Governing the Extraterritorial: Global Environmentalities of China’s Green Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

This article proposes a global environmentality framework to critique efforts to “green” the Belt and Road Initiative (or Green BRI) by examining the Chinese state’s environmental governance of extraterritorial spaces. The article transcends a focus within governmentality studies on domestic processes to reveal the relations between governance techniques and environmental subjects, including state and nonstate actors, beyond sovereign borders. Drawing on interviews, observations, and analysis of policies and reports, we identify three ways in which global environmentalities operate and are negotiated through the Green BRI. First, the Chinese state is embracing international sustainable development criteria to gain global legitimacy while seeking to export its domestic environmental governance model, making the Green BRI a dialectic policy. Second, the state is targeting and disciplining BRI participants, including Chinese financial institutions, construction companies, the renewable industry, and foreign state actors in BRI countries. Third, Chinese and BRI partner country participants’ variegated subjectivities arise out of the negotiation of their own interests, Chinese state interests, and BRI host country concerns. Our analysis contributes to understanding of how China, as a rising power, engages in global environmental governance and produces extraterritorial environmental subjects.

本文提出了全球环境主义框架, 在此框架下研究中国政府对域外空间的环境治理, 评判了“绿化”“一带一路”倡议(绿色“一带一路”倡议)。本文超越国内治理术研究, 涵盖了主权国界之外的国家和非国家行为者, 揭示了治理技术与环境主体之间的关系。通过采访、观察、政策和报告分析, 本文确定了全球环境主义的运作、基于绿色“一带一路”倡议进行协商的三种方式。首先, 中国政府正在接受可持续发展国际标准, 以获得全球合法性, 并寻求输出国内环境治理模式, 使绿色“一带一路”倡议成为一项辩证的政策。第二, 中国正在针对并约束“一带一路”倡议的参与者, 包括中国金融机构、建筑公司、可再生能源企业、“一带一路”倡议国家的外国行为者。第三, 中国和“一带一路”倡议伙伴国的各种主观性, 源自于自身利益、中国利益和“一带一路”倡议东道国考量的谈判。我们的分析有助于理解中国作为一个新兴大国, 如何参与全球环境治理并带来域外环境问题。

Este artículo propone un marco global de la ambientalidad para criticar los esfuerzos orientados a “reverdecer” la Iniciativa de la Franja y de la Ruta (es decir, una BRI Verde), examinando la gobernanza ambiental de los espacios extraterritoriales del Estado chino. El artículo trasciende el enfoque dentro de los estudios de gobernabilidad sobre los procesos domésticos para revelar las relaciones entre las técnicas de gobernanza y los sujetos ambientales, incluyendo los actores estatales y no estatales, más allá de las fronteras soberanas. A partir de entrevistas, observaciones y análisis de políticas e informes, identificamos tres maneras como operan y se negocian las ambientalidades globales a lo largo de la BRI Verde. Primero, el Estado chino se encuentra adoptando criterios internacionales de desarrollo sustentable para ganar legitimidad global, al tiempo que busca exportar su modelo de gobernanza ambiental doméstica, convirtiendo la BRI Verde en una política dialéctica. Segundo, el Estado persigue y disciplina a los participantes en la BRI, incluso las instituciones financieras chinas, las compañías constructoras, las industrias renovables y los agentes estatales extranjeros en los países de la BRI. Tercero, las variadas subjetividades de los participantes chinos y de los países asociados con la BRI surgen de la negociación de sus propios intereses, los intereses del Estado chino y de las preocupaciones de los países anfitriones de la BRI. Nuestro análisis contribuye a entender cómo China, como potencia en ascenso, se compromete con la gobernanza ambiental global y produce sujetos ambientales de carácter extraterritorial.

Key Words:

• Belt and Road Initiative
• China
• environment
• global governance
• governmentality

关键词:

• “一带一路”倡议
• 中国
• 环境
• 全球治理
• 治理术

Palabras clave:

• China
• entorno ambiental
• gobernanza global
• gobermentalidad
• Iniciativa de la Franja y de la Ruta

Disclosure Statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest. Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no data sets were generated or analyzed during this study.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Xiaofeng Liu

XIAOFENG LIU is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore, Kent Ridge, Singapore, 117570. E-mail: [email protected]. Her research interests include the Belt and Road Initiative, infrastructure development, borders, and sustainability.

Mia M. Bennett

MIA M. BENNETT is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195. E-mail: [email protected]. She is also a Visiting Fellow at the Center for Apocalyptic and Post-Apocalyptic Studies, Heidelberg University. Her research interests include the Arctic, infrastructure development, and critical remote sensing.