The body is a concept that Marx attended to from the very outset of his philosophical creation. The initial context in which Marx expounds the concept of the body is the critique of Prussian feudal autocracy. Methodologically, this critique inherits the Enlightenment pursuit of universality and the proposition of subjectivity inaugurated by German classical philosophy; it exposes the paradox inherent in the feudal autocracy’s reliance on the legitimacy narrative grounded in the body or the flesh. Marx’s philosophical discussion of the body cannot bypass the intellectual context of modern Western philosophy surrounding mind-body dualism. However, standing on the heights of the history of ideas marked by German classical philosophy and eighteenth-century French materialism, Marx undertakes a radical and systematic critique of eclectic mind-body dualism; this becomes a fundamental precondition for the emergence of dialectical materialism. Ultimately, through the critique of capital-and particularly through the theory of alienation-Marx reveals the dual universal oppression and plunder suffered by the body in modern society: namely, the disciplining of the body by the modern state politics as a universal entity, and the alienation of the body caused by capital as a universal entity. Of course, Marx’s concept of the body does not rest content with merely reflecting the symptoms of real society, nor does it remain confined to moral critique; rather, it points to the necessity whereby the proletariat, through revolutionary practice enacted by its own bodies, can liberate itself and propel historical progress.

The text of Das Kapital reveals that the “association of free individuals” essentially constitutes a genuine return to the “socialized community”. In terms of ontological clarification within theoretical categories, the concept of “Gemeinschaft” (community) employed by Marx bears both similarities and differences from that of “Assoziation” (association). The concept of community is relatively broad, emphasizing the territoriality and regional character of groups; whereas association is a concept that places greater stress on voluntariness and openness. Socialization and association exhibit semantic isomorphism; the core essence of the socialized community lies in associated labor. In the narrative logic of historical philosophy, the return to the socialized community is not a simple historical retrogression; rather, in terms of productive forces, it manifests as the transformation of socialized productive forces into the property of free individuals themselves; in terms of production relations, it manifests as a leap in the social regulatory mechanism from blind natural forces to conscious planning; and in terms of individual laborers, it manifests as an essential shift from a non-subjective “combination” to a subjective “association.” Capitalist society represents an inevitable transitional phase toward the association or the truly socialized community. As a crucial theoretical resource for whole-process people’s democracy, the concept of association finds clear expression in both theory and practice through its logic of workers’ subjectivity, the conscious planning of production relations, and the characteristics of the free and comprehensive development of human beings. Its contemporary theoretical vitality in China is also demonstrated through its integration with traditional Chinese culture, reflecting the profound cultural power of the “second integration”.

The interactive relationship between digital technology and state governance constitutes a pivotal issue in public governance reform during the digital era. The efficacy paradox, characterized by the intertwined phenomena of burden reduction with efficiency gains and burden increase with efficiency losses, permeates all stages of China’s digital governance reform. During the stage of governmental office informatization, digital technologies aimed to dismantle internal operational silos within government agencies. However, tensions between data connectivity and data rights protection engendered a paradox of inter-departmental collaboration. During the stage of governmental governance digitalization, the application scope of digital technologies expanded continuously, capable of lowering barriers to accessing public services. Nevertheless, influenced by algorithmic bias, a paradox of equal access to public services emerged in government-citizen interactions. During the stage of smart digital governance, the breadth and depth of public participation in governance advanced further. Yet, the superficiality of symbolic participation exacerbated the participation paradox in digital governance. Overall, the three developmental stages of digital governance substantively reflect a progressive deepening: shifting from the construction of digital infrastructure to digital stratification within social structures, and subsequently to the allocation of authority and responsibility in digital governance. Amidst the overlapping and mutual constitution of three logics—namely, the illusions and divides at the technical level, the personalized and centralized tensions at the organizational level, and the value-level gaming alongside selective distortions in implementation—the efficacy paradox in digital governance exhibits characteristics of a stepwise evolution.

As China is at a critical juncture in advancing the modernization of its urban governance system and capacity, mega-city as a whole occupies a pivotal position in urban governance and the modernization of mega-city governance necessitates balancing precision, agility, and resilience. As megacities continue to expand in scale and face increasing governance complexities, traditional urban governance models struggle to meet contemporary developmental demands. Artificial intelligence technology, instead, offers novel approaches to resolving the challenges inherent in modernizing mega-city governance. Taking Shenzhen’s initiative for high-quality development and large-scale application of “City+AI” as a case study, this research selects three application scenarios: the “AI City Scanner”, the “AI+Digital Twin” system at Shenzhen North Railway Station, and the “Smart Flood Control” system in Guangming District. The findings reveal that artificial intelligence has fundamentally transformed the traditional urban governance model—which was characterized by bureaucratic expansion, hierarchical control, and passive responsiveness. In its place, a governance agent has emerged, bearing capabilities for proactive response, self-realization, and dynamic evolution, thereby charting new pathways for modernizing mega-city governance. Moving forward, it is imperative to more proactively unleash the driving force of artificial intelligence on mega-city governance and explore novel pathways for its modernization.

As digital governance reforms deepen, intelligent government services are becoming a key instrument for governments to enhance governance efficiency and optimize the provision of public services. However, despite the gradual transition toward intelligent government services, actual public usage remains at a low level. Therefore, accurately understanding and effectively boosting the public's intention to continue using these services is crucial, holding significant practical importance for advancing the high-quality development of government services. Based on an analysis of data from 530 questionnaires, this study examines the systematic influence of factors-including smart government service quality, administrative burden, and perceived relative advantage-on public continuance intention. The results indicate that the service quality of smart government services significantly and positively affects public continuance intention. Administrative burden and perceived relative advantage exert mediating effects within this process; however, no chained mediation relationship exists between them. This study provides new perspectives and empirical evidence for subsequent related research, while also yielding policy implications for the intelligent development of government services.

Under the dual pressures of a declining total school-age population and drastic shifts in regional demographic distribution, the traditional county-based basic education management system has become inadequate in meeting the demand for cross-regional resource mobility. The Outline for Building a Strong Educational Nation (2024—2035) explicitly proposes establishing a “city-county integration” governance system, aimed at dismantling “county-level barriers” and enhancing the efficiency of resource coordination. The transition of primary-level educational governance toward “city-county integration” arises not only from external challenges such as structural imbalances and population mobility but also represents a natural evolution of China’s primary-level education management system—from “township-centered” to “county-centered,” and now toward “city-county integration”. Its theoretical foundation rests on a three-dimensional “affair-logic” comprising dynamics, operation, and objectives, drawing respectively on the theories of supply-side structural reform, grassroots educational governance, and coordinated regional development. The coordinated allocation of educational resources between city and county levels may be explored through the following operational mechanisms: First, a municipal-level coordination mechanism that strengthens top-down alignment and clarifies powers and responsibilities; second, a cross-jurisdictional allocation mechanism that facilitates the dynamic mobility of teaching staff, funding, and school placements; and third, a precision support mechanism focused on resource supplementation and distinctive development in special areas such as forest, pastoral, mountainous, island, and border regions.

Against the macro-demographic backdrop of declining birth rates, population aging, regional disparities in population growth and decline, and sustained fluctuations in total population, China’s traditional stable educational system has gradually revealed adaptive shortcomings, failing to address the compatibility challenges arising from both static population scales and dynamic demographic shifts. Accordingly, China’s educational system has to move beyond a singular focus on stability and shift toward a new reform orientation rooted in stability while balancing coherence, flexibility, and elasticity. At present, China has established a complete educational system spanning from preschool to doctoral education, totaling 25 years in length. However, structural limitations persist within this system, manifesting as an endpoint to formal learning: first, fragmented stage management, prominent exam-oriented tendencies, and a lack of unified articulation standards undermine systemic operational momentum; second, discontinuities in articulation during basic education—particularly insufficient preparation for transitions between kindergarten and primary school, primary and junior secondary school, and junior secondary and senior secondary school—result in episodic educational fragmentation; third, insufficient elasticity across higher education tiers, coupled with limited flexibility in major and minor programs at the junior college, undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels, fails to meet the personalized and diversified advancement needs of students in the era of mass higher education. Grounded in the ongoing transition from a demographic dividend to a talent dividend, and informed by relevant theories of educational system reform, it is imperative to adopt “learning without boundaries” as a new reform orientation and explore a holistic reform framework adapted to evolving demographic structures.

Against the situation of low fertility rates, deepening population aging, and intensified mobility in China’s demographic development, how to scientifically allocate educational resources in response to demographic trends has emerged as a core issue of both theoretical urgency and practical significance. Research on this topic has evolved through distinct phases: initial exploration, steady expansion, rapid growth, and current high-level advancement. Scholars have constructed a systematic analytical framework centered on three demographic dimensions—population size, structure, and mobility—and five facets of educational resources: student capacity, faculty, fiscal support, spatial distribution, and structural typologies. Existing studies predominantly employ three narrative modes: adaptation discourse, guidance discourse, and system discourse, which implicitly embed theoretical biases such as demographic determinism, reductionist methodology,and macro-structural perspectives.Accordingly, future research paradigms necessitate a shift from unidirectional determination to interactive generativity, from isolated analysis to systemic integration, and from macro-dominated approaches to multi-scale, multi-level analytical frameworks. Such a reorientation aims to provide robust theoretical references for educational strategic planning under the new demographic normal.

Strengthening the foundation of the real economy is conducive to accelerating Chinese modernization. New quality productive forces serve as a dual-link connecting “investment in people” and “investment in physical capital”, thus bringing opportunities for efficiency transformation in real economy development. Based on city-level panel data, this paper explores the impact of new quality productive forces on real economic efficiency and deconstructs the mechanisms from the perspective of modern economic system construction. The study finds that new quality productive forces play a supportive role in solidifying the foundation of real economy development, with three mechanisms driving this effect: expanding domestic demand, promoting digital industry agglomeration, and strengthening international cooperation. Meanwhile, the “new quality” attribute embodies deep implications of advancing productive forces through path creation, an effect that may be influenced by the “new window of opportunity” arising from institutional changes. From the perspective of economic endowment conditions, new quality productive forces can empower real economic efficiency to a greater extent in cities located in China’s eastern region, with developed private economies, and obvious trade competitive advantages—this represents the supportive force released by expanded opportunity windows. From the perspective of factor market development conditions, labor allocation distortion weakens this empowering effect to some extent, as the narrowing opportunity windows releases resistance. Additionally, the foundation-strengthening effect of new quality productive forces on real economy development exhibits significant spatial spillover characteristics. Economic management authorities should unswervingly foster new quality productive forces and smooth multiple pathways for their organic alignment with the real economy; policy orientation consistency between new quality productive forces and the construction of a modernized economic system should be reinforced, with expanding domestic demand, promoting the agglomeration of the digital industry, and strengthening international cooperation taken as key directions for empowerment. Furthermore, the dynamism of the private economy and institution-led opening-up should be continuously unlocked, labor allocation optimized, and—anchored in regional integration—the synergies of real economy development across different regions supported.

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Committee explicitly proposed accelerating the realization of high-level technological self-reliance and self-strengthening, and leading the development of new quality productive forces through scientific and technological innovation. In the era of the digital economy, the digital transformation of private enterprises stands as one of the core pathways for fostering new quality productive forces. Based on data from A-share non-state-owned listed companies (2011-2023), this study employs the ERNIE 3.0 large language model to identify corporate digital transformation behaviors and empirically analyzes the mechanism through which digital transformation affects new quality productive forces. The results indicate that the digital transformation of private enterprises significantly enhances their level of new quality productive forces. This conclusion remains robust after undergoing various tests, including instrumental variable estimation and propensity score matching. Further heterogeneity analysis reveals that the facilitating effect of digital transformation is more pronounced in strategic emerging industries, large-scale enterprises, and enterprises located in central and western China. Mechanism tests uncover that digital transformation primarily empowers new quality productive forces through three channels: enhancing technological innovation capabilities, optimizing the structure of human capital, and alleviating financing constraints. The government should concentrate on improving institutional supply and the broader development environment—refining policy support systems, strengthening talent cultivation, and bolstering financial empowerment—to solidify the external foundations for private enterprises to leverage digital transformation in fostering new quality productive forces. Private enterprises, for their part, should prioritize enhancing the quality and efficiency of their digital transformation efforts to reinforce the micro-level foundational support for the formation of new quality productive forces.

Based on a balanced panel dataset covering 31 provincial-level administrative regions in China from 2011 to 2023, this study employs a two-way fixed effects model and a Spatial Durbin Model, combined with mediation and moderation tests, to systematically identify the impact, mechanisms, and variations of artificial intelligence (AI) on provincial economic resilience. The findings show that AI development can significantly enhance the level of economic resilience, and this conclusion remains robust after replacing core variables, adjusting the sample scope, and addressing potential endogeneity. The influence of AI on economic resilience is not a single linear effect; rather, it manifests simultaneously through mechanism transmission, conditional constraints, and regional heterogeneity. Economic resilience exhibits notable spatial autocorrelation, and AI development demonstrates significant spatial spillover effects. Provincial economic management authorities should continue to promote AI development and consolidate its technological foundation for empowering economic resilience; refine supporting policies around transmission mechanisms and operating conditions to improve the conversion efficiency of AI into resilience gains; and strengthen regional coordination and spatial linkage to facilitate the effective release of AI’s spillover effects in empowering economic resilience.

In the winter of 1948, under Fu Sinian’s direction, the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, relocated to Taiwan, while Xia Nai returned to his ancestral home in Wenzhou to await that the situation was to be stabilized. After returning home, Xia began making long-term plans: besides reading systematically and sorting out earlier writings, he also started reading revolutionary theory of the New Democratic Revolution and teaching himself Russian. After the founding of PRC, Xia received multiple invitations to go north, yet he did not immediately proceed to Beijing; instead he took a position at the Department of Anthropology at Zhejiang University as an expedient. During this period, both Liang Siyong and Zheng Zhenduo were urgently hoping that Xia would go north to lead New China’s archaeological undertaking: Liang persistently called on Xia to come and preside over the reorganization of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica, and carried out archaeological work through the newly-established institute, the Institute of Archaeology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences; Zheng, for his part, hoped that Xia would serve as the Director of the Antiquities Division of the State Bureau of Cultural Relics, thereby taking charge of archaeological planning for the whole nation. In the summer of 1950, Xia received an official appointment certificate from the Government Administration Council. Urged by Liang and Zheng, he left his hometown for the north in September of that year, assuming the heavy responsibility of building New China’s archaeological enterprise. At the juncture of regime transition, Xia underwent a major turning point in his life: the collapse of the old order, the establishment of new institutions, and the required adjustments to scholarly directions—these were all perplexities commonly faced by senior intellectuals of the time. Xia responded to these challenges with composure and became one of the key leaders of New China’s archaeological undertaking.

In the biological evolution on Earth, ecology, biology, and life, with the food chain, form a mutually reinforcing relational system. The biological evolution of species—particularly animals—has invariably revolved around this relational system of the food chain, exhibiting both marked attribute commonalities and characteristic distinctions. Biological evolution is not a unilinear process of “progress”, but a dialectical course in which evolution and degeneration coexist. Changes in the food chain constitute both the material carrier and the core driving force of this course. The Agricultural Revolution, epitomized by domestication and cultivation, not only reshaped humanity’s food chain and biological nature but also gave rise to the agrarian characteristics of Chinese civilization, such as the unity of heaven and man and adaptation to local conditions. By reviewing prehistoric practices of animal and plant domestication in China and analyzing the mutual constitution between food and civilization, as well as between biological nature and cultural traits, this study elucidates the anthropological principles underlying food chain evolution, offering historically grounded reflections on contemporary ecological crises.

Chinese characters crystallize the unique wisdom of Chinese civilization. Even the simple strokes like heng (horizontal) and shu (vertical) bear profound philosophical principles. As direct components of Chinese characters, the two strokes function either as independent characters, as constituent characters within compounds, or as non-character components. As independent characters, “一” (yi, one) marks the beginning of numbers, while “丨” (gun, vertical) signifies unimpeded connection between above and below. As constituent characters, “一” and “丨” contribute their meanings of numerical origin or vertical continuity directly into the conceptual formation of new graphs. As non-character components, “一” and “丨” each possess five or six typical usages. In characters such as “土” (tu, earth), “才” (cai, talent), “屮” (che, sprout), “屯” (tun, difficulty), “之” (zhi, to go), and “出” (chu, to emerge), the non-character component “丨” embodies the principle of generative continuity through formal iconicity, formal indication, and formal evocation. The structural arrangement of Shuowen Jiezi, which begins with the independent character “一”, further reveals the principles of generation and continuity. The Way of Heaven and Earth is generative; humans must integrate the many into the one, thereby participating in the cosmic order through an unceasingly self-strengthening human way. This ancient wisdom of connecting and sustaining generative life possesses significant contemporary relevance. Whether exploring the distinctive characteristics of Chinese civilization or constructing a knowledge system for Chinese philosophy, it is necessary to return to the Chinese characters themselves, upon which philosophical thinking relies for its articulation.

In the long course of intellectual history, the pursuit of “moderation”, “balance” and “harmony” constitutes a central concern shared by ethical wisdom across diverse civilizational systems. From multiple dimensions—including the supreme status of virtue, the emphasis on rationality, the accommodation of emotions and desires, and the methods of practical realization—the concept “Zhongyong” in Pre-Qin Confucianism and Aristotle’s doctrine of “the Golden Mean” exhibit notable commonalities, revealing a profound resonance across civilizations. At the same time, however, significant divergences exist between the two in their philosophical foundations, core connotations, modes of virtue cultivation, conceptions of subjectivity, and extensions into political philosophy. Consequently, a comparative study of these two intellectual traditions not only facilitates a deeper understanding of the distinct characteristics and historical trajectories of Eastern and Western ethical thought but also provides valuable intellectual resources and critical insights for inter-cultural understanding and the construction of a shared global ethics in today’s interconnected world.

In recent years, the theoretical form of Mencius’ ethical thought and its relationship with consequentialism have attracted extensive attention from academic circles. Three core issues concerned urgently call for deliberation: first, whether the “benevolence and righteousness” advocated by Mencius bears intrinsic value independent of “benefit”; second, whether Mencius opposed the moral reasoning model of consequentialism; third, the role played by “benevolence and righteousness” in moral actions within Mencius’ context. Some scholars hold that Mencius not only firmly believes that “benevolence and righteousness”, as human nature and the sole motive of moral conduct, has intrinsic value independent of “benefit”, but also opposes the “two-root” mode of thinking underlying consequentialism; some argue that the entire value of “benevolence and righteousness” lies in the maximal utility it can generate; the “two-root” argument and other textual evidence that seems capable of refuting this consequentialist interpretation can all be properly addressed within this interpretive framework. Although the two sides still have divergences in their understandings, the relevant discussion has deepened the understanding of the multi-layered nature and complexity of Mencius’ ethical thought, and provided new directions for the contemporary interpretation of Confucian philosophy.