A new paradigm of 'Chineseness'?

Year 2024, volume 15, number 2

A Call for Abstracts is open for volume 15, issue 2 (2024), whose subject section will be devoted to new meanings of Chinese identity.

Topics of the subject section of the issue

The end of the pandemic emergency in China and the country's full reopening to international trade seems to have ushered in a new phase in the long-suffering process of redefining Chinese identity. While the reform era (1978-2008) had proposed to the world an open and cosmopolitan idea of "Chineseness", in which the promises of an unstoppable rise on the global stage were combined with the willingness to accept the demands for representation and recognition of an increasingly openly plural Chinese society, shaken by rapid transformations also in cultural terms, the so-called New Era seems to have consolidated its narrative in a symbolic return to the unity and uniqueness of the Chinese experience.

In the political sphere, the teleocratic afflatus (according to Oakeshott's famous definition) inherent to the Leninist party-state is renewed, with an insistent call to 'remember the original mission' of the Chinese Communist Party, which is to be combined with the rebirth and full affirmation of a Chinese national identity that is as compact and unified as possible. This reorientation implies a rigorous monitoring and governance of all marginal and liminal Chinese identities: from ethnic, linguistic and religious minorities to political and cultural ones, including the chaotic universe of the Chinese diaspora. In the cultural field, an increasingly overtly prescriptive vision of the Chinese nation is emerging, conceived as a community of destiny defined in ethnic, linguistic, and historical terms that leave no room for further declinations, alternative interpretations, or cautious academic distinctions.

This redefinition process of the Chinese national identity paradigm goes hand in hand with a growing sense of political and cultural isolation. Signs of this can be seen, for example, in the sharp reduction in the presence of foreign students and scholars, particularly Westerners, as well as expatriate professionals and long-term residents in China, if only compared to ten years ago. In a country historically characterised by very low levels of foreign immigration, this further contraction stands in sharp contrast to the role it has long played as a leading global political player in the diplomatic and economic fields.

This issue of OrizzonteCina therefore aims to explore the possible formation of a new paradigm of 'Chineseness' and the implications of this identity-political construct within and beyond the borders of the People's Republic of China. The issue welcomes previously unpublished articles that offer an original contribution on issues related to these implications, referring in particular (but not exclusively) to the following areas:

New identity narratives:

• focused on the definition of the Chinese nation and those who are called to be part of it;
• declined in a proactively assimilatory sense, both towards China's ethnic minorities and Chinese linguistic diversity (repression of the fangyan and related dialects);
• understood in a militant political sense, i.e. as the mobilisation of members of the CCP and society at large for the sake of greater national awareness;
• combined with the development of nationalist, nativist and racialising language in political communication, media and academic publications.

Institutional implications:

• reformulation and reorganisation of the political-administrative bodies responsible for the protection and governance of minorities and the promotion of a national consciousness in politics and society;
• preservation of interpretation and narrative correctness in the political, communicative and academic spheres;
• fostering curricula focused on the promotion of a new Chinese national identity in education at every level and in every Chinese context, including autonomous regions and the sphere of overseas Chinese;
• discursive practices related to national and local processes of supporting or opposing the development of a new Chinese national identity paradigm.

The Editorial Board invites authors who wish to contribute to the discussion on these issues to send their abstracts to orizzontecina@tochina.it by April 15, 2024. Along with the abstract, please indicate which type of article you intend to propose, among those hosted by OrizzonteCina, should your abstract be accepted.

Authors whose abstracts will be accepted can find the editorial policy for subsequent essay writing, along with information on the peer-review process, on the journal website.

The processing schedule for this issue of OrizzonteCina includes the following deadlines:

15/04/2024 - submission of abstracts in reaction to this Call for abstracts

20/04/2024 - communication of the decision on abstracts

30/09/2024 - submission of the paper and start of the peer-review process

31/10/2024 - communication of peer-review process outcomes

December 2024 - digital release of the issue.

Please note that OrizzonteCina welcomes submissions on topics of interest to the journal outside the call for abstracts. Proposals for individual essays can be submitted at any point throughout the year by sending an abstract to orizzontecina@tochina.it. Along with the abstract, please indicate which type of article you intend to propose, should your abstract be accepted, among those published by OrizzonteCina and mentioned above.

 

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China as an international development actor

Year 2024, volume 15, number 1

A Call for abstracts is open for Volume 15, Number 1 (2024), whose subject section will be devoted to China's role as an international development actor

Themes of the subject section of the issue

Ten years after the launch of the new Silk Roads, China has gained prominence in the landscape of international development initiatives, particularly those focused on the role of major infrastructure in promoting economic growth objectives. Projects sponsored by Beijing-controlled financial institutions and often assigned to Chinese companies have become commonplace in the landscape of infrastructure development measures taken in wide areas of the globe, from Southeast Asia to Eastern Europe, from sub-Saharan Africa to South America. Often, Chinese initiatives have inherited designs long cradled by multilateral financial institutions (World Bank above all) and the political and economic elites of the recipient countries.

Regardless of its genesis, China's growing role in this area is bound to have systemic implications in considerable areas of the globe. These implications touch on both tangible dimensions (e.g., financial flows to support development projects; social and ecological impacts of the same) and institutional ones, that is, relating to the rules, social norms, and value systems underlying a given vision of development and its practical declinations. This issue of OrizzonteCina aims to explore these implications. The issue welcomes unpublished papers that offer original contributions on issues related to these implications, referring particularly (but not exclusively) to the following areas:

• Tangible implications:
  
  • Mapping the presence and distribution of Chinese development investment;
  • Impacts on environmental, social and economic sustainability of recipient systems, at the national and/or local level.
• Institutional implications: 
  • Mapping of decision-making processes employed in the project selection, formulation, and authorization phase;
  • Impacts on infrastructure project governance structures and processes in recipient countries, with a focus on frameworks for infrastructure project approval and management (e.g., land-use and environmental planning processes);
  • Interaction with local political processes, including processes of (a) consensus building and (b) resistance and creation of alternative development visions by civil society members;
  • Discursive practices embedded in local processes of support (or opposition) to China-promoted infrastructure development projects.