HKBU Professor YANG Chun receives the 10th Outstanding Scientific Research Output Award (Humanities and Social Sciences) from the Ministry of Education, China

Professor YANG Chun, Associate Dean (Research) and Chair Professor of Human Geography at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, has been honoured with the Second-class Award in Publications in the 10th Outstanding Scientific Research Output Award (Humanities and Social Sciences) from the Ministry of Education (MOE), China. The accolade recognises her paper (with Dr. David Yuen-Tung Chan) published in Applied Geography (2023, Vol. 158, 103028), which is entitled “Geopolitical risks of strategic decoupling and recoupling in the mobile phone production shift from China to Vietnam: Evidence from the Sino-US trade war and COVID-19 pandemic”.

Drawing upon the Global Production Networks (GPN) 2.0 theory, this study develops a multi-scalar analytical framework to investigate the production shift of smartphone manufacturing engaged by variegated Transnational Corporations (TNCs) from China’s Pearl River Delta to Vietnam’s Red River Delta amid the dual disruptions of the US-China trade war and the COVID-19 pandemic. It challenges the oversimplified narrative of total "decoupling" from China, demonstrating that TNCs have predominantly adopted a "China + 1" strategy to balance cost-capability ratios against volatile risk environments in times of geopolitical and geoeconomic uncertainty.

The Outstanding Scientific Research Output Award (Humanities and Social Sciences) was established by the MOE to recognise prestigious research that shows the distinct traits of advancement, contemporary relevance, scientific rigour and innovation, and accurately addresses key and complex issues. The Award demonstrates the nation's highest standards of humanities and social science research, placing an emphasis on rewarding outstanding achievements in basic and applied research, as well as emerging interdisciplinary fields.

Professor Yang’s research profile: 
https://scholars.hkbu.edu.hk/en/persons/CHUNYANG
https://geog.hkbu.edu.hk/people/academic-and-teaching-staff/prof-yang-chun.htm