China’s double body: infrastructure routes and the mapping of China’s nation-state and civilization-state

ABSTRACT

In contemporary China, there are two cartographies that underlie geographical imaginations of China’s political, economic, and cultural nature. The first is the geobody, a bordered notion of the state that stresses national territorial integrity and draws attention to historical territorial transgressions. The second is the civilization-state, a cartography that stresses extensive civilizational connection over national borders and which draws from China’s ancient cosmopolitan heritage and projected developmental future. This article analyzes the cartographies and attendant discourses of the geobody and civilization-state as iconic representations that speak to different ontologies of China. Analyzing China’s double body reveals two drastically different expectations about borders and infrastructure connectivity. Today and in the early years of the Chinese nation, maps of China’s internal railway network have supported nationalist calls for territorial security and promoted the idea of the Chinese geobody. Contemporary maps of the civilization-state, however, stress an unbounded China looking to enrich its neighbors through cultural exchange, road and railway expansion, and Belt and Road Initiative infrastructural connection. This article argues that these cartographies are not reducible to one another and that geographers should take seriously the affective work of maps beyond that of the geobody in critical geopolitical analysis.

Abbreviation: BRI: Belt and Road Initiative

KEYWORDS:

• China
• Silk Road
• BRI
• railways
• cartography
• critical geopolitics

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank John Agnew, Tim Oakes, and three anonymous reviewers for their constructive and insightful feedback.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. In contemporary China it is common to find the terms Silk Road (sichou zhi lu) and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) (yidai yilu) used together. The former has a more evocative and descriptive potential than the latter, which describes policy initiatives. Chinese media, policy documents, and scholars have promoted BRI over One Belt One Road as the English translation of yidai yilu in recent years to stress its global reach.

2. Discussion at the ^American Association of Geographers in New Orleans on 12 April 2018.