Locating the ‘South’ in China’s connectivity politics

Abstract

Chinese geographic imaginaries such as the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are increasingly treated as taken-for-granted political concepts. The political language pertaining to BRI now overlaps, and interacts with, established narratives of geographic space. In this analysis, we focus on Beijing’s diplomacy, as well as scholarly and official discourse, with the aim to locate Chinese representations of the ‘South’ or understanding(s) of ‘developing’ regions within what we describe as China’s global connectivity politics. In this context, we show that instead of developing a fixed perspective on the ‘South’, the idea of the ‘Global South’ or ‘South–South’ cooperation, Chinese discourse increasingly defines the ‘South’ based on countries’ responses to, or role within, Beijing’s political initiatives and regional dialogue platforms. The Chinese reconfiguration of the geographic scope of the South therefore extends to Central and Eastern Europe and, possibly, beyond. Beijing exerts discourse power by categorising countries of the ‘South’ as being located relationally to China. This reframing, or broadening, of the idea of the ‘South’ also produces a less dichotomous differentiation between developed and developing states (a dichotomy which Beijing tries to avoid).