Determinants of Foreign Direct Investment in Indonesia

We examine what determines the flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Indonesia, focusing on the role of institutional measures. A knowledge-and-physical-capital (KPC) model is applied to a panel dataset that covers 42 of Indonesia’s FDI partners from 2004 to 2012. Evidence shows that both horizontal and vertical FDIs coexist in the bilateral aggregate data of Indonesia’s FDI flows, but horizontal FDI appears to be dominant. This can be explained by the market size (proxied by the total GDP of both countries and similarity in incomes per capita) and the relative factor endowments (proxied by skilled labor and physical capital). The vertical FDI, on the other hand, could be only explained by the significant effect of unskilled labor. Institutional factors, particularly corruption, are apparently important in affecting Indonesia’s bilateral FDI flows. The results also show that a higher FDI level in Indonesia positively correlates with macroeconomic factors, open policy factors, and utility infrastructure factors.

Motives, benefits, and challenges of Higher Education expansion in China

China believes in education as an investment of human capital for future returns. It has been a long-time desire for the Chinese government to expand and invest in higher education. The leadership of Deng Xiaoping inspired Chinese people about education it should be open over the world, for the future, and towards modernization. The purpose of higher education in global views is to promote the development of a nation in political, economic, technical, and social spheres. There are gradual changes in higher education after the open policy in China, which influences the expansion of higher education institutions. Higher education acts as a tunnel to prepare several professionals and talents, which will be helpful to the social changes in science and social science programs. Global competence leads the Chinese government to expand higher education in enrollment rate and improves the quality of higher education in acquiring competent knowledge that copes with the global market. This paper focused on reviewing literary works on motives, benefits, and challenges of higher education expansion in China through reviewing different studies from local and international perspectives. From compulsory through higher education, the curriculum should place a greater emphasis on competency. To deal with the wind of unemployment caused by the rise of higher education in China, the government should encourage and support graduates to find innovative and creative skills. For China's economy to grow quicker, a well-educated society requires graduates to apply their skills to solve many societal problems.

A 110 Year Sediment Record of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons Related to Economic Development and Energy Consumption in Dongping Lake, North China

A sedimentary record of the 16 polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) pollutants from Dongping Lake, north China, is presented in this study. The influence of regional energy structure changes for 2–6-ring PAHs was investigated, in order to assess their sources and the impact of socioeconomic developments on the observed changes in concentration over time. The concentration of the ΣPAH16 ranged from 77.6 to 628.0 ng/g. Prior to the 1970s, the relatively low concentration of ΣPAH16 and the average presence of 44.4% 2,3-ring PAHs indicated that pyrogenic combustion from grass, wood, and coal was the main source of PAHs. The rapid increase in the concentration of 2,3-ring PAHs between the 1970s and 2006 was attributed to the growth of the urban population and the coal consumption, following the implementation of the Reform and Open Policy in 1978. The source apportionment, which was assessed using a positive matrix factorization model, revealed that coal combustion was the most important regional source of PAHs pollution (>51.0%). The PAHs were mainly transported to the site from the surrounding regions by atmospheric deposition rather than direct discharge.

Concultural Practices of Young Ukrainians as a Challenge for the Intercultural Openness of Warsaw

Institutional intercultural openness is a crucial part of urban inclusion policy towards migrants. In cities with a long history of social and cultural diversity such as Berlin, London or Amsterdam, intercultural openness provides migrants with full or partial participation, initiating activities in the metropolitan space, access to public resources, and social security. In Warsaw, a relatively new inflow of economic migrants from Ukraine, who constitute a large and heterogeneous group, has necessitated changes in municipal cultural and integration policies to facilitate the needs of the new group of recipients. In our article, we focus on results from 91 interviews with Ukrainian students living in Warsaw conducted between 2019 and 2020. We analyse whether, how and why young immigrants from Ukraine use the offer of Warsaw’s cultural institutions; what their expectations are and how their cultural participation is connected with their acculturation and integration. Our research shows that despite the fact that Warsaw tends to build up its culturally open policy for diverse participants, it is not adjusted to the needs of young Ukrainians. As a result, this new diaspora begins to create its own conculture (not to be confused with counterculture). We understand this phenomenon as a set of cultural practices initiated by a minority group of migrants in their new place of residence, which result from the national cultural script of this group. Through these practices, this group cultivates the community, without any connection to the dominant (national) culture of the wider society they belong to or in the space of which its members live. On the one hand, the diversification of a municipal cultural offer allows migrants to find their preferred places and events within Polish culture, although on the other hand, it creates a space for the development of concultural practices that can lead to ghettoisation.

Tehran may further restrict foreign social media

Significance This comes as conservative-drafted legislation aims to increase use of local alternatives to facilitate new restrictions on foreign social media providers. The recent presidential election highlighted their use by reformists, particularly Clubhouse, which hosted unusually open discussions. Impacts New restrictions on social media are likely to have a negative economic impact on many businesses. Open policy discussions may continue on Clubhouse and other apps but could become increasingly dominated by the diaspora. The July 21 removal of Clubhouse’s invitation-only system could potentially undermine its distinctive appeal to nervous dissidents.

Teaching Transnational Buddhist Meditation with Vipassanā (Neiguan 內觀) and Mindfulness (Zhengnian 正念) for Healing Depression in Contemporary China

This paper examines how the teaching of embodied practices of transnational Buddhist meditation has been designated for healing depression explicitly in contemporary Chinese Buddhist communities with the influences of Buddhist modernism in Southeast Asia and globalization. Despite the revival of traditional Chan school meditation practices since the Open Policy, various transnational lay meditation practices, such as vipassanā and mindfulness, have been popularized in monastic and lay communities as a trendy way to heal physical and mental suffering in mainland China. Drawing from a recent ethnographic study of a meditation retreat held at a Chinese Buddhist monastery in South China, this paper examines how Buddhist monastics have promoted a hybrid mode of embodied Buddhist meditation practices, mindfulness and psychoanalytic exercises for healing depression in lay people. With analysis of the teaching and approach of the retreat guided by well-educated Chinese meditation monastics, I argue that some young generation Buddhist communities have contributed to giving active responses towards the recent yearning for individualized bodily practices and the social trend of the “subjective turn” and self-reflexivity in contemporary Chinese society. The hybrid inclusion of mindfulness exercises from secular programs and psychoanalytic exercises into a vipassanā meditation retreat may reflect an attempt to re-contextualize meditation in Chinese Buddhism.

The View of Chinese Culture and the Imbalance of Cultural Industry’s development from “Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child”

“Nezha: Birth of the Demon Child” has been popular all over China in the summer of 2019, which is a milestone in the development of China's cultural industry. Since the reform and open policy, foreign cultures and cultural industries have taken root and sprouted in China. There are more and more audience groups in China. The age and scope of the audience are more and more wide, which enriches the spiritual life of Chinese people. However, the local culture and cultural industry need to be developed and protected. Today, with the economic globalization, multi polarization of international politics and more frequent exchanges among countries around the world, how to make our own culture and cultural industry occupy a place in the national spiritual world, and play out the signboard of “Chinese culture”, make Chinese culture and cultural industry “blossom everywhere”, and make more and more people in the world identify with Chinese culture and culture Industry will eventually build China into a socialist cultural superpower with strong economy and technology. There is still a long way to go. In this paper, we will discuss the potential and problems of cultural development in China.