The Geopolitics and Cultural Economy of Societal Relations in a New GreaterChina

Convener：Allen Chun

In relation to ICCS core themes of “Conflict, Justice and Decolonization”, this research cluster focuses on the new rise of China as a globalizing political economy.  As the post-Cold War moves into the 21st century, the new rise of China represents not only a challenge to an earlier globalization but has also fundamentally altered relations with neighboring Northeast, Southeast and Central Asia.  It is too simplistic to attribute this to the evolution of neoliberal capitalism or neoimperialism. It is a unique systemic phenomenon in its own right.  Our specific concerns include the flows and processual permutation of identities, capital, market and productive relations that have precipitated monetary crises, provoked regional security and engendered cultural discourses. The new rise of China is an incontestably seminal phenomenon that has produced political reverberations throughout the Chinese speaking world from Taiwan to Hong Kong and expanding outward.  The first five-year project has debated the relevance of neo-liberalism, postcolonialism and nationalism to assess the global political economy of 21st century greater China to rethink ongoing theories and their effects in practice.  One Belt, One Road has been one concrete focus of observation and analysis.  Topics of concern transcend geopolitical imaginaries, logistics of infrastructural development and state-local interactions in a way that has broad ramifications for China’s relations with Africa and South America as well, that is, beyond the traditional Silk Road.  The second five-year project will expand on ongoing analytical frames of analysis to lock onto specific areas of global-local interaction in concrete case studies to develop deeper contributions for future research in ways that can reflect beyond China and the West.

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