From 1898 to 1914, the German Empire administered the leasehold of Kiaochow Bay in Shandong Province and constructed the port city of Tsingtau as a self-proclaimed model colony. This paper studies the master plan for the construction of that city and believes that urban planning, although presented as a neutral tool of civil engineering, was in fact a method of colonial rule. The German administration divided the urban area into a European quarter, a Chinese business and residential area, and two peripheral workers' villages, and reinforced this spatial division with a separate legal code for Chinese residents only. Both measures were based on racist ideas and sought to demonstrate the technological superiority of Europeans over the native people. The paper also shows that the desired separation was never realised. German firms depended on Chinese merchants, wealthy Chinese families acquired property in the German quarter, German residents settled in Chinese districts, and German households relied on Chinese domestic servants. Negotiation with Chinese officials, missionary conflict, a commercial boycott, a joint German-Chinese college, and a hybrid architectural idiom all followed from this daily contact. Colonial Tsingtau is therefore better understood not as a unilateral projection of metropolitan power but as a negotiated space in which segregation on paper repeatedly gave way to interaction on the ground, producing an early bridgehead of Sino-German cultural exchange.

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Digital transformation has become a key driver of public sector innovation, encouraging governments to redesign public service delivery through digital governance. Although Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macao share cultural and historical connections, their distinct institutional contexts and administrative arrangements have resulted in different digital governance models. This study compares digital governance practices across the three regions to examine how institutional conditions influence governance approaches and public service delivery outcomes. A qualitative comparative case study approach is adopted, drawing on policy document analysis and secondary literature to examine governance frameworks, service delivery mechanisms, and citizen-oriented initiatives. The findings reveal that each region demonstrates different strengths in administrative efficiency, digital accessibility, service responsiveness, and citizen engagement, reflecting the influence of institutional arrangements and policy priorities. By identifying both similarities and differences among the three regions, this study contributes to a deeper understanding of digital governance development in Greater China and provides practical implications for policymakers seeking to enhance public service delivery and promote cross-regional policy learning.

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Western-dominated development lending, led by the IMF and Paris Club, has long relied on rigid policy conditionality and structural adjustment packages that frequently deepen inequality in low-income recipient states. Since 2017, commentators and Western politicians have popularized the so-called "Chinese debt trap" narrative, claiming China deliberately saddles poorer nations with unsustainable liabilities to seize strategic infrastructure amid repayment defaults. Focusing on the most widely cited case—the Hambantota Port in Sri Lanka—this study dismantles such one-sided claims through primary project timelines and sovereign debt data. Evidence from this paper demonstrates the port initiative originated from Sri Lanka's domestic infrastructure demands rather than Chinese coercion; loan pricing remained competitive against global commercial financing at the time, and the 99-year port lease constituted a stand-alone commercial transaction to ease the nation's liquidity squeeze, not a debt-for-asset seizure. Overall, this paper argues that China's non-conditional bilateral lending represents an alternative development finance model distinct from Western orthodox approaches, while oversimplified debt-trap rhetoric conceals the complex structural drivers of developing nations' external debt pressures.

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Against the backdrop of intensifying academic competition and rising learning pressure, academic anxiety has become highly prevalent among student populations. Conventional school-based psychological interventions are constrained by insufficient professional resources and high levels of student resistance. As a flexible, accessible, and non-pharmacological intervention, music therapy has been increasingly integrated into school mental health services. Employing a combination of literature review, case analysis, and comparative research, this study examines three core functioning mechanisms of music therapy—emotional regulation, cognitive defusion, and interpersonal support. It further proposes a three-tiered intervention model and analyzes key influencing factors from both intervention design and individual student perspectives. Evidence from studies on Orff-based group music therapy indicates that group music interventions can significantly alleviate anxiety symptoms, and artificial intelligence technologies can facilitate its scalable implementation in school settings. Currently, the field faces two prominent bottlenecks: a shortage of trained professionals and insufficient targeted empirical evidence. Future efforts should strengthen workforce development, promote interdisciplinary collaboration, and establish standardized school-based intervention systems. This study provides practical guidance for optimizing the mechanism of music therapy in alleviating academic anxiety within school mental health intervention frameworks.

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