Description
Book SynopsisIn the 21st century, governments around the globe are faced with the question on how to tackle new migratory mobilities. Governments increasingly become aware of irregular immigration and are forced to re-negotiate the dilemma of open but secure borders. Rethinking Authority in China’s Border Regime: Regulating the Irregular investigates the Chinese government’s response to this phenomenon. Hence, this book presents a comprehensive analysis of the Chinese border regime. It explores the regulatory framework of border mobility in China by analysing laws, institutions, and discourses as part of an ethnographic border regime analysis. It argues that the Chinese state deliberately creates ‘zones of exception’ along its border. In these zones, local governments function as ‘scalar managers’ that establish cross-border relations to facilitate cross-border mobility and create local migration systems that build on their own notion of legality by issuing locally valid border documents. The book presents an empirically rich story of how border politics are implemented and theoretically contributes to debates on territoriality and sovereignty as well as to the question of how authority is exerted through border management. Empirically, the analysis builds on two case studies at the Sino-Myanmar and Sino-North Korean borders to illustrate how local practices are embedded in multiscalar mobility regulation including regional organizations such as the Greater Mekong Subregion and the Greater Tumen Initiative.
Trade Review"Certainly, I will be referencing
Rethinking Authority in my own writing. Having been immersed in borderland studies for about a decade, and China studies for considerably longer, I found
Rethinking Authority offering frequent – and useful – insights and information on border regimes and regulations."
- Hasan H. Karrar,
China Perspectives, No. 2022/2
"Drawing upon field work, Franziska Plümmer takes on these evolving issues within a broader matrix of borderland studies and demonstrates an impressive range within the social sciences...This is a valuable book overall, recommended to scholars of China’s borderlands, border and migration studies generally, and the burgeoning discourse on rights for migrants."
- Adam Cathcart,
The China Quarterly, Vol. 251, September 2022
Table of ContentsList of Maps, Tables, and Figures
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
1 Introduction
Multiple Borders – Tracking the Border down
Contextualizing Chinese Border Politics in the Making
On Border Regimes, Sovereignty, and Immigration
Methodological Reflections
Map of the Book
2 Border Authority and Zoning Technologies
Border as a Method of Investigation
Territorial Governmentality and Zoning Technologies
Self-regulation and Self-responsibility in China’s Neo-socialist Governmentality
3 Graduated Citizenship and Social Control in China’s Immigration System
The Power to Choose
Characteristics of the Chinese Immigration System
Labelling Immigrants: Differentiating Legal Authority and Control over Immigrants
Rationalities of the Chinese Immigration System
4 Making Border Politics : State Actors & Security in the Chinese Border Regime
Locating Border Security Control: Externalization/Internalization
State Configurations in Border Politics
Defending the Border: Security Enforcement
Internal Border Security: Developing Border Areas from Within
Policing at Distance and Local Exceptions
5 Re-Scaling Territorial Authority within Regional Organizations
From Left behind to Bridging the Gap: Re-scaling the Chinese State
Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)
Greater Tumen Initiative (GTI)
Zoning through Development
6 Local Bordering Practices and Zoning Technologies
Southwest: Dehong and Xishuangbanna Prefecture/Yunnan Province
Northeast: Yanbian Prefecture/Jilin Province
Legality as a Selective, Conditional, and Locally Bound Privilege
7 Conclusion — Authority in the Chinese Border Regime
Special Border Zones: Normalizing Local Exceptions
The Role of Local Governments in China’s Border Management
Border as a Method of Social Control: Graduated Citizenship in China’s Immigration System
Border as a Method of Spatial Development: Territoriality and Centre-Periphery Relations
References
Appendix A: Institutional Architecture of Yunnan Province in the GMS
Appendix B: Institutional Architecture of Jilin Province in the GTI
Glossary
Index
