Qujing (取经) as policy mobility with Chinese characteristics: A case study of ultralow-energy building policy in China

Abstract

This article introduces the concept and practice of qujing as a Chinese state-organized form of policy mobility. The term qujing originates in the journey of a Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang who brought Buddhism’s sutras from India to China in the 7th century; qujing has been appropriated by modern Chinese leaders to promote learning from the experiences of other regions. In post-reform China, qujing has become routinized within the Chinese bureaucracy as an integral step in its distinctive experimentalist governance. By bringing insights from the literature of China’s policy experimentation to situate trans-local learning, I challenge the disproportionate attention the policy mobility literature has paid to local and transnational actors in mobilizing policies under neoliberalism. Instead, I locate the origins, agency, and knowledge mutation of Chinese qujing within the multi-scalar policy experimentation protocols of China’s authoritarian regime. This article contrasts qujing with generalized patterns of policy mobility in the existing literature, thereby decentering political mobility research from more familiar western political contexts and actors. Using multi-year interviews and official documents, I trace China’s introduction of ultralow-energy passive building from Germany as a case-study to show the relationships between foreign learning ( qujing), local experimentation, and policy making in greening China’s built environment.

The afterlives of urban megaprojects: Grounding policy models and recirculating knowledge through domestic networks

“…Second, and building on the previous point, an attention to who stands to leverage from knowledge mobilisation and how this is then disseminated can reveal how well-resourced actors can influence further projects. This extends previous theoretical claims to pay more attention to agency on the demand side of policy mobilisation and to other scales beyond the local and the global (Silvestre and Jajamovich, 2021; Varró and Bunders, 2020; Zhou, 2021). Both Puerto Madero’s development corporation and the construction companies involved in Porto Maravilha managed to occupy positions as authoritative voices in urban regeneration within Argentina and Brazil, respectively, after their experiences in engaging with trans-local expertise and assembling knowledge, practices and actors.…”

“…Our suggestion is to pay greater attention to the actors involved who also change their positionality over time, in this case switching from an initial position of policy mobilisers at the ‘demand side’ to policy brokers and entrepreneurs imbricated and supplying knowledge though more localised networks. Scant attention has been given to actors operating at other scales beyond the local–global binary, although analyses on the mobilities of policy models within Asia have highlighted the key role played by national actors in steering policy experimentation involving trans-national expertise and validating blueprints that influence national and regional initiatives (Chang, 2017; Zhou, 2021).…”

“…Nevertheless, this literature has recently been critiqued for its dominant focus on ‘local globalness’ (McCann, 2011: 120), that is, an emphasis on the local–global binary that sidelines the importance of other scales (e.g. supranational, national and intra-urban) (Borén et al, 2020; Bunnell et al, 2018; Henderson, 2020; Prince, 2017; Temenos and Baker, 2015; Varró and Bunders, 2020; Zhou, 2021). Accordingly, greater attention is given to what is clearly visible, ‘successful’ and circulating through global networks while paying less attention to how knowledge circulates more subtly through other networks and scales.…”

Beyond the flying geese? New patterns, actors, and contestations of policy transfer in East Asia

“…The party–state hierarchy not only simultaneously constrains and enhances the capacities for learning and adaptation of various subnational actors and other agents (Romano, 2020; see also the contributions of Müller and ten Brink (2023), of Romano (2023) and of She (2023) in this special issue) but may also impact their ability to act as policy exporters. The Belt and Road Initiative, President Xi Jinping's flagship project to increase global connectivity, can be seen as a vector for policy transfer (Romano & Taube, 2022), but its projects can also be very sensitive to abrupt policy changes of the central government, which are not infrequent and may disrupt or reorient “bureaucratic operation at any step of the process, at any level, and at any time” (Zhou, 2021, p. 663).…”

Sustainability outcomes and policy implications: Evaluating China’s “old urban neighborhood renewal” experiment

“…As mentioned above, a key linchpin of China’s top-down environmental governance has been the use of local experimentation to test different options for higher-level policies–an approach employed since the Reform and Open Era [ 21 ]. Recently, a sense of urgency to address urban sustainability has accelerated policy experiments in many urban renewal initiatives, such as the Eco-City, Sponge City, and Zero-Waste City [ 22 ].…”