Coexistence or competition for resources? Transboundary transformations of natural resource use in China’s neighborhood

Abstract

Over the past three decades, rural places along China’s land borders have faced interconnected processes of socio-political, economic, and ecological change. These changes, along with an increase in transboundary investment by actors from China in infrastructure on the one hand, and in agriculture and resource extraction on the other, are locally met with a combination of suspicion, fear, and desire for future prosperity. This special issue scrutinizes these dynamics in extractive sectors, particularly agriculture, the plantation industry, and mining, in the context of transboundary processes that can be conceptualized as “neighboring”. With an array of qualitative and ethnographic methods and case studies from borderlands in North, Central, South and Southeast Asia that are rarely thought of together, the six articles of this special issue provide a unique perspective on “China’s rise” in Asia that goes beyond schematical geopolitical and macro-economic accounts of the ‘Belt and Road Initiative.‘ This introduction to the special issue discusses the key insights and arguments it brings forward and calls for (a) more comparative research on transboundary natural resource use in China’s neighborhood and (b) more holistic and multi-scalar research perspectives to make sense of the complex dynamics on the ground.