Contenu du sommaire : Facets of Global China

In 2018, the Chinese government established the National Immigration Administration, the country's first national-level agency dedicated to immigration affairs. Relying on policy analysis and expert interviews, this article examines to what extent the arrival of the NIA and the first years of its operation signal a new state approach to immigration, so far characterised by a narrow focus on exit-entry management and control. While the NIA is normalising a more comprehensive state discourse on immigration, its dependent position within the Chinese bureaucracy and the continued sensitivity of China's young status as an immigrant destination country hinder more fundamental reforms.

Commercial interests in China's foreign aid projects are widely recognised in the literature. Yet, the role of the Chinese companies involved in such activities remains understudied. Piecing together information from primary sources, this article retells the story of China's overseas development engagements from the perspective of China's international contracting industry, the history of which is closely intertwined with China's foreign aid practices. Identified by the state to be a strategic vehicle for exporting Chinese labour, industrial products, technology, management skills, and capital, international construction contractors (ICECs) have received substantial policy support and have grown into prominent multinational corporations with global footprints. I use the concept of the “aid-contracting nexus” to highlight the linkage between China's economic diplomacy and domestic economic development strategy. The “aid-contracting nexus” provides a critical lens for analysing China's overseas development engagements, including why it has focused primarily on infrastructure, and the conceptual confusion over China's development finance. This analysis also speaks to the popular accusations that Chinese lending practices are predatory or “debt-trapping” by underscoring mercantilist logic as an alternative explanation. The evolving business model if ICECs is likely to pose new challenges for China's foreign relations.

In recent years, the All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU), the only trade union legally allowed in China, has become increasingly assertive on the international stage. Successive amendments to its constitution demand that the ACFTU not only assist the Chinese authorities in pushing forward the Belt and Road Initiative, but also reshape the current order of the international labour movement. Through the testimonies of local trade unionists, this paper examines how the ACFTU is attempting to achieve these goals in Cambodia, a country with large inflows of Chinese investment. The article will show that the Chinese trade union in Cambodia consistently engages with local Cambodian government-aligned actors that are usually neglected by the international labour movement, providing them with material assistance and opportunities to travel abroad. It argues that the impact of these activities should not be dismissed, as their alignment with the illiberal agenda of the Cambodian authorities and the priorities of employers has the potential to drastically change the landscape of trade unionism in Cambodia.

Our paper examines the relationship between Chinese gambling capital, workplace exploitation, and labour migration. Focusing on Philippine online gambling and Zambian onsite casinos, we argue that the gambling sector's capital accumulation relies on the “linguistic labour” provided by Chinese workers to facilitate online or onsite communication between the players and the firms. Chinese-funded gambling firms continually need to import Chinese workers through a combination of legal and illegal channels. After migrating, workers are disempowered from seeking outside remediation due to connections between the firms and the host state's elites, and because of gambling's illegal status in China. Firms can unilaterally increase working hours and impose unfair workplace arrangements on Chinese workers. Gambling capital's reliance on the linguistic labour of workers and the industry's murky legal status open up avenues for exploitation and multiple sites of extraction for Chinese capital.

This paper explores the changing nature of Chinese engagement abroad in the scrap business. Based on primary sources and interviews conducted by the author, it identifies the factors that, at different times, led Chinese scrap dealers and recyclers to extend the scope of their professional activity beyond the borders of their home country. Drawing on recent scholarship in discard studies, the author argues that it is necessary to move beyond the environmental dumping narrative in order to better understand Chinese national policy and its implications. This narrative serves as the main official justification for the bans on imports of recyclable waste that the central government adopted in recent years. However, there is good reason to believe that, by adopting a highly restrictive stance on the international waste trade, the central government sought first and foremost to bolster the municipal solid waste management sector within China. In turn, official support for domestic industrial players makes it possible for some Chinese corporations to emerge as providers of waste collection and recycling services at the international level. The trend, described in the paper, has already begun. It marks a shift from globalisation from below to globalisation from above.