{"id":20026706,"date":"2019-01-25T12:30:43","date_gmt":"2019-01-25T07:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thethirdpole.net\/?p=26706"},"modified":"2021-07-21T19:52:28","modified_gmt":"2021-07-21T14:22:28","slug":"china-neighbours","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dialogue.earth\/en\/business\/china-neighbours\/","title":{"rendered":"Rising China in the eyes of its closest neighbours"},"content":{"rendered":"
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At over 22,000 kilometres, China has the world\u2019s longest land border. Lined up along that border are a total of 14 countries, countless local communities and long histories of interaction and isolation, trade and suspicion. The Art of Neighbouring: Making Relations Across China\u2019s Borders<\/i> (available for download here<\/a>) is a selection of essays that look at the diverse experiences of living on China\u2019s border from the perspectives of the communities who live with its presence on a daily basis.<\/p>\n

From Laos to Nepal, Mongolia and Vietnam, the regions along China\u2019s long border are too often seen as peripheral, on both sides \u2014 the northern highlands of Laos and Vietnam border China\u2019s mountainous Yunnan province, Nepal neighbours the Tibetan plateau. But as China\u2019s economic, political and social presence and engagement across the Asian continent expands, not least via the official encouragement of China\u2019s \u201cgoing out\u201d policy and the more recent Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the experiences of these border regions are becoming increasingly important in understanding China\u2019s role across the continent. At the same time, it is the communities on both sides of the border who often feel the most direct impacts of the increased interaction being encouraged by Beijing.<\/p>\n

In attempting to understand and assess the impact and the on-the-ground reality of the BRI, this year celebrating its sixth birthday, it is important that we acknowledge those communities\u2019 experiences and look at, in the words of the collection\u2019s editors, Martin Saxer and Juan Zhang, the \u201csmaller scale processes of exchange\u201d, which are undergoing rapid change. Through a series of in depth, mostly ethnographic case studies, The Art of Neighbouring<\/i> is a step in that direction.<\/p>\n

The case studies in the book all date from before 2012. That is, from before the Belt and Road Initiative was announced in October 2013. Nonetheless, they reflect the impacts of a trend of China\u2019s increasing presence outside its own borders which holds true both before and after Xi Jinping\u2019s BRI speech in October 2013. Each chapter of the book focuses on a case study from a total of eight of China\u2019s neighbouring countries. Running through those geographically disparate case studies are couple of major themes which deserve highlighting.<\/p>\n

\"art<\/p>\n

Reimagining histories<\/b><\/p>\n

In a number of the book\u2019s case studies the rapidly increasing interconnectivity with China is not a new phenomenon, but rather a revival of a historical norm. This is particularly evident in the case of Martin Saxer\u2019s ethnographic study in northern Nepal where the trading relationships across a previously porous border was the basis of existence for borderland communities. It was only in the 1960s that the border between China and Nepal became strictly demarcated and regulated. Where trade had once occurred wherever there was a passable valley, it now became limited to just six official border crossings. Before that, highland communities sought their existence as intermediary traders between the arid and harsh Tibetan plateau and the fertile lowlands of Nepal and India. Since the 1970s, China\u2019s increasing wealth and the renewed connectivity brought by new roads linking Nepal’s borderlands much more directly and tightly to China than Kathmandu, revitalised this centuries old norm.<\/p>\n

Along with these changing physical realities, local communities have also reimagined their place in the history of China-Nepal relations and understand their current occupations as following in the footsteps of their ancestors as borderland trading communities. \u201cThe new roads are primarily conceived of as ways back to what is remembered as prosperous trans-Himalayan exchange,\u201d Saxer writes. In other words, in the eyes of local communities, a rising and more internationally present China is not so much a disruption of the world order, but is facilitating a return to normality after a comparatively brief interlude.<\/p>\n

A case study of traders in Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan demonstrates a similar historical processes of a border region \u201cunder fuzzy sovereign rule\u201d closing its borders during the Cold War and then re-opening in the last thirty to forty years. Henryk Alff\u2019s study of the traders reveals that they often attempted to rekindle (perceived) historical ethnic allegiances across borders with, for example, Hui Muslims in China. One Dungan trader from Kyrgyzstan states, \u201csome of us had remote kinship ties with places in China where our ancestors originally came from.\u201d In the post-Soviet and rising China period, traders have been able to take advantage of these perceived cross-border common identities to facilitate deals and partnerships. It is another example of regional history re-imagined, which in turn informs how local people comprehend China\u2019s growing presence and interconnectivity on the continent.<\/p>\n

\n

\"Hilsa
Hilsa on the Nepal-Tibet border in Humla. Hilsa sits on the left bank and the huge immigration office on the right bank is China. (Photo: Nabin Baral)<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/figure>\n

China as threat\/China as opportunity<\/b><\/p>\n

This leads on to the second major theme in the book\u2019s case studies. Informed by local history and present day circumstances, communities all along China\u2019s border are divided in their perceptions of China as a threat or an opportunity.<\/p>\n

In Saxer\u2019s Nepal case study he provides an example of an embracing attitude towards China\u2019s presence. Moreover, it is a welcoming coming from local communities and a bottom-up approach, rather than via top-down government initiatives involving state owned companies, banks and political MOUs through which we normally make sense of China\u2019s presence abroad.<\/p>\n

In 2010 a former member of parliament and local to the northern border region of Humla pulled together local business people to form a Road Construction Committee, which lobbied Kathmandu to provide funding to build a road through the lesser used Limi valley to China. They were successful and, after securing funding from Kathmandu, also managed to reach an agreement with China to temporarily open the border through the valley for sales of diesel for the construction equipment. By the end of the year the first section of the road was complete, and a Chinese delegation even came to attend the inauguration ceremony.<\/p>\n

In another example, a study of Myanmar Muslim communities residing in Ruili in China\u2019s Yunnan province conducted by Renaud Egreteau between 2009 and 2012, reveals that to these communities China is seen as a refuge and a sanctuary compared to the situation they face at home. One of his Ruili-based Myanmar interviewees even says \u201cit\u2019s paradise here!\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, the history of Cold War suspicion, tension and conflict along China\u2019s Russian and Vietnamese borders do not wash away overnight. Two case studies of these borderlands show that a perception of China as a threat persists through to this day. A Vietnamese border trader interviewed by Juan Zhang in her study of the Lao Cai \u2013 Hekou border crossing says, \u201ceven now the Chinese are not much better than before\u2026One can never be too careful.\u201d<\/p>\n

Within countries there are of course also divided perspectives on China as threat or opportunity. These as yet unsettled perspectives played out in a number of high profile elections in 2018 in Malaysia, Sri Lanka and the Maldives. 2019 is likely to see more of this tension as more politicians, banks, constituents and other interest groups push back on some of the excesses of Chinese projects and work to establish national level strategies on how to interact (or how not to interact) with China and the Belt and Road. Elections in India and, in particular, Indonesia this year could display snapshots of this trend.<\/p>\n

What can we learn?<\/b><\/p>\n

The voices and the world views of communities experiencing and engaging in China\u2019s increasing global presence are an important part of the Belt and Road \u201cstory\u201d and the rapidly changing on-the-ground reality across Asia. For one, they represent world views that are often overlooked in mainstream coverage of China\u2019s influence abroad and the Belt and Road. While media often seek comment from local communities on their attitudes toward a specific project, it is rare to hear their take on the larger scale shifting reality or on such big questions as whether China is primarily conceived of as a threat or as an opportunity. As narratives on BRI become more and more polarised between the Beijing story and the Washington story, or the Brussels story, it is important not to forget the voices of those who are far more directly impacted by the transformational change BRI is bringing to some places.<\/p>\n

\"Chinese
Chinese flagged river boats tied up in the port in Chiang Saen, on the Mekong in Thailand. (Photo: Jack Kurtz)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But these local community voices are not just \u201ccolour\u201d for media stories. They are also agents in and of themselves. Saxer\u2019s fascinating case study of a local community proactively campaigning for infrastructure connectivity with China is a case in point. The agency of these local communities is also being played out at a very local level, in national elections and in the establishing of recipient country policies and strategies toward the Belt and Road.<\/p>\n

In a recent article on Euromoney<\/a><\/em>, Djiboutian minister of finance, Ilyas Moussa Dawaleh, stated \u201cwe have problems with the current Belt and Road narrative\u201d. His voice may represent that of a recipient country political elite, rather than the grassroots voices explored in The Art of Neighbouring<\/i>, but it points to the same problem \u2014 the current narratives of the Belt and Road too often overlook the diversity of agency playing out in its growth and development.<\/p>\n

The Art of Neighbouring<\/i> points a way towards a deeper and more complex understanding of China\u2019s growing presence and engagement on the Asian continent and of the dynamics playing out along the Belt and Road. For these reasons it is useful for all of us in the emerging \u201cBelt and Road watcher\u201d community. Even better will be more recent ethnographic studies of local communities\u2019 perspectives on China since the announcement of the Belt and Road in 2013. This watcher, for one, is waiting keenly for that.<\/p>\n

Tom Baxter works on climate communications and research at chinadialogue<\/a>. He is editor of Panda Paw Dragon Claw<\/a>, where this article was first published.<\/em><\/p>\n

Read: China’s new silk roads tie together 3 continents<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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