China/Europe and the Changing Global Order Seminar Series: Re-orienting global development: the multiscalar narratives of Chinese infrastructure investment in Europe

Co-hosted by the REDEFINE Project and the GCSJ Centre, this China/Europe and the Changing Global Order Seminar Series features:

Title:

'Re-orienting global development: the multiscalar narratives of Chinese infrastructure investment in Europe'

Speakers:

Giles Mohan, Ran Hu & Weiwei Chen

Abstract:

In the current conjuncture a core set of political narratives concern how the US and China confront one another across myriad scales and places, wherein Europe writ large is one of the principal regions where this plays out. Infrastructure becomes one of the material interventions that is ‘weaponised’ in these rival narratives. Narratives of China-Europe relations are often analysed at the geopolitical or national level, but what is missing are the ways in which local sites of Chinese intervention in Europe – in our case transport infrastructure projects - shape narratives. Yet infrastructures are complex spatial arrangements which are place-based, may involve forms of territorialisation, and are networked across space. Hence, we examine China-Europe narratives as ‘polymorphic’, involving other socio-spatial framings around territory, place and network. Together these analytical moves generate much more variegated and temporally unstable narratives. Through an analysis of three cases – focusing on Germany, Hungary, and Italy - we argue that large infrastructure projects can become conduits for wider narratives, or they are used strategically by political actor to leverage investments in spite of concerns at inter-national scales.

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