Cooperative control and the governance of cross-border trade in Chinese border cities

ABSTRACT

One essential question in the literature on trade governance concerns the relationship between state and non-state actors. This paper addresses the question by focusing on how the Chinese state deploys a strategy of cooperative control to govern cross-border trade with Myanmar. We identify three terrains of trade affairs – traffic flows, cross-border payment and anti-smuggling – which correspond to three modes of governance – active cooperation, acquiescence and compromise. It is found that the more the Chinese state cooperates to facilitate cross-border trade with Myanmar, the harder its unilateral crackdown on smuggling, showing the coordinative and coercive nature of state power to selectively cooperate with other actors. In the domain of cross-border trade, the Chinese state exercises cooperative control to forge network governance not in response to market dysfunction and state failure, but to overcome structural conditions brought by the territorial border between China and Myanmar. By analysing cooperative control at the border, this paper’s contribution is to overcome the government versus governance dualism, and shed light on innovative strategies in spatial and administrative orchestration aiming to facilitate legal trade and deter illegal trade at the border.

KEYWORDS:

• trade governance
• border politics
• China
• Myanmar
• cooperative control
• cross-border trade

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors greatly appreciate the detailed comments of the reviewers and editors. Any remaining errors are the authors’ own responsibility.

DISCLOSURE STATEMENT

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This paper uses the term ‘non-state actors’ rather than ‘private sectors’. Non-state actors are those who do not assume official functions in a government or a system of state bureaucracy. The line between ‘non-state’ and ‘state’ actors, however, can be blurred in some contexts.

2 Myanmar refers to the name of the country after 1989; Burma refers to earlier periods. The terms Myanmar and Burma simply follow the official stance.

3 See http://www.yn.chinanews.com/news/2019/0222/49363.html/.

4 US$1 ≈ 6.48 RMB yuan (14 August 2021).

5 See http://www.rl.gov.cn/gxj/Web/_F0_0_28D069C6B13NLETZ5QCPNLN1SC.htm/.

6 See https://www.mmtimes.com/business/14288-traders-yuan-der-about-china-exchange.html/.

7 Interview with a respondent from the Ruili Police Department.

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant numbers 41829101, 42071182 and 42071191].