The ‘soft infrastructure’ of the Belt and Road Initiative: Imaginaries, affinities and subjectivities in Chinese transnational education

Abstract

Drawing upon qualitative research conducted at Xiamen University (XMU) and its overseas cam- pus, Xiamen University Malaysia (XMUM), this article provides an analysis of transnational educa- tion as a component of the soft infrastructure of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). We examine XMUM within wider geopolitical and cultural diplomacy in Asia and as a transnational site in/through which new regional imaginaries, affinities and subjectivities are produced and con- tested. We highlight the role of historical and cultural affinity—as well as its omission/disrup- tion—in giving shape to XMUM, the limited extent to which mainland Chinese students perform their role as cultural ambassadors, and the multiple imaginative post-study geographies of interna- tional and local students that simultaneously centre and decentre China. In doing so, we contend that students’ narratives/practices reinforce but also present alternatives to the imaginaries, affini- ties and subjectivities that Chinese transnational education institutes such as XMU and XMUM seek to produce through the vehicle of the BRI.