding that different effects may occur to a sub-national national security constitution depending on the source of the framework national security legislation. Hong Kong's failure in its constitutional duty to enact national security legislation under Article 23 of the Basic Law has led to the enactment of the NSL by China. Such legislation from the sovereign has changed the underlying constitutional principles and is fundamentally different from sub-national framework legislation that only implements and supplements those principles. However, a comparative study with Macau indicates that the theory of national security constitution is still applicable to a sub-national entity such as Macau so long as China as sovereign exercises self-restraint and any framework national security legislation is enacted at the sub-national level.