Under the background of global energy transition, the geopolitical problem of energy transition has increasingly become one of the frontiers and hot topics of world energy geography and politics. There are obvious differences in energy connotation, attributes and geopolitical characteristics in different stages. In the new energy era, energy geopolitics is more diversified, complex and comprehensive. This paper compares the geopolitical characteristics of energy in different stages, and combs the research process of new energy geopolitics. The research shows that the global energy transition will intensify the reconstruction of geopolitical pattern, change the relationship between geopolitical security and conflict dominated by traditional energy security, change the role of different countries in global energy geopolitics, reshape the national energy relationship formed in the traditional oil and gas era, and highlight the impact of new energy technologies and key scarce materials on the geopolitics of energy transition, and cause energy network security problems. It is found that scholars of various disciplines have paid extensive attention to the geopolitics of energy transition. At present, there are many uncertainties about the geopolitical impact of energy transition, and there is still room for development and improvement in the theoretical framework, technical methods and research perspective. Looking forward to the future, the geopolitical research of energy transition urgently needs to strengthen the discipline theoretical research, promote the scientific and quantitative research of geopolitics of energy transition, and strengthen the application research of service discipline development and major national energy security decisions, explore the geographical effect of energy transitions on the reconstruction of traditional energy geopolitics, the mechanism of energy transition geopolitics and the impact of energy transition geopolitics on energy security. Meanwhile, geopolitical research on energy transformation should be carried out in close combination with international academic frontiers such as climate change, "carbon peak and carbon neutrality" goals, and global energy governance, so as to enrich the research perspective of world energy geography.

Since the release of "Vision and Actions on jointly building Silk Road Economic Belt and 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road" in 2015, the Maritime Silk Road container shipping network has experienced rapid development and significant changes along with the construction of the Belt and Road economic community. To explore changes in the vulnerability of the Maritime Silk Road container shipping network under intentional attacks, this study proposed an identification method for the critical point of collapse of the container shipping network based on geospatial connection changes and the network fragmentation process under such attacks. In addition, a quantification method is developed for the change trend and degree of vulnerability of the container shipping network. The network was constructed using statistical data of ports and routes of the Maritime Silk Road in 2015 and 2019. The results show that the intentional attack tolerances of the networks in 2015 and 2019 were 4.21% and 5.51%, respectively, indicating that the Maritime Silk Road container shipping network in 2019 was stronger than that in 2015, with a relative change rate of 30.88%. The driving mechanisms for the vulnerability changes in the Maritime Silk Road container shipping network mainly included the diminished differentiation in the structure of the port hierarchy, the increasing completion of the backup mechanism of key ports, and the closer container shipping links of East and Southeast Asia with other regions. Corresponding countermeasures and suggestions are proposed for continuously guaranteeing the interconnection of container shipping between China and countries (regions) along the Maritime Silk Road. The results of this study have important theoretical significance and practical value for revealing the vulnerability changes of the Maritime Silk Road container shipping network and its driving mechanisms and influencing factors, as well as for ensuring the continuous interconnection of the network. The analysis method presented in this paper can provide a reference for related research on vulnerability changes in other transportation networks.

Since China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in 2013, transborder economic cooperation has received increasing attentions. The existing studies have focused on the geopolitical environments and the contents of cooperation, but few have examined the historical evolution of the spatial organization models of transborder economic cooperation. This study aims to fill the gap to explore the evolutionary process of the spatial organization models of transborder economic cooperation between China and Russia. Taking Heilongjiang Province of China and the Far East of Russia as a case, we proposed a novel framework for understanding trans-border economic cooperation from multi-scalar perspective, based on Brenner's New Nation Space theory. Our results reveal that the spatial organization pattern of China-Russia trans-border economic cooperation since the 1990s has experienced three evolutionary stages: transborder trade-based stage in the 1990s, overseas industrial park-based stage between 2000 and 2013, and transport corridor-oriented stage from 2013 to present. After the borders in Heilongjiang were gradually opened in the late 1980s, Sino-Russian transborder trades entered into a rapid development stage. After the mid-1990s, disputes and crises emerged in the transborder economic cooperation pattern propelled by border trade, which led to a new round of reshaped cooperation pattern of industrial parks established by Chinese enterprises. After 2013, the new mode of transportation corridor-oriented cooperation emerged because of the multi-scalar and multi-dimensional reorganization in order to respond to the crisis of the old pattern. The evolution suggests that there is a certain degree of historical dependence between the new and old patterns. This study extends the theory of New Nation Space and provides scientific basis for promoting high-quality development of transborder cooperation between China and Russia.

The industrialization of agriculture and the "de-localization" of production patterns, misty distribution processes, and inflated consumption desires have led to a continuous crisis in food systems, and the sustainability of food systems has become a challenge at the global scale. Current research on the sustainable food systems is confronted with the problem of scale. The sustainability goals at the global scale are ambitious and inclusive, but the differences at the local scale are not taken into account. In terms of pathways, the practices of Western countries have led to a "scalar trap", where the microscopic scales such as communities are overemphasized to the exclusion of the potential role of other scales. Based on perspectives of scale, this study analyzes the "sustainability" constructs of various actors within the food systems of China, Brazil, and South Africa, and proposes a scale logic for the transformation of food system sustainability goals and empirical feedback. The study finds that: (1) The transformation of goals from global to local scale needs to take into account local differences. China, Brazil, and South Africa generate their own priority sustainability goals, which address food safety, food authenticity and food waste, and structural food scarcity, respectively. These goals are fraught with tensions and trade-offs and cannot be equivalently substituted. (2) Empirical feedback from the local to the global scale requires a shift away from the micro-scale superiority conferred by Western experience and toward cross-scale practices. The sustainable practice pathways in developing countries lie in bringing into play the dynamics of various actors in the food system and mobilizing resources to form effective networks of action across scales. (3) The experience of developing countries suggests that scale is a method in itself, not an end in itself, and that each specific sustainability goal is matched with an appropriate scale approach, and that there is a need for research to suggest ways to tap into diverse and differentiated sustainability models so as to fully promote sustainable development of local and global food systems.

As an important innovation resource, top world talents play a vital role in promoting regional innovation and competitiveness. Among all kinds of top world talents, highly cited scientists, whose achievements are highly original and subversive, form a crucial scientific and technological force determining the direction of future scientific development. The geographical structure and influencing factors of their immigration are important and are being investigated within the field of geography. According to previous studies, different population types have different location choices. Despite existing research on the mobility of the general labor force, the question of which model is suitable for the movement of highly cited scientists has not yet been settled. This paper integrates the world city theory into population mobility studies and investigates the mobility of highly cited Chinese scientists. We compiled the list of highly cited Chinese scientists based on the 2014-2015 global list of highly cited scientists on the Web of Science as well as a background and resume information search. We proceeded with the research in the following ways: We firstly constructed a composite talent migration theory on the basis of the population migration theory in order to explore which factors affect scientists' location choice in their working periods; we secondly described their mobility characteristics during their education and working periods, including a detailed analysis of domestic and transnational migration during the working period; we thirdly applied the Heckman two-stage selection model to explore the applicability of compound population migration theory in high-end talent flow; and we finally conducted a classification study from the perspective of domestic/transnational mobility of talents and used the Probit regression model to explore the influencing factors of scientists' willingness to return to China or go abroad along with the factors that influence scientists' domestic mobility. The main conclusions can be drawn as follows: (1) The talent flow trajectory of highly cited Chinese scientists showed that the target places of scientists are mainly core cities (measured by degree centrality) at home and abroad. (2) The transnational flow direction of highly cited Chinese scientists in the working stage is mainly from American cities to Chinese cities. (3) The composite population migration model has an obvious role in explaining the location selection of highly cited Chinese scientists in their working stage. Scientists mainly choose to move to core cities and their willingness to move is largely affected by their individual characteristics. (4) The factors influencing the choice of movement of highly cited Chinese scientists at home and abroad are different. The domestic mobility of scientists is limited by geographical distance, and highly cited Chinese scientists' transnational movement is mainly affected by the pull of the destination cities. We demonstrated that the composite population migration model was more suitable for the study of talents' movement inside the region (globally or within a country), while the push-pull model was more suitable for transnational movement.

The world is currently undergoing profound changes unseen in a century, and how China builds its national image has become a complex and comprehensive issue needs to be urgently addressed. The study uses critical geopolitics theory as theoretical tool and employs a field survey in Zimbabwe as an empirical evidence to investigate Zimbabwe's geographical imaginations of China's national image and its related mechanism. The study found that the current Zimbabwe's geographical imaginations of China's national image is no longer dominated by the historical narrative based on its colonial history and the war of independence led by its national propaganda. In contrast, in the context of its fast-track land reform policy, China's "going out" strategic transformation and its increasingly close ties with the African continent, as well as the continuous global geopolitical turbulence represented by Trumpism, Zimbabwe's internal and external social relations has begun to undergo drastic changes. The relationships between various subjects (including states, governments, political parties, associations, enterprises and individuals) have also become extremely complicated and Zimbabwe's perception of China's national image has therefore no longer been influenced only by historical events. More specifically, China's national image is also influenced by Chinese enterprises, migrants, and their social practice in Zimbabwe. Moreover, these social practices have interacted and negotiated with the changes in Zimbabwe's internal and external social relations, thereby affecting the continuous deconstruction and reconstruction of China's national image in Zimbabwe. This study extends the understanding of discourse in critical geopolitics theory and strengthens the ability to solve problems. Practically, this study discusses the internal logic of other countries' building of China's national image, which has a certain reference value for the narrative of how to build China's national image in the context of global transformation.

Using the data of global COVID-19 vaccine development, ordering, donation and vaccination, and through GIS and other technical methods, this paper depicts the development, circulation pattern and their dynamics of global COVID-19 vaccine. In order to provide a cognitive basis, this paper further discusses the spatial and temporal differentiation of global COVID-19 vaccination. The conclusions are as follows: (1) The global development pattern of COVID-19 vaccine is not balanced, with three cores in Western Europe, North America and Asia as a whole. Among them, the United States, China and the UK are the representative countries for the development of COVID-19 vaccine. (2) In the early stage, the global COVID-19 vaccine ordering was mainly distributed among developed countries in Western Europe and North America. Nevertheless, with the continuous expansion of the global ordering network, the ordering of COVID-19 vaccine has gradually expanded to Asian, African and Latin American countries. On the whole, the global COVID-19 vaccine ordering has formed two expansion modes, including directed expansion and non-directed expansion. (3) China and the United States are the two core countries of the global COVID-19 vaccine donation network. The United States mainly donates vaccines to Southeast Asia, South Asia, Latin America and other countries that have close relationship with the United States. China mainly donates vaccines to South Asia, Southeast Asia, West Asia and Africa. The donation of COVID-19 vaccine is mainly affected by the contact and relationship between countries, the national strategies and the need to fulfill international obligations of donor countries, but their focuses are different. (4) The development, ordering and donation pattern of global COVID-19 vaccine determines the evolution of global vaccination pattern. The vaccination process in developed countries in Western Europe and North America is ahead of most Asian, African and Latin American countries, but the gap is gradually narrowing. China's vaccination rate has jumped from a higher to the highest level, making China a representative of developing countries.