(Re)positioning Yunnan: region and nation in contemporary provincial narratives

Transformation and Development

“…It shows the continuity of China's development, trade and foreign policies over several decades, in contrast to the critiques of BRI that describe the initiative as a Chinese geopolitical weapon. One of the flagship studies promoting this perspective (Summers 2012(Summers , 2016(Summers , 2018) reviewed China's policies regarding the development of the provincial inland areas such as Yunnan and Xinjiang.…”

“…It is the sum of the sub-national, national and regional projects of many countries at the global level. Tim Summers showed the Chinese provincial leaders involvement in shaping some regional integration projects, rather than the province having a special role within the PRC's participation (as in GMS), or even driving the cooperative institution itself as with BCIM, Summer argues, that the case of CAFTA shows provincial elites attempting to appropriate centrally designed policy frameworks in partial response to its own developmental imperatives (Summers 2012).…”

River Politics: China's policies in the Mekong and the Brahmaputra in comparative perspective

“…However, as the Chinese economy opened up to the outside world, Yunnan officials began to push for border openings as early as the mid-1980s, and in 1985 obtained permission for the establishment of border trade zones. 61 As Tim Summers amply demonstrated in his article on the narratives for repositioning Yunnan at the center of various regional constructs, the Yunnan provincial leadership actively took the lead in formulating strategies to re-establish Yunnan as a 'bridge, hub or pivot' between China and Southeast Asia. 62 Yunnan's Foreign Affairs Office regularly sends its officials to serve in the Chinese embassy in Laos.…”

Borderland Infrastructures

“…Tim Summers has documented the processes underpinning the emergence of dominant ideas among academics and officials in Yunnan that the province should be repositioned as a bridgehead to Southeast and South Asia in the 1980s and 1990s(Summers 2012(Summers , 2013.…”

“…html (accessed May 2019). 9 On the ways in which Yunnan has been in recent years re-imagined and re-branded as a major hub for regional connections see alsoSummers (2012); Su (2013); Rippa (2017, 2020); Sigley (2016).…”