THE EVERYDAY GEOECONOMICS OF CHINA’S BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE IN FIJI: ENTREPRENEURIAL ENCOUNTERS ALONG THE MARITIME SILK ROAD

This dissertation examines how global political economic pivots impress upon everyday encounters between Chinese and Fijians in Fiji. Made visible through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), China’s imprint overseas has been at the forefront of such shifts. BRI is a transnational initiative to restructure flows of trade and financial governance with “people-to-people” interactions at its core. Encompassing the land-based Silk Road Economic Belt and the ocean-based 21st century Maritime Silk Road (MSR), the initiative links China and the world through a series of infrastructure corridors. Global commentary and scholarship on the BRI is divided. It is often presented as a policy to buttress China’s bid for world hegemony, or as an alternative financing opportunity for emerging economies. In the field of geoeconomics, broadly defined as the strategic use of economic tools to achieve state goals, this increasingly normalized binary narrative overshadows a more nuanced appraisal of a globalizing China, particularly in regards to the movement of Chinese people. This dissertation denaturalizes such binaries through an examination of grounded responses to the Belt and Road Initiative among Fijian and Chinese entrepreneurs in Fiji. By foregrounding peopled accounts over empowered knowledge producers, I demonstrate how a diverse range of non-state actors implement an “everyday geoeconomics” that leverages their own interests within the global political economy. I define “everyday geoeconomics” as the strategic actions deployed by non-state actors to achieve non-state goals within state-led and transnational economic initiatives. In doing so, I contribute conceptual and methodological tools for scholars to better address the geoeconomics of BRI in the Pacific and beyond.

I focus on encounters between Fijians and Chinese entrepreneurs in the context of the MSR in Fiji. The emphasis on non-state actors in Fiji offers new perspectives on Chinese presence in Oceania. To date, analysis of renewed Chinese interest in Fiji has centered on the regional strategic anxieties of external powers, such as the United States and Australia. This dissertation reverses the scale of analysis to the local exposing a contested field of interests between civil society, the state, and the private sector in Fiji on “Chinese presence.” Since 2005, economic relations between China and Fiji have deepened, while the local response among Fijians has become increasingly conflicted. Host community anxieties over the direct benefits of Chinese economic interventions and presence is contrasted with the anticipated boon of increasing private investment and state-funded infrastructure construction. However, the motivations and outlook of Chinese companies and new migrants in Fiji are frequently subsumed into statist discourses on China. In sum, reliance on analyses that privilege great power competition overlooks the local power competition that plays an important role in determining perceptions of “China in Oceania.” To reflect grounded views, I draw on semi-structured and unstructured interviews among members of civil society, state officials, and private sector actors from the Chinese, Fiji Chinese, iTaukei, and Indo-Fijian communities. These interviews, as well as participant and non-participant observations, were predominately conducted in Suva during four fieldwork visits from 2017 to 2021; however, I traveled across the Fijian Islands speaking to a variety of actors and visiting multiple entrepreneurial sites. Additionally, I draw on a critical discourse analysis of over 2,000 media articles, government documents, and digital media from 2014-2022.

This research contests the naturalized geostrategic objectives of the BRI and reveals how grounded views are significant sites of challenge for “geoeconomic” strategy. Further, it critically engages with statist analyses of China’s economic initiatives to highlight the political importance of local scale actors directly impacted by Chinese presence, as well as the transnational spatiality of the Chinese economy and embodied responses to these interventions by rescaling our appreciation of global economic shifts. The work contributes to emerging scholarship on the influence of the everyday geopolitical encounters of China’s Belt and Road Initiative as well as the political geography of the Pacific, and Chinese presence in Oceania.