Internationalisation of the Chinese subnational state and capital: the case of Yunnan and the Greater Mekong Subregion

Abstract

This article examines the participation of China's Yunnan Province in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) in order to understand the dynamics behind the regionalisation and internationalisation strategies adopted by a Chinese subnational state. It argues that the Yunnan case demonstrates the outflow of state capital—both national and provincially based—to have been instrumental in harnessing Beijing's and Kunming's political support for programs of subregional economic cooperation. This political support has led to a state capital alliance underpinning the economic expansion of provincial state capital into the GMS. It also argues that subregional governance arrangements, such as those featuring in the GMS, embed the competitive advantage of state capital through new forms of extra-territorial governance that ostensibly de-emphasises the political dimensions of state capital. The internationalisation of Yunnan subnational state is reflected in its political strategy of subregional governance. These changes point to complex rescaling of not just national state but also subnational states in Asia that find expression in variegated regional and subregional political projects.

Keywords:

• China
• geoeconomics
• Greater Mekong Subregion
• regionalism
• South-East Asia
• Yunnan

Notes

1. The authors wish to thank Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente, Shahar Hameiri, Jeffrey Wilson, two anonymous reviewers and participants at the workshop on Regionalisation, Regionalism and the Rescaling of Economic Governance in Asia, held at Murdoch University in October 2013. They also acknowledge the support of the Indo-Pacific Governance Research Centre at the University of Adelaide in facilitating this research.