ABSTRACT
Since Xi Jinping came to power, China has converted into a pro-activist architect of the international order coupled with a huge dose of self-confidence. As President Xi emphasized at the 13th National People’s Congress in March 2018: “China will continue to actively participate in the reform and construction of the global governance system, contribute more Chinese wisdom, Chinese proposals, and Chinese strength to the world.” Thus, Xi’s China aims to take initiatives, sets the agenda in bilateral as well as multilateral relations and wants others to respect the Chinese perspective of global politics. The most prominent example for this development is China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). BRI is not an expression of the EU model for regional governance. It operates with differing notions of geographic or functionalist space not bound to a rather fixed understanding of (world) regions; the reference of economic corridors, transit regions (or cities), the creation of economic hubs or technical ecosystems underscores the introduction of a distinct spatial language — and once they are all interconnected — the (potential) practice of new geographic imaginaries. Godehardt and Kohlenberg engage with a critical geopolitical perspective asking how China’s foreign policy under Xi Jinping makes geography; or, in other words, how it spatializes international politics. Hence, the authors highlight the relation between politics, discourse and space, particularly how the Chinese discourse on BRI organizes the space of international politics and (potentially) produces a new meta-geography.
