Forty-Year Development of Social Assistance System in China: Review and Outlook

This paper reviews the forty-year development of the social assistance system in China and discovers that under the leadership of the Chinese government, the basic framework of the social assistance system has taken shape and become a proud image of China's social security system's reform and development. The development of the social assistance system in China demonstrates the bottom-line thinking of state governance and its multi-tiered, cross-sector and community-focused characteristics. At its present stage of growth the social assistance system is actively developing multiple means of assistance and will be based on the objective of "supporting the vulnerable."

A Brief Introduction of Sichuan Academy of Social Sciences

The Evolution of China's National Innovation System During the 40 Years of Reform and Opening Up

From the perspective of economic system transformations and scientific and technological system reforms, this paper investigates the evolution of China's national innovation system(NIS) during the 40 years of reform and opening up. It concludes that China's NIS has evolved from weak to strong, from a follower groping its way onto the track of independent innovation with Chinese characteristics. China's innovation system has experienced a trajectory from "introduction and imitation of complete sets of technology" to "market for technology and imitative innovation," to "integrated and secondary innovation" and on to "integrated, secondary, collaborative and original innovation combined." The path of independent innovation with Chinese characteristics is a natural choice of economic, societal, and technological development in the new era.

Chinese Solution for the Construction of An Ecological Civilization and Its World Significance

For the construction of an ecological civilization, the socialist system with Chinese characteristics provides a reliable institutional guarantee, its theory of an ecological civilization offers ideological guidance, and the dominant role of governments furnishes a powerful driver. A top-level design for the construction of an ecological civilization, a holistic approach to socioeconomic development and the construction of an ecological civilization, the establishment and constant improvement of institutional mechanisms, and the deep combination of poverty alleviation and ecological governance provide both Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions for the problem of the ecological environment. Environmental protection in China certainly has a long way to go, and the Chinese solution for the construction of an ecological civilization still needs to be constantly improved in practice.

China's Second Demographic Window of Opportunity

The demographic dividend refers to the process of transforming population advantages into economic ones to achieve rapid growth. The opening and acquisition of a demographic window of opportunity requires corresponding institutional guarantees. Thanks to reform and opening-up, China has opened and reaped its first demographic window of opportunity. As China enters the critical stage of reform and upgrades for economic development, population advantages have been shifting from quantity to quality on a solid basis, marking the opening of our second demographic window of opportunity. Establishing and implementing compatible social and economic policies will be helpful to maximize advantages of this demographic "gift" and modernize China's economic system.

The Substantive Reform of Court Trials: A Transformation of Logic in the Methods of Evidence Investigation——Summary of the Reform Pilot Project in Chengdu

In the pilot project of the substantive reform of court trials, "unexpected" judgments appeared constantly because the traditional documentary investigation mode has been replaced by an investigation mode under the principle of directness and verbalism. This change in the logic of factual judgments has caused a change in the methods of evidence examination. In traditional evidence examination, evidence obtained from investigations is supposed to be genuine and reliable. In the substantive reform of court trials, it is presumed that evidence obtained from investigations cannot be fully trusted and it is easier to ascertain the facts of the case by investigating using the principles of directness, verbalism and individualized judging methods for evidence examinations. In practice, there are three main factors affecting the genuineness of evidence: the cognitive rules of testifiers, the motivation of the subjects who provide evidence, and the methods used by investigators to obtain evidence. Based on any one of these three factors, it cannot be concluded that evidence obtained from investigations is superior to evidence presented in court. The substantive court investigation is more advantageous to establishing the facts of a case than the traditional court investigation. The essential characteristics of the substantive reform of court trials are pursuing reality in essence instead of in form, and using the files of the court trials instead of the files of the investigation to avoid the evidence obtained through investigations from playing a decisive role in the adjudication thus making criminal procedures trial-centered rather than investigation-centered.

General Provisions of the Civil Law and Commercial Legislation: Consensus, Problems and Options——Taking Commercial Agency as an Example

In the context of the codification of China's Civil Code, the academic consensus has been to make commercial legislation systematic and establish commercial norms with proper legislative expression. Many direct and indirect commercial norms in General Provisions of the Civil Law provide evidence that civil law has been turned into commercial law. However, a general overview shows that the absence of related norms, including agency in duty, reveals that General Provisions of the Civil Law is lacking commercial law's characteristics. In addition to the Civil Code, using General Rules of Commercial Law is a relatively reasonable choice for commercial legislative arrangements, such as norms in relation to agency in duty. Taking commercial agency as an example, legislators should adopt problem-oriented and limited systematic patterns of "residue law" instead of unified patterns of codification.

A Study on Status Assessment and Path Optimization for China-Africa Anti-poverty Cooperation

Anti-Poverty has long been a major challenge facing both China and Africa. China-Africa anti-poverty cooperation has seen rapid progress since the founding of the People's Republic of China, particularly following reform and opening-up, acquiring some good practices and lessons. However, there have also been problems and new challenges. Based on a review and analysis of relevant domestic and foreign literature published in recent years, this paper provides a summary of the realities, achievements, difficulties and challenges facing the China-Africa anti-poverty cooperation. Then building on this, the authors offer some suggestions on top-level design, cooperation mechanisms, path optimization and safeguard measures in anti-poverty cooperation.

An Inquiry into the Approach to Asian Regional Trade Integration Under the Belt and Road Initiative——The Case of the Alignment of a China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Area

It has been five years since the Belt and Road Initiative(BRI) was first introduced. Though there has been a growing body of literature on regional cooperation between covered countries, Japan and South Korea have been barely discussed. This paper starts with the consensus-based mechanism of a China-Japan-South Korea Free Trade Area(FTA) to probe the approach of its alignment with the BRI in terms of the sequence of "master plans," "viability of cooperation," and "embedding of rules." This inquiry found that the three countries have a shared interest in cooperation in Central Asia to which China prefers a pragmatic approach, while Japan and South Korea an approach combining idealism with pragmatism. Given the huge potential of cooperation between the trio, it is suggested that a "Central Asia chapter" be incorporated in the negotiation framework of this trilateral FTA, and that the design feature three aspects; fundamental principles, specific rules, and an executive body with a view to functionally contributing to regional trade integration in Asia. This approach may also be applied to the alignment of other Asian areas with the BRI.

A Study on the Evolution of Labor Self-Organizations and the Design of Governmental Mechanism from A Complex Network Perspective

Self-organization theory informs an analysis on the evolution of labor self-organizations(LSOs), but lacks technical analysis on the evolution of their organizational structures. Fortunately, complex network technology offers a new approach to analyzing these structures. Built on an extension of the Barabási-Albert(BA) model, we can simulate the evolution of LSOs by analyzing indicators including the clustering coefficient, degree distribution(DD) and average path length(APL) of workers, thereby demonstrating the evolving patterns of LSOs. Accordingly, governmental mechanism designs based on such patterns may not only stimulate energy growth and functional realization of LSOs, but also reduce the social percussions of abrupt evolutions. A comparative analysis of the evolutionary trajectories of LSOs in China and the U.S. finds that the U.S. government's mechanism designs for protecting capitalism not only prevented the effective gathering of workers, but also prolonged the history of industrial conflicts. Such mechanism designs also led to the early dispersion and decline of LSOs and hindered the evolution of the working class. In contrast, the Chinese government established a socialist system that allowed workers to become the underlying force of socialist productivity. This design reduced labor strife while accelerating the evolution of workers towards higher stages.

Requirements for contribution

A Brief Introduction to the English Periodical of Contemporary Social Sciences