Not the Relationship You Would Expect: China, Sub-National Actors, and Structural Factors

Abstract

This chapter serves as a concise general introduction to the volume, which scrutinizes the frequently ignored agency of the Global South sub-national actors in their interactions with rising China. Far from being passive recipients of Bei**g-constructed images and cooperation models, these actors are fully aware of their identity and interests and respond accordingly to China’s increasingly visible presence in the Global South. At the same time, however, we acknowledge the importance of structural constraints at national, regional, and international levels. To analyze the diverse and, at times, surprising resulting combinations, we have chosen case studies that cover heterogeneous geographies of the Global South ranging from Papua-New Guinea to Argentina and from Madagascar to the Russian Far East. They are enriched by a multidisciplinary approach that brings together insights from International Relations, Political Geography, Government, Development Studies, Anthropology, Cultural Studies, Media Studies, and International Communication Studies. Moreover, the authors of individual chapters work on China in different regions of the world. Their various linguistic, cultural, and scholarly backgrounds and expertise are conducive to unique perspectives on China’s global expansion. The chapter ends by discussing the content of each contribution, as well as its position in the volume’s overall architecture.