Agents of the Belt and Road Initiative or Agents of Agency? Chinese Companies in Fiji

Keywords: Infrastructure, Belt and Road Initiative, Geopolitics, Geoeconomics, Fiji, China
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Tuesday
Session Start / End Time: 3/1/2022 03:40 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 3/1/2022 05:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 25

Abstract

Since 2006, the Chinese state, companies, and people have become more visible in Fiji. This change has elicited strategic anxiety in the policy circles of Australia and the United States as an example of the threat China poses to regional order. Chinese presence, nevertheless, is at the invitation of the Fijian government. Following its economic and diplomatic isolation after the 2006 coup, Fiji has enlisted Chinese capital and companies to overhaul infrastructure and boost investment, especially under the Belt and Road Initiative. The diversification of Fiji’s aid, trade, and investment partners since the “Look North” has been a key state adaptation, enabling a more assertive role in global politics, as well as provoking “traditional” partners to develop competing infrastructure initiatives. However, self-reliance discourses and an “everyday geoeconomics” also inform Fijian civil society, and Fijians are asking the FijiFirst administration questions about the transparency, value, and ownership of infrastructure projects led by Chinese companies. These state and civil society expressions of the role Chinese companies have in impacting agency are converging in Fijian public discourse, and Fiji’s China question has transformed from one centred on alleviating political pressure from “traditional” partners to one that is fixed on how Fijians will reconcile the benefits and challenges of a long-term Chinese presence. This paper is based on four fieldwork visits to Fiji conducted in 2017, 2018, 2020, and 2021. Its broader significance is in understanding the Belt and Road Initiative’s extended impacts on domestic spaces as a parallel process to geopolitical analysis.