China’s double body: infrastructure routes and the mapping of China’s nation-state and civilization-state

Below the Belt? Territory and Development in China's International Rise

“…More recently those studying infrastructure have focused on the ways in which infrastructure plays into state‐building processes (Harvey and Knox, 2012). Here, infrastructure can be a means of spreading the state's reach across its territory in highly visible ways — such as roads — or of connecting contiguous territories into new territorial forms; indeed, the BRI is an ‘imagined’ territory that is being brought into being through the construction of transport infrastructure (Grant, 2018; Lin et al., 2019). In these accounts state power is very much central to infrastructure systems.…”

“…The BRI is the flagship of China's internationalization push and can, at one level, be seen as a ‘grand strategy’ which is part of the country's wider global aspirations (Narins and Agnew, 2019). Authors have pointed to the twin movements that tie Chinese nation building, territory and development together (Grant, 2018; Lin et al., 2019; Yeh and Wharton, 2016). One is a national project to integrate the country, particularly connecting and developing the western regions which were de‐prioritized in the reform period when investment was targeted at the eastern coastal regions.…”

“…The underpinning rationale is based on the ‘development–security nexus promoting infrastructure construction as the main booster of economic growth which is in turn perceived as necessary for peace and stability’ (Benabdallah, 2019: 99). The two movements are linked in that both aim to enhance China's connectivity through transportation and communication infrastructure (Wiig and Silver, 2019), and in that the BRI has evolved out of approaches used within China's borders (Grant, 2018). Indeed, this genesis of the BRI means that despite its appearance as a grand strategy it is rather more piecemeal and emergent than official proclamations might suggest.…”

Negotiating the boundaries of China’s Belt and Road Initiative

“…Reflecting these ambiguities, Grant (2018) suggests that presentations of the BRI reveal a contradiction between a national 'geobody' which reinforces national territorial integrity, and China as a 'civilization state' whose investment in transborder infrastructure connectivity can facilitate civilizational exchange. Narins and Agnew (2019) argue that the 'missing [BRI] map' creates a 'useful fuzziness', and opens up space for the BRI to promote possible sovereignty regimes beyond the classic regime of territorial sovereignty to integrationist, globalist or imperialist regimes which could shape China's desired future engagement with the rest of the world.…”

Introduction: Research agendas raised by the Belt and Road Initiative

“…They invite further locality studies and historical contextualization that can then reflect back on the wider dynamics of BRI amidst shifting geopolitical, geoeconomic and geocultural processes. They also seem to engage with and acknowledge the broader tensions of China trying to express itself as a civilization-state that foregrounds extensive civilizational connections across national borders through the BRI while maintaining a bordered notion of a state that stresses national, territorial integrity (Grant, 2018). Joe Williams, Caitlin Robinson and Stefan Bouzarovski (2020) propose nuanced analysis of the BRI's spatial and scalar politics, to approach BRI through debates about urbanization, beyond Chinacentred discussions.…”