Arrangement Plan of Inner Mongolia Buddhist Temple

Since BC, the construction of cities has been started in the Mongolian Plateau with the establishment of dynasties, but many were turned into ruins. However, the Tibetan Buddhist temples built after the 16th century, which are an indispensable element in the process of settling the Mongolians from nomadic life, have been relatively well preserved in Inner Mongolia. These temples have been thought to be the epitome of the Mongolian economy, culture, art, and construction technology. Therefore, it has a great significance to research them systematically. Interestingly, these temples in Mongolia were originated from Inner Mongolia, which is located on the south side of Mongolia. The architectural design of these temples has been primarily influenced by Chinese and Tibetan temple architecture, suggesting that the temples appear to be considered a vital sample for studying temple architecture in Mongolia or East Asia. So far, there is still no study systematically on temple architecture in Inner Mongolia. Therefore, this research aims to study the arrangement plan of Inner Mongolian Tibetan Buddhist temples, which is the most important factor to consider in the first stage of temple construction.

‘But you’re white’: An autoethnography of whiteness and white privilege in East Asian universities

It is well established within the field of Critical Whiteness Studies that white privilege routinely materialises in Western universities. Yet, even though a third wave of Critical Whiteness Studies is increasingly focussing on whiteness in non-Western contexts, there has been insufficient attention toward whether white privilege also exists in East Asian universities. This article seeks to explore this issue by offering an autoethnography in which the author, a mixed-race academic who is racialised as white on some occasions and as a person of colour on others, critically interrogates whiteness in East Asian higher education. It is argued that those who are racialised as white are privileged in East Asian universities and may even seek to actively sustain this. In departing from the dominant understanding of whiteness as always-and-only privileging, this article also explores the extent to which white academics in East Asia may also be disadvantaged by their whiteness.

Assessment and influencing factors analysis of economic system vulnerability of the Belt and Road Initiative countries

Economic vulnerability is an important indicator to measure regional coordination, health and stability. Despite the importance of vulnerabilities, this is the first study that presents 26 indicators selected from the dimensions of the domestic economic system, external economic system and financial system in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries. A quantitative analysis is conducted to analyze the characteristics of spatial heterogeneity of vulnerability of the economic subsystems and the comprehensive economic system of the BRI countries and the main influencing factors of the comprehensive economic system vulnerability (CESV) are identified based on obstacle degree model. The results show that the CESV of the East Asia, South Asia and ASEAN countries are lower than that of the Middle Eastern Europe, Central Asia and West Asia countries. The CESV of the BRI countries are generally in the middle level and the average vulnerability index of highly vulnerable countries is twice as much as that of lowly vulnerable countries. In addition, in terms of the vulnerability of the three subsystems, the spatial distribution of vulnerability of the domestic economic system (DESV) and financial system (FSV) is basically consistent with the spatial distribution pattern of CESV, both of which are low in East Asia and South Asia and high in West Asia and Central Asia. While, the vulnerability of external economic system (EESV) shows a different spatial pattern, with vulnerability of West Asia, Central Asia and ASEAN higher than that of East Asia and South Asia. The main obstacle factors influencing the CESV of BRI countries include GDP growth rate, saving ratio, ratio of bank capital to assets, service industry level, industrialization level and loan rate. Therefore, the key way to maintain the stability and mitigate the vulnerability of the economic system of BRI countries is to focus on the macroeconomic development and operation, stimulate the economy and market vitality, promote the development of industries, especially the service and secondary industries, and optimize the economic structure, banking system and financial system.

Inverse modeling of the 2021 spring super dust storms in East Asia

This spring, super dust storms reappeared in East Asia after being absent for a (two) decade(s). The event caused enormous losses both in Mongolia and in China. Accurate simulation of such super sandstorms is valuable for the quantification of health damages, aviation risks, and profound impacts on the Earth system, but also to reveal the driving climate and the process of desertification. However, accurate simulation of dust life cycles is challenging mainly due to imperfect knowledge of emissions. In this study, the emissions that lead to the 2021 spring dust storms are estimated through assimilation of MODIS AOD and ground-based PM10 concentration data. To be able to use the AOD observations to represent the dust load, an Angstrom-based data screening is designed to select only observations that are dominated by dust. In addition, a non-dust AOD bias correction has been designed to remove the part of the AOD that could be attributed to other aerosols than dust. With this, the dust concentrations during the 2021 spring super storms could be reproduced and validated with concentration observations. The emission inversion results reveal that wind blown dust emissions originated from both China and Mongolia during spring 2021. Specifically, 18.3M and 27.2M ton of particles were released in Chinese desert and Mongolia desert respectively during these severe dust events. By source apportionment it has been estimated that 58 % of the dust deposited in the densely populated Fenwei Plain (FWP) in the northern China originate from transnational transport from Mongolia desert. For the North China Plain (NCP), local Chinese desert play a less significant roles in the dust affection; the long-distance transport from Mongolia contributes for about 69 % to the dust deposition in NCP, even if it locates more than 1000 km away from the nearest Mongolian desert.