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    Equalization through the People’s Republic of China’s Intergovernmental Fiscal System: The Effectiveness of Central and Provincial Transfers
    TAN, X ; TAN, Y (World Scientific Publishing, 2024)
    The People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) fiscal system is characterized by very high expenditure decentralization and heavy reliance on transfers to finance public services. The government’s embrace of inclusiveness and equalization as national goals has raised questions about whether transfers can deliver equalization. This paper seeks to answer this question by analyzing newly available fiscal data compiled from government websites. We find the allocation of central transfers remains strongly region based, resulting in high intra-regional inequality among provinces. Poorer provinces also tend to retain more central transfers at their own (provincial) level. Those provinces with greater pretransfer inequality tend to exert greater equalization efforts, but these are not necessarily proportional to their pretransfer inequality. As a result, some localities are left out of the PRC’s countrywide equalization program. These equalization patterns remained highly persistent during the coronavirus disease shock in 2020. Collectively, the findings highlight that the PRC’s complex intergovernmental fiscal system still poses challenges for equalization.
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    COVID-19, Perceived Foreign Interference, and Anti-Chinese Sentiment: Evidence from Concurrent Survey Experiments in Australia and the United States
    Tan, X ; Tao, Y (Taylor and Francis Group, 2024)
    Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, a surge in anti-Chinese sentiment emerged as a pressing issue, with debates on how the pandemic exacerbated such sentiments. To explore this intricate relationship, we conducted two survey experiments, incorporating COVID-specific contextual inquiries in Australia and the United States during two phases (8–21 June 2021 and 28 July-12 August 2022). Our findings reveal that individuals’ perceptions of the Chinese diaspora remained unaltered when presented with information regarding the Chinese government’s initial management of COVID-19. However, when exposed to a message suggesting the Chinese government’s influence over overseas Chinese communities, people’s attitudes towards the Chinese diaspora significantly deteriorated. In addition, Australian respondents demonstrated heightened sensitivity to perceived foreign interference from China compared to their American counterparts. Our study underscores the role of suspicions and apprehensions surrounding China-related foreign interference in shaping anti-Chinese sentiment in the Western context.
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    Understanding the racialised and gendered experiences of Asian women working in aged care in Australia
    Winarnita, M ; Leone, C (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, 2023)
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    Chronomobility of international students under COVID-19 Australia
    Dhanji, SD ; Ohashi, J ; Song, J (FRONTIERS MEDIA SA, 2023-12-08)
    This article investigates the chronomobility of international students in Australia going through COVID-19. Existing literature on international students approaches them largely in two manners: a market or victims. Using Shanti Robertson's chronomobility, the study focuses on international students' coping mechanisms and strategies for their next moves. Drawing from 15 in-depth interviews with international students formally enrolled in Australian institutions in Melbourne, the longest lockdown city during the pandemic, the authors find various ways of short-term coping mechanisms through meditation, physical exercises, virtual escapism and counselling. Furthermore, despite pandemic immobility, students presented a high level of resilience in making future decisions for post-pandemic mobilities. We conclude that family support and social networks are key to realise full potentials of international students as skilled migrants and valued members of society. Our manuscript contributes to the field of migration and mobility by enriching Robertson's concept of chrono-mobility and adding the empirical case study from international students in Australia during the latest pandemic in 2020-2021.
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    A Cross-Cultural Analysis of Thanks and Apologies by Native and Non-native Speakers of Japanese
    Takagi, A ; Mackie, V ; Skoutarides, A ; Tokita, A (Monash Asia Institute, 2000-01)
    This study identifies differences and similarities in the communicative acts of thanking and apologising by native and non-native speakers of Japanese; it includes consideration of the speakers' gender and their interpretation of the sociological dynamics of the situations where speech acts were used.
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    Global Arabic Studies: Lessons from a Transnational Asian Heritage
    Makhlouf, T (Asia Institute, University of Melbourne, )
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    Learning Difficulties: The 2024 Presidential Election and the Fate of Indonesia’s Education System
    Rosser, A (Asialink, 2024-01-25)
    A crisis in education is impairing Indonesia’s aspirations for economic development. But all three candidates for this year’s presidential elections are offering more of the same.
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    Manuscript Use and Typesetting Issues
    Takagi, A ; Cope, B ; Gollings, G (Common Ground Publishing Pty Ltd, 2001)
    The emerging technological tools of digital text creation and manufacture make possible quite the opposite - the revival of small cultures and languages. This book sets out to argue two things.
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    Intercultural communication by non-native and native speakers of Japanese in text-based synchronous CMC.
    Takagi, A (ascilite, 2008)
    This study explores speech behaviour when non-native speakers of Japanese (NNSJ) and native speakers of Japanese (NSJ) exchange cultural information, specifically using text- based synchronous computer-mediated communication. This experimental study uses a scaffolding technique in which a Japanese language teacher is less present and NNSJ are left to communicate with NSJ within a restricted timeframe. This study demands their intercultural engagement, thus suggesting an outcome of intercultural relationship building. While the study examined participants’ speech behaviours – specifically, the key speech act of requesting – observed to be important for realising smooth intercultural relationships, it also highlighted attributes of available technologies useful in facilitating intercultural engagement. Since people from different cultural backgrounds have different perceptions of politeness reflected in their behaviour and language use, understanding how request strategies are used by NSJ could give NNSJ intercultural insights and skills in Japanese language and socio-cultural behaviour. CMC has been utilised in computer-assisted language learning (CALL), with students able to learn languages through a real-world context and access native speakers of the target language, beyond the classroom. CMC has been found to be an effective adopted ‘third place’ (Kramsch 1993) located at the intersection of the cultures the learner grew up with, and the cultures to which they are introduced. In the case of language use, technology allows NNSJ to record their conversations, and reflect on the language being used, thus gaining intercultural insights and skills; these could be transferable to other communication modes, whether computer-driven technology or face-to-face. It is intended that the findings of this study might shed light on the innovative enhancement of non-native Japanese speakers’ intercultural and socio-cultural competence through the use of text-based CMC.