Papers (Part 1)

• Engaging Backwardness: Tai Lue Youth and the Transformation of the Frontier in Southwest China Roger Casas Austrian Academy of Sciences

  Since the start of the ‘Reform and Opening-up’ period in late-1970s China, Sipsong Panna (Ch.: Xishuangbanna), a small frontier prefecture in southwest of Yunnan Province, has become an important tourist spot as well as a key trade hub in the Economic Quadrangle, and is at present one of the fastest-developing areas in the ‘Thai-Yunnan Borderlands’ (Tapp 2010). Thanks to their ancient cultural connections with populations in countries of mainland Southeast Asia and to the commodification of their Buddhist traditions, the Tai Lue (Ch.: Daizu), previously the socially and politically dominant group in the region, are at the centre of these transformations.

  This paper takes an ethnographically informed look at the demands imposed by tradition and modernity upon the Tai Lue of Sipsong Panna, through a focus on the aspirations and multicultural experiences of local youth. As citizens of the People’s Republic, and through their participation in public education and social media, these youngsters are expected to become civilized consumers in a globalization ‘with Chinese characteristics.’ While partially responding to such expectations, Tai Lue youngsters actively engage in the construction of their own idiosyncratic forms of ‘being modern,’ relocating value in their localities and rejecting or outright ignoring claims of cultural inferiority. Beyond an alleged conflict between essentialized forms of economic and political identity, this presentation offers a dynamic picture of emerging and perhaps transitory ‘structures of feeling’ (Williams 1977) among Tai Lue youth in a context of rapid and profound change.

• “If I Learn Chinese, I’ll Never Be out of a Job”: Encountering China in Luang Prabang Phill Wilcox Bielefeld University

  China in Laos is a subject on which everyone in Laos seemingly has an opinion. Often these are expressed in very binary terms, with China placed as an almost neo-colonial power seeking to take over more of the territory of Laos. These stereotypes tell us something of popular perceptions but on closer reflection, they obscure as much or more than they demonstrate. Many of the same critical voices of China in Laos look to China as a developed country, seek to learn Chinese and study or work in China. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in and around Luang Prabang, this paper argues that local encounters with China in Laos are far more nuanced, pragmatic and ambivalent than they often first appear. It contends that while this is not a relationship of economic equals, China is taking an increasingly prominent role in the landscape of Laos both in ways that are tangible and intangible, and that life decisions among particularly Lao youth are made increasingly in relation to China. This will become increasingly apparent as China’s presence and influence in Laos becomes even more of a reality with the coming Lao-China Railway. This paper seeks to interrogate critically the binary ways that people describe interactions with China, arguing that a detailed consideration of local perceptions of China in Laos demonstrates a nuanced, sometimes contradictory and emerging picture of reworking identities and aspirations on the ground in Laos.

• “Soon, We Might Be Part of Southern China!”: Cross-Border Traders’ Engagements with “the Chinese” Along the Kunming-Bangkok Highway Simon Rowedder National University of Singapore

  Constituting parts of the “Kunming-Bangkok Highway”, northern Thailand and northern Laos have been witnessing an ever-growing Chinese geo-economic presence, ranging from large-scale resource extraction, Special Economic Zones (SEZs), increasingly Chinese landscapes of commerce, urbanization and tourism to rapidly expanding infrastructure projects.

  Going beyond understanding these newly intensified Chinese dynamics through the prism of potentially emerging Chinese “enclaves” and “instant cities” (Nyíri 2012, 2017; Tan 2017), this paper jumps down the scale to focus on the emergence of both Laotian and Thai small-scale cross-border traders who frequently cross over to China. I pay attention to how they discursively frame and practically shape their interactions with their Chinese suppliers and entrepreneurs in general. I also closely examine the ways whereby these traders make sense of the intensifying Chinese economic, social and cultural presence. While expressing some anxiety—half-jokingly, half-seriously lamenting that their localities might be part of Southern China soon—most of my informants highlight at the same time the numerous opportunities China has to offer—for their current livelihoods, and particularly for the younger generation eager to acquire education in China. This calls for a more ethnographically informed, closer reading of superficially often negatively articulated local accounts of “the Chinese”—to unpack the intricacies, seeming contradictions and potential struggles in their narratives. In doing this, this case study is intended to contribute to a more profound understanding of local quotidian borderland realities amidst rapidly shifting ecological, urban, and socio-economic landscapes gradually gravitated towards China.

Papers (Part 2)

• China-Thailand Relations Through the Prism of Migration Enze Han University of Hong Kong

  This paper studies current People’s Republic of China and Thailand relations through the prism of migration. As a country with a long history of Chinese migration and a sizeable portion of its population identified as Sino-Thai, how Thai society perceives contemporary Chinese investment, arrivals of unprecedented number of Chinese visitors as well as sizable migrant labor should be examined through historically contextualized memories of Chinese immigration to Siam. We should think of migration as historically chained events, and earlier waves of migration affect how later migrants are received and perceived. The paper argues we cannot discuss contemporary migration and their reception by the host state, as well as the relationship between the sending and receiving states, without considering how past migration shapes the ways the contemporary is perceived. In the context of China and Thailand relations, we have to keep in mind the long history of Chinese migration and at times hostile policies the Thai government had implemented to deal with such large number of migrants. Anti-Chinese rhetoric thus has a historical root in the migration history in Thailand, and one can argue they still frame some of the explicit or implicit Sinophobia within Thai society. Such historical legacies and the peculiar status of the Sino-Thai thus have created a varied reaction towards the recent Chinese presence in Thailand, ranging from a new wave of re-Sinification among some Sino-Thai to retrace their Chinese roots to others who have made conscious differentiation from the PRC “Chinese-ness.”

• People-To-People Science and Technology Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics: The Case of Sino-Thai Vocational Cooperation Vorawan Wannalak University of Potsdam

  The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has been promoted for infrastructure network between China and its neighboring countries along the BRI. The Thai-China high-speed railway project is one of the showcase projects and it is presented as the backbone route that will connect Southeast Asia to China and Europe. The plan is to boost growth and to reduce domestic logistics costs for Thai entrepreneurs as well as to accomplish the Thailand’s Transport Infrastructure Development Master Plan 2015-2022. Also, it is to promote the environmentally friendly technology in transportation. Although project implementation at the official level is slowly progressing when compared to neighboring countries (i.e. Laos and Cambodia), however, there is continuous development at people-to-people level.

  In 2016, the Luban Workshop was established at the Ayutthaya Technical College Thailand. This is the first Luban Workshop outside China which aims to promote China’s ‘going global’ strategies and support technical education cooperation between China and other countries. The Luban Workshop in Thailand is the collaboration between the Tianjin Bohai Vocational Technical College, sponsored by Tianjin Bohai Chemical Industry (Group) Company Limited, and the Ayutthaya Technical College. The Luban Workshop is a pilot center which provides training in highspeed railway system, new energy automobile, software embedded system, mechatronic and robotics. In addition, the promotion of vocational education between Thailand and China is supported by the Maritime Silk Road Confucius Center under the supervision of Phra Prommakalachan (Chao Khun Thongchai), a well-respected Buddhist monk in the Thai Chinese community. In 2018, the China Educational Daily reported that the Luban Workshop in Thailand provided vocational training to more than 2,000 students and it has also provided opportunities for students from other neighboring countries, such as Indonesia, Malaysia, and Cambodia.

  This paper would like to examine how the Chinese ideology and strategies under the BRI is translated by different local actors in the area of vocational education cooperation and what is the synergy between the national policy and the BRI strategies. The paper will present a case study of the Luban Workshop which is promoted as a pilot project for Chinese technological transfer in response to the BRI.

Abstract

Keywords

• China
• Geopolitics