Department of Anthropology Universitas Gadjah Mada invites all academic civitas to join the visiting lecture from Prof. Dr. Timothy Oakes (Dept. of Geography, University of Colorado Boulder) about “Global China and Infrastructure Power: the technopolitics of the ‘China Model’ of development”.
The lecture will be held on May 28th, 2026 from 15.30 to 17.00 WIB at Room Soegondo 709, Faculty of Cultural Sciences UGM.
This lecture is open for public, students are encourage to attend.
Abstract:
China’s expansive engagements beyond its borders over the past decade have resulted in increased scholarly attention to the idea of ‘global China.’ While there is a broad range of activities inherent in this term – including construction investments, digital technologies, development finance, and soft-power projects – popular conceptions of global China tend to focus on the signature policy initiative of the Xi administration: the Belt & Road (BRI). Yet there is a significant disconnect between the policy narratives of the BRI and what China actually does as a development actor in specific places around the world. This presentation outlines an alternative framework for analyzing global China, deriving from the concept of infrastructure power, which posits that state power in China is, at least in part, constituted through the construction of dams, highways, railroads, power plants, electricity grids, wireless technologies, ecological environments, and other socio-technical forms known collectively as ‘infrastructure.’ This is a form of power that China seeks to wield beyond its borders as well. Yet, the technopolitical analytic explored in the presentation reveals the ways that such power does not itself emerge from “the state”. Instead, state power is co-constituted through infrastructural configurations, meaning that the projects driving China’s expansion beyond its borders often produce outcomes that are unintended, unpredictable, and even counter-productive to Beijing’s strategic interests.
