Encountering and Experiencing the Geopolitics of Tourism (Im)Mobilities: A Case of China’s Tourism in the South China Sea

Abstract

ABSTRACT This research examines the geopolitical entanglements of China’s tourism in the South China Sea (SCS) and the geopolitical implications of uneven mobility rights on tourists’ geopolitical subjectivation. We show that maritime territorialisation in the SCS is mobile and constituted by tourism mobilities. However, although tourism mobility control constitutes and performs state territorialisation, it also generates unsatisfied internal bordering effects. We reveal that uneven mobility rights premised on territorial geopolitics are unevenly experienced by tourists. Within the contemporary deeply embedded structure of the territory-nation-state, mobility governance, hierarchy, inequity, and unevenness driven by national interests, security, and secrecy are widely accepted and taken for granted. The encounters and affective engagements of tourism mobility regulations in the SCS, intersecting with everyday experiences of mobility hierarchies as well as state geopolitical processes, contribute to shaping individuals’ geopolitical identity. This promotes the internalisation of the contemporary mobility regime and facilitates the naturalisation of state geopolitical competitions. By exploring the geopolitical experiences of selective mobility control and its geopolitical effects on tourists, this research sheds light on the uneven political spatiality of everyday tourism mobilities and offers a more nuanced and intimate understanding of the geopolitics of tourism (im)mobilities at the micro-scale.