China has some of the densest road networks of any developing country, accounting for the vast majority of paved roads among lower- and middle-income countries. However, statistical data at the national and provincial levels show two puzzling trends.

International collaboration, in any form, requires trust, and such trust is built on understanding. In the case of collaboration in the field of energy, potential partners need to have an appreciation of frameworks for energy governance in each others’ countries. Only then can they accurately interpret the data, the statements and the declared commitments provided by other parties. Nowhere is this ignorance of greater relevance to today’s challenges than the case of China. 

The move away from a planned economy and the apprenticeship of capitalism, which is sometimes uncontrolled in the real estate sector, have led to a series of imbalances between cities and the countryside. It is possible to think that the worst imbalances (in terms of the human and environmental costs of urbanization), which were wittingly accepted for a long time in order to allow the country to open up and to promote break-neck growth, are tolerated less and less and becoming politically intolerable. Urbanization has definitively and deeply modified daily life in China and the expectations of the population, even if these are not expressed in the ballot box. This article assesses China's unprecedented urbanization movement and describes the changes in China's rules of the game, together with the emergence of a more-or-less chaotic real estate market.

Nowadays it is not so much food security but food safety that is the preoccupation of the Chinese authorities. China seems to have recently discovered that without an adequate regulatory system in place it is impossible to curb food-related crises. Consumers' growing mistrust as well as the sometimes-tainted image of Chinese food products overseas - essential for exports - has spurred the authorities into action. After an initial review of the safety context in China, this article explains the measures taken by the authorities to curb the incidents and will try to assess the weight of consumers in this system in progress.

This content is published in French only: Consommation alimentaire et sécurité sanitaire des aliments en Chine

This paper is an attempt to picture the African entrepreneurs and their activities today in China. It aims at counterbalancing the current debates on Sino-African relations which tend to only emphasize the increasing presence of the Chinese - and Chinese products - on the African continent.

This paper proposes a detailed presentation of the obstacles to the development of rural areas in China today, and of the transformations and ongoing reforms since the beginning of the 21st century.

Chen Guangjin is a Research Fellow of the Institute of Sociology at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

China did not prove to be crisis-proof in contrast to what the supporters of the decoupling hypothesis loved to claim. The paper will analyse the impacts of the crisis and the Chinese responses to the crisis.

A key issue is whether the current turbulence will give rise to a new model of development in China and usher in a new era for the Chinese economy as well as for the whole of East Asia and even, perhaps, for the rest of the world.