Hong Kong and Macau, as Special Administrative Regions of China, play a significant role in the country’s development. In recent years, with national support, both regions are expected to actively integrate into national development, promote international exchanges, and serve as a bridgehead for the country’s dual opening-up strategy. Macau is committed to becoming a “World Tourism and Leisure Center” and a “China-Portuguese-speaking Trade Cooperation Service Platform” working alongside Hong Kong to form a vital force for international cooperation. Hong Kong and Macau possess significant advantages in terms of openness and internationalization, having accumulated rich experience in market economic development. Compared to the mainland, their experience in market rules and capital operations is more mature, enabling them to effectively address issues faced in the mainland’s marketization process, such as real estate cycles and market regulation. Additionally, there is unique potential for innovation in branding and standards. Although China has quality products like grape wines and tea, it lacks internationally recognized brands. This necessitates innovation in marketing and brand development to enhance the competitiveness of Chinese products in the global market. Moreover, Hong Kong and Macau have demonstrated innovative potential in establishing a modern trade platform for traditional Chinese medicine (TCM). As an international trade center, Hong Kong can leverage its rule of law and credibility to create an independent and professional TCM trading platform that promotes transaction transparency and ensures product quality. In terms of social and cultural exchanges, both regions have also played an important role, as highlighted by President Xi Jinping regarding their unique contributions to cultural exchange and fostering mutual understanding. In summary, the innovation of Hong Kong and Macau extends beyond the economic realm to encompass social, educational, and international cooperation. By strengthening collaboration along the industrial chain, both regions can better leverage their advantages to assist national high-quality development and play an indispensable role in the Greater Bay Area’s growth.

In International Chinese Language Education, the teaching of Chinese culture and characters holds significant importance. This study focuses on the 32 insect-related characters denoting agricultural and forestry pests presented in the Chong Radical of Shuowen Jiezi, exploring the ecological culture of early China reflected in these characters and offering interpretations. The objective is to examine their pedagogical value for cultural instruction and character teaching in International Chinese Language Education. The findings reveal that grain pests and tree pests were prevalent in early China. The imbalance between cereal and arboreal ecosystems, resulting from the development of agriculture, led to significant pest problems. By contrast, pests affecting bamboo were rare, primarily due to the stability of the bamboo ecosystem. In early China, locust plagues were predominantly associated with grain locust plagues, triggered by the East Asian migratory locust, while bamboo-related locust plagues, caused by the yellow-spined bamboo locust were almost absent, a phenomenon closely related to the prevailing ecological conditions of that era. Despite the presence of the system of environmental protection in early China, the system was barely effective in regulating cereal and arboreal ecosystems, while providing some degree of protection for bamboo ecosystem. Moreover, the stability of the ecosystem and the environmental protection system exerted a bidirectional influence on each other. The characters for agricultural and forestry pests in the Chong Radical not only document ecological changes in early China, but also offer textual evidence for the transmission of and reflection on ecological culture. The findings of this study enrich the content base for cultural and character instruction, thereby providing valuable support for the development of teaching resources and the enhancement of teaching practice.

The year 2024 marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Brazil. As major developing countries and key emerging markets, the two nations have achieved fruitful outcomes through pragmatic cooperation. With President Xi Jinping’s successful state visit to Brazil in November 2024, China-Brazil relations have entered the next “Golden 50 Years”. Against this backdrop, this study focuses on China-Brazil educational cooperation and exchange, as well as the development of Confucius Institutes. Field research was conducted in Brazil, and relevant data were collected through questionnaire surveys and participant/workplace-based observation. Through analysis and review, the study provides an overall picture of the development status and future trends of China-Brazil higher education cooperation and exchange facilitated by Confucius Institutes. Additionally, selected individual case studies are examined in detail, showcasing replicable practices and strategic pathways for future development.

In the context of globalization, the religious linguistic practices of diaspora communities have become a crucial site for the negotiation of power relations and identity. This study combines Margaret Berry’s Exchange Structure model within Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) with Foucault’s microphysics of power to analyze how the preacher and interpreter dynamically negotiate power relations through linguistic strategies in bilingual sermons of Putian dialect and Mandarin at Hinghwa Methodist Church in Singapore. The findings reveal that religious authority is not statically bestowed but is constructed moment-by-moment through the control of turn allocation, the configuration of moves, and the negotiation of knowledge-power mechanisms. The preacher predominantly occupied the “primary-knower” (k1) position, controlling propositional agendas and doctrinal exegesis. By deploying micro-power techniques such as hierarchical observation and examination, the preacher regulated discursive power while simultaneously negotiating both institutional religious authority and personal authority. The interpreter covertly participated in power negotiation through the realization of semantic adjustments and shifts in agency and recipiency. Enacting as “secondary knowers” (k2), the interpreter reconfigures religious logics and reinforces collective identity. Our findings demonstrate that religious discourse is not merely a medium for expressing faith but a critical arena for the operation of micro-power and the construction of identity. This study provides an alternative theoretical lens for understanding language-power interactions and identity construction within Chinese diaspora communities, offering implications on the sustainability of overseas Chinese dialect preservation.

The Historic Centre of Macao bears the imprint of over four centuries of cultural exchange between China and foreign nations. Its linguistic landscape, blending historical and contemporary multicultural connotations, holds significant and unique value as a sample. This study employed fieldwork methods to collect 160 signage samples across five sampling sites within the Historic Centre of Macao. Utilizing the entity dimension of the three-dimensional analysis model, the study described and analyzed the code distribution patterns, variations across sampling sites, and contrasts between official and unofficial signage within the language landscape of the Historic Centre of Macao. Furthermore, the study examined code usage patterns within the language landscape through the lens of place semiotics theory. The findings reveal that the current linguistic landscape of the Historic Centre of Macao is characterized by a salient multilingual profile, with Chinese as the primary dominant code, while maintaining the Sino-Portuguese bilingual policy, making Portuguese a mandatory code. To align with English’s status as an international lingua franca, the linguistic landscape of Macao’s Historic Centre primarily employs English as the main auxiliary code alongside Chinese and Portuguese, with Japanese serving as a secondary auxiliary East Asian code. The researcher also identified a small number of Latin samples during the investigation, representing the lowest proportion of the total sample. Regarding code placement, Chinese consistently serves as the most salient code on signage, with the multilingual code hierarchy being: Chinese, Portuguese, English, Japanese, Latin. Techniques such as “vertical placement with font variation”, “vertical placement with font variation and cultural information”, and “horizontal placement with directional variation” are employed to reinforce the prominence of salient codes spatially, visually, and conceptually. The historical layers of the linguistic landscape in the Historic Centre of Macao are profoundly rich, densely reflecting nearly five centuries of temporal elements within a limited spatial scope. It achieves a linguistic landscape characterized by the continuous dialogue between history and the contemporary, as well as the diverse yet mutually integrated cultural origins, thereby realizing a culturally inscribed narrative brought about by high space-time cohesion.

The Hong Kong cultural periodical Pangu was published from March 1967 to July 1978. Amid the leftist cultural fervor of the 1970s, Pangu centered its intellectual discourse on “anti-independence” and “return”, embodying the idealist passion of the overseas Baodiao (Defend Diaoyu Islands Movement) generation. Firmly rooted in Chinese cultural essentialism, the periodical resisted the Westernizing tendencies of modernist trends in Taiwan and Hong Kong while critically reflecting on the ideological biases of the New Asia spirit. Poetically, Pangu emphasized the application of expressive and pragmatic theories in Chinese New Poetry criticism; historically, it rediscovered and carried forward the cultural legacy of early modernist poets such as He Qifang and Bian Zhilin, as well as the Nine Leaves School. Amid the trend of “Fang Ren Guan Zheng” (global vision; national identity; social concern; rights advocacy), Pangu’s fellows demonstrated a youthful commitment to critiquing capitalism and serving marginalized communities. These literary and social movements collectively functioned as an intellectually independent historical intermediary, supplementing and enriching the mainstream currents of 1970s Chinese culture.

Breach of contract insurance in overseas investment insurance is a type of political risk insurance that guarantees against the breach of contract risk by the host country. Its scope of coverage is relevant to both safeguarding China’s overseas interests and improving the political risk insurance system. However, there is no unified international standard regarding its coverage, and further clarification is needed in this regard. Although China has introduced breach of contract insurance, its triggering conditions are strict. Insurance claims depend on the favorable judgment obtained by investors, yet fails to cover scenarios where investors have no means of seeking compensation or where judicial injustice occurs, thereby limiting the insurance protection function of the insurance. To address this, Sinosure should incorporate denial of justice into its political risk insurance framework. Specifically, denial of justice should be clearly defined as a core triggering condition within the existing breach of contract insurance structure. This would help improve China’s political risk insurance system and strengthen risk protection for investments under the “Belt and Road” Initiative.

Based on prospect theory and service recovery theory, this study investigates the impact mechanism of service recovery on tourist satisfaction and revisit intention within the context of Macau gaming tourism. Key variables such as tolerance, loss aversion, and sensation-seeking personality trait are incorporated into the research framework. A questionnaire survey was conducted among 470 tourists who participated in gaming activities, and the data were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). The results indicate that service recovery (including procedural justice and interactional justice) significantly enhances tourist satisfaction. Both tolerance and loss aversion exert significant positive effects on satisfaction, which in turn positively predicts revisit intention. Furthermore, the sensation-seeking personality trait strengthens the relationship between satisfaction and revisit intention. The findings provide theoretical support and practical implications for designing service recovery strategies in gaming tourism, highlighting the importance of differentiated management considering tourists’ psychological traits and financial loss contexts.

From ancient Rome to modern times, Cicero’s natural law philosophy has profoundly influenced global legal development and philosophical thought through its core concepts: “goodness” and “responsibility”, “reason” and “truth”, “justice” and “patriotism”. The pursuit of goodness naturally fosters a sense of responsibility, the quest for truth calls for rationality, and upholding justice requires courage and patriotic spirit. This article examines the theoretical and practical significance of Cicero’s natural law philosophy for China’s judicial practice, legal development, and social governance by integrating contemporary Chinese social realities. Its ideas of goodness, equality, and patriotism offer valuable insights for cultivating civic virtues in the new era.