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During the past decades, the deteriorating soil quality has become an urgent environmental issue on China's policy agenda. The enactment of the first national law for addressing soil pollution in 2018 has been regarded as a major legislative and regulatory development of China's environmental law, since it fills the legal void on soil protection. So far, China's Soil Pollution Law has received scant attention. This article presents an analysis of the liability regime for soil pollution created by this newly adopted law from legal and theoretical perspectives. Two historical shifts have been achieved in this law: first, it represents an important change in adopting an integrated regulatory framework for combatting soil contamination instead of a scattering of provisions and rules; second, it represents a significant shift towards an administrative liability regime, distinct from the environmental liability regimes for other types of environmental damage. This article argues also that several unsettled issues within this liability regime may pose challenges to improving soil quality.

Background: Acupuncture is safe and effective for improving the motor function of poststroke hemiplegic patients, but there still exists a certain gap between clinical practice and its neural mechanisms. The cerebral functional reconstruction after unilateral motor pathway injury exhibits a bilateral tendency, however current studies seldom pay attention to it. Hence, based on bilateral cerebral connections, the underlying mechanism of acupuncture in stroke rehabilitation remains research space to date. Methods: This is a single-center, randomized controlled, paralleled neuroimaging trial, with patients, outcome assessors, and data statisticians blinded. Stroke patients with motor dysfunction meeting the inclusion criteria will be randomly assigned (2:1) to receive either true acupoints treatment or sham acupoints treatment (5 sessions per week for 2 weeks). All the patients will receive conventional treatment and rehabilitation. Participants will undergo the neuroimaging scanning before and after the entire acupuncture treatment. The clinical primary outcomes are Fugl-Meyer assessments (FMA) and the National Institutes of Health stroke scales (NIHSS). The secondary outcome is Needle Sensation Assessment Scale (NSAS). The neuroimaing outcomes are voxel-mirrored homotopic connectivity (VMHC), fractional anisotropy (FA) and gray matter volume (GMV). The correlation analysis will be explored between the neuroimage indicators and clinical motor assessments. Discussion: From the perspective of bilateral connection, this trial will investigate the cerebral influence of acupuncture treatment on poststroke patients with motor dysfunction, promoting application of acupuncture in stroke rehabilitation. Trial registration: Chinese Clinical Trials Registry, ChiCTR 1800016263. Registered on 22 May, 2018.

Launched in 2013, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) was promoted by the Chinese leadership as an open platform to boost global trade, economic growth and transnational cooperation. It has achieved impressive progress in economic terms. However, a concern that has been voiced by international society is that China is using the BRI host countries as a new ‘pollution haven’. As a response, the Chinese government launched a variety of policies and guidelines with the aim of integrating the concept of ecological civilization and green development into the implementation of the BRI. In general, China’s position is to require all Chinese companies to observe the local environmental laws and standards wherever they invest and operate. However, the minimum standards set by various environmental regulations of the host countries may not be effective in improving corporate environmental performance, particularly when the environmental standards in those counties are lower and more lenient than those that are in effect in China. The aim of this article is to explore whether the concept of Corporate Environmental Responsibility (CER) could motivate Chinese corporations to strengthen environmental risk management when they are operating and investing in these host countries. It is concluded that CER, as a form of private environmental governance, could provide added value for the implementation of ecological civilization and green development in the BRI but the success of this self-regulatory approach nevertheless calls for governmental intervention under certain circumstances.