134125 research outputs found
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China Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Investment Report 2025
Full text linkKey findings
• 2025 saw the highest BRI engagement ever for any year, with USD 128.4 billion in construction contracts and about USD 85.2 billion in investments;
• China’s energy-related engagement in 2025 was the highest in any period since the BRI’s inception, reaching USD93.9 billion, more than double than in 2024;
• China’s 2025 BRI energy engagement was the dirtiest and greenest:
o Oil and gas engagement surged to about USD71.5 billion, more than triple the previous record year 2024;
o Green energy engagement reached new records with USD 18.3 billion in wind, solar, and waste-to-energy projects and planned capacity of over 22 GW of green energy;
• China continued to invest in coal-related activities through the construction of coal mine infrastructure;
• The metals and mining sector reached new records, surpassing 2024 (which itself was a record year) with about USD 32.6 billion – mostly through investments and in minerals processing (about USD 15 billion into mining) with a focus on Kazakhstan;
• Copper, in support of data centres, saw a significant surge of Chinese investment in the second half of 2025;
• The technology and manufacturing sector also broke records and reached almost USD 28.7 billion with high-tech engagements in data centres, EV batteries and in hydrogen (in Nigeria);
• Africa topped the rank of BRI engagement, reaching USD 61.2 billion, a plus of 283 per cent; countries with the highest construction engagement were Nigeria (USD 24.6 billion), the Republic of Congo (USD 23.1 billion), Saudi Arabia (USD 19.8 billion), and Iraq (USD 4.5 billion).
• Part of Chinese Africa engagement may be explained by lower US tariffs in Africa compared to Asia;
• BRI investments in 2025 were driven by private sector companies, dominated by East Hope Group, Xinfa Group and Longi Green Energy; construction was dominated by SOEs
• Since its establishment in 2013, cumulative BRI engagement reached USD 1.399 trillion, with about USD 837 billion in construction contracts, and USD 561 billion in non-financial investments;
• For 2026, I see continued expansion of Chinese BRI engagement with a focus on energy, mining, and new technologies;
• Global trade and investment volatility will potentially spur further investment for supply chain resilience and alternative export markets for Chinese companiesFull Tex
'HARD' Training Environments Foster a Distinct Sense of Place: A Scoping Review and a Conceptual Framework on 'Place' and Clinical Reasoning Development
No full textINTRODUCTION: Understanding the unique affordances of place-based medical education (PBME) is essential to train highly skilled physicians for a particular place. Clinical reasoning (CR)-a context-specific core physician competency-is well suited to achieve this goal. OBJECTIVE: To map existing evidence and conceptualise how 'place' impacts CR development in medical students and trainees. DESIGN: Using PRISMA ScR guidelines, empirical, peer-reviewed, full-text, English-language journal articles on PBME in Medline, CINAHL, Scopus, and ERIC databases published between 1975 and 2024 were reviewed. Place and CR development were defined as participants' sense of authentic clinical training environment and learning of relevant to cognitive and sociocultural processes of patient diagnosis and management, respectively. A theory informed constructivist content analysis of data was undertaken. RESULTS: Of 2874 records, 27 met the inclusion criteria. CR development was an indirect finding in 26/27 reports. Evidence was available only for rural medically underserved places which afforded 'HARD', detailed as follows: longitudinal integrated clerkships, routine parallel consultations, closely knit teams, and workforce constraints enabled Hands-on patient engagements (H), Abundant patient exposures (A), and supported taking responsibility in patient care (R). Exposure to diverse practice niches and resource constraints sensitised students to Diversity in clinical practices (D). DISCUSSION: 'HARD' characterises place dependence and place attachment in CR development and fosters an identity aligning with expert clinicians situating reasoning in context. These underpin dynamic patterns of context signifying the distinctiveness of place. CONCLUSIONS: Exploring distinctiveness of place using 'HARD' framework can transform PBME scholarship to prepare more physicians ready to serve intended places, including the medically underserved.No Full Tex
Food selfie sharing as a friendship-building process: The moderating effect of service aesthetic appeal
No full textFoodstagramming is an increasingly popular indulgence in both foodservice settings and social media. While existing studies primarily examine individual benefits, they overlook its interpersonal influence, and in particular, how the dynamic interplay between foodstagramming and dining settings shapes one's dining experience and social media friending process. Using an explanatory sequential mixed-methods design through a combination of experiment, field survey, and semistructured interview, this research reveals that foodstagramming-induced social interactions significantly enhance dining fun and online interpersonal relationship building. However, while these interactions improve reciprocity, they do not strengthen affective relationships. The findings also indicate that tie strength with peers positively influences online social interactions. Additionally, the relationship between foodstagramming-induced social interaction and dining fun is moderated by service aesthetic appeal. Notably, food and environmental aesthetics exert distinct boundary effects. These insights clarify how foodstagramming could enhance dining experience and foster interpersonal relationships on social media in the restaurant setting.Full Tex
China: Staying the course
Full text linkWestern perceptions of China have become more negative, with the United States (US) engaging in an aggressive trade war with China. Meanwhile, China seems to have developed a more routine and calculated response to Western pressures and was—for the time being—able to stay its course of economic self-sufficiency and international engagement. This has led to some seeing China as having the upper hand in US-China trade negotiations[1] and as the major pillar for international green and sustainable development.[2]
China’s strength in 2025 and, as we analyse, moving forward builds on interlocking strategies in regional political engagement, technological advancements, green transition, trade and its domestic economy. China’s growing regional political clout was exhibited during the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) meeting in September 2025, bringing together 24 heads of state in Tianjin – including the first meeting of heads of state from India and Pakistan just weeks after their armed conflict. The ensuing World War II victory day parade brought all but eight Asian economies’ heads of state to Beijing. China also boosted its technological strength in areas such as artificial intelligence (AI), its dominance in green technologies and its credible progress in climate ambitions and used its effective control of various global supply chains, including in critical minerals with their relevance for both civil and military purposes, as an international pressure point. China continued to strengthen the internationalisation of its currency (renminbi – RMB), which worries the proponents of a US-dollar-dominated global economy, and it strengthened its exports. Meanwhile, its domestic economy continued the fight against deflation, weak consumption and a housing crisis – exhibiting certain policy consistency of not providing more government stimulus for short-term gains.
Our overall analysis suggests that China’s trajectory and policy positions have exhibited relative predictability and stability in its ambitions and “red lines”, particularly when compared to many short-term economic and policy adjustments seen in Western countries over the past months. We find that Western criticism of China’s development is increasingly seen as hypocritical, lacking moral high ground and economic advantages. Rather, China seems to have become more confident about its destiny as the world’s largest economy (by PPP) while having to chart its own course in a less trusting and more transactional geostrategic environment.
This leads us to our conclusion that in this world, we cannot overstate how important a nuanced understanding of China’s role in the region is, where we should neither overestimate nor underestimate China. We must avoid the often-irrational pendulum swings of embracing and distancing ourselves from China, which undermines trust and collaboration opportunities. We see significant opportunities for constructive engagement that address both joint interests and potential conflicts. With significant risks on the horizon, this nuanced strategy will determine whether the region will foster peace and prosperity or face rising tensions and instability.Full Tex
Emerging political, economic and social transformations in Southeast Asia
Full text linkSoutheast Asia is undergoing significant political, economic, and social transformations that will shape the upcoming period until 2030. This brief identifies five key trends that are likely to define the region’s trajectory.
First, tariff shifts and broader economic pressures are reshaping trade patterns, investment flows, and industrial competitiveness, with implications for regional supply chains and long-term growth. Second, geopolitical tensions, particularly the Thai–Cambodian border dispute, continue to test diplomatic relations, border stability, and ASEAN’s conflict-management mechanisms. Thirdly, political re-configurations in Vietnam and Laos, including elite reshuffles and governance reforms, signal shifting power balances that will influence domestic policymaking. Fourthly, Vietnam’s construction and consolidation of artificial islands underscore intensifying maritime competition and highlight the strategic importance of the South China Sea. Finally, aid cuts and a progressively constrained civil society space are limiting non-state actors’ ability to engage in development, human rights advocacy, and environmental governance.
Taken together, these five trends capture the convergence of economic, political, security and social dynamics that are fundamentally reshaping Southeast Asia’s development trajectory and regional order. The significance lies not only in their individual impacts, but in the ways they reinforce one another—linking trade disruptions and geopolitical tensions with evolving governance structures and shrinking civic space. Examining these trends collectively provides a clearer understanding for why the region faces heightened risks alongside strategic opportunities, and why integrated, forward-looking policy responses are increasingly necessary.Full Tex
Japanese migrant teachers in Australia: The need for strategic professional development to maximise their linguistic and cultural capital
Full text linkChronic teacher shortages are frequently cited as a barrier to the provision of continuous language education in Australian schools. Despite the increasing emphasis on learners’ multilingual and multicultural competencies, the teacher workforce in Australia remains homogeneous. Migrant native speakers of the languages taught in schools bring valuable linguistic and cultural capital, but their career trajectories remain largely under-researched. Using a qualitative approach, this study employed semi-structured interviews to obtain an in-depth understanding of the initial motivations, pathways, and trajectories of four Japanese-born teachers who teach Japanese in Australian schools. It revealed that their initial motivation to become teachers was predominantly instrumental, particularly seeking permanent residency and capitalising on their native language skills. However, after qualifying, these teachers had limited career opportunities and, as a result, found employment in primary schools, where working conditions were less demanding and competitive. The study also identified institutional barriers that hindered these teachers’ access to relevant professional development opportunities, constraining long-term growth and causing stagnation. These findings underscore the need for more strategic professional development policies and systemic support that enable migrant teachers to maximise their cultural and linguistic expertise in Australia’s language education system.Full Tex
Experimental study of bimodal spectral wave-induced dynamic responses in a silty seabed
No full textThis study investigates the dynamic responses of silty seabeds to bimodal spectral wave loading, focusing on the impact of these waves on soil dynamics and liquefaction behavior. A series of laboratory experiments were conducted in a wave flume, simulating single-peaked wind waves, single-peaked swell waves, and bimodal spectral waves, which combine high-frequency wind waves and low-frequency swell waves. The results show that the pore pressures induced by bimodal spectral waves builds up over time, leading to a reduction in effective stress and shear strength. The buildup of pore pressures can cause residual liquefaction within a silty seabed, and the depth of liquefaction increases with wave height. When liquefaction occurs, the wave energy dissipates rapidly. The findings indicate that bimodal spectral waves induce deeper and more rapid liquefaction compared to single-peaked waves, with liquefaction progressing from the surface downward. Soil motion was analyzed using Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), revealing complex flow patterns within the liquefied layers. Under single-peaked spectral wave conditions, shear flow was observed in the liquefied layer. However, under bimodal spectral wave conditions, both shear and plug flows were observed, with plug flow forming near the surface of the liquefied layer and shear flow occurring between the plug flow and the non-liquefied layer during the reversal phase of acceleration. Additionally, the soil particle velocity spectra exhibited multi-peak characteristics due to the nonlinear interactions of stress waves within the seabed.No Full Tex
Asia-Pacific’s green leadership: From vision to implementation
Full text linkThe urgency to address environmental degradation and ensuing financial risks has never been greater in Asia and the Pacific. Just within the last weeks of 2025, millions of people across Southeast Asia were evacuated, with more than 1,000 people dying due to floods. The latest available data for 2024 saw record temperatures in the 175-year observational record, and 2024 was likely the first calendar year to be more than 1.5°C above the pre-industrial era, with 151 unprecedented extreme weather events[i] globally.[ii] The resulting financial losses easily topped previous records, soaring to nearly USD 1.5 trillion globally in 2024 (see Figure 1).[iii] Despite the urgency to mitigate climate risks, emissions across the regions continued to climb (see Figure 1). The economic risk of failing to address climate change in the region is overwhelming, with losses of 11–17 per cent of GDP annually in Asia, rising to 41 per cent by 2100 in a high-emission scenario.[iv]Full Tex
Improving resilience monitoring in non-stationary systems via a robust data-chunking algorithm
No full textMultiple complex systems, ranging from ecosystems to the climate system, are generally capable of recovering from disturbances and maintaining their stable state [1,2]. However, this capacity, termed resilience [3], is inherently limited. Increasing external stresses can gradually erode resilience.No Full Tex
LGD: Leveraging generative descriptions for zero-shot referring image segmentation
No full textZero-shot referring image segmentation aims to locate and segment the target region based on a referring expression, with the primary challenge of aligning and matching semantics across visual and textual modalities without training. Previous works address this challenge by utilizing Vision-Language Models and mask proposal networks for region-text matching. However, this paradigm may lead to incorrect target localization due to the inherent ambiguity and diversity of free-form referring expressions. To alleviate this issue, we present LGD (Leveraging Generative Descriptions), a framework that utilizes the advanced language generation capabilities of Multi-Modal Large Language Models to enhance region-text matching performance in Vision-Language Models. Specifically, we first design two kinds of prompts, the attribute prompt and the surrounding prompt, to guide the Multi-Modal Large Language Models in generating descriptions related to the crucial attributes of the referent object and the details of surrounding objects, referred to as attribute description and surrounding description, respectively. Secondly, three visual-text matching scores are introduced to evaluate the similarity between instance-level visual features and textual features, which determines the mask most associated with the referring expression. The proposed method achieves new state-of-the-art performance on three public datasets RefCOCO, RefCOCO+ and RefCOCOg, with maximum improvements of 9.97 % in oIoU and 11.29 % in mIoU compared to previous methodsNo Full Tex