 |
China's increasingly assertive role on the global stage and robust engagement in development activities around the world have attracted a lot of attention lately.
Large-scale infrastructure projects, mining or manufacturing operations, construction of dams and power plants, building of roads, bridges, railways, hospitals and housing, funding of special economic zones or agribusinesses indeed rank high on the agenda of Chinese state and non-state actors alike.
Large-scale infrastructure projects, mining or manufacturing operations, construction of dams and power plants, building of roads, bridges, railways, hospitals and housing, funding of special economic zones or agribusinesses indeed rank high on the agenda of Chinese state and non-state actors alike.
In Western media and academic circles, especially the countless initiatives on the African continent have been in the spotlight. Over the last few years, a real cottage industry of publications on China's footprint in Africa has emerged, only recently being superseded by a series of books on Chinese investments in Latin America.
Commentators have been and still are divided, not knowing exactly what to make of the bewildering scale and diversity of the Chinese spending spree abroad and how to assess its overall impact. Many critics were eager to denounce the no-strings-attached approach favoured by the Chinese state in starkly moral tones.
In the same vein, China has been depicted as an aggressive neocolonial power with no regard whatsoever for cherished Western notions of transparency, good governance, respect for human rights, labour protection or environmental standards. China, on the other hand, has portrayed the vigorous and multi-faceted ventures of state-controlled giants as well as private entrepreneurs as mutually beneficial arrangements and strongly objected to accusations of neocolonialism.
The debate has often been reduced to deeply flawed ideological clashes and oversimplified assertions, not taking into account the heterogeneity of Chinese actors or the many pitfalls of conventional Western interventions.
Steadily, China's overseas activities and foreign aid have come to surpass or substitute for that of Western players, especially in those parts of the world where these were no longer willing to go or never went in the first place (such as fragile states, volatile regions, countries with corrupt regimes, for instance).
A good starting point for anyone curious about the many intricacies of China's development projects in foreign countries might be the blog Exporting China's Development to the World. A MqVu Project on China's Aid Investment and Migration. The intro reads:
'MqVU is a team of anthropologists based at Macquarie University (Sydney, Australia) and the Free University (VU, Amsterdam, the Netherlands) who research China’s development projects around the world. This site is intended as an aggregator of news and a platform for discussion on these projects, as well as China's domestic development issues.'
Started in 2008, the site provides in-depth information, lengthy and no-nonsense critical commentaries, book reviews, conference reports and astute newspaper analyses. Thankfully and unusually, Chinese-language sources and perspectives play a major role in discussing various development projects worldwide.
Coverage tends to concentrate on African-Chinese relations and investments on the African continent, but the situation in regions as diverse as Russia's Far East, Hungary, Libya, North Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Burma, Malaysia, Ecuador or Afghanistan is addressed, too.
The writing is exceptionally good and easily accessible to non-experts. Although the blog is updated only sporadically that doesn't diminish its value. Noteworthy is also the extensive list of links to relevant English- and Chinese-language sites.
The writing is exceptionally good and easily accessible to non-experts. Although the blog is updated only sporadically that doesn't diminish its value. Noteworthy is also the extensive list of links to relevant English- and Chinese-language sites.
By the way, the site's spiritus rector (I presume) and most prolific author, Pál Nyíri, holds the chair 'Global History from an Anthropological Perspective' at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam and is a respected China scholar with many years of experience in fieldwork (and a very nice guy, too, I would like to add).
Currently, he is working on a new book on how Chinese correspondents report about the world, so watch out for the forthcoming release by The University of Washington Press.
Talking about Chinese global development and investment policies: The New York Times just published a well-researched and detailed case study of China's substantial and rather controversial engagement in Ecuador (available in English, Chinese and Spanish) as part of the ongoing series 'The China Factor'.
No comments:
Post a Comment