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The politics of Chinese investments in Europe: The end of the Liberal International Economic Order?

This collaborative project convenes a network of established and early career scholars to examine the implications of Chinese investments in Europe on the Liberal International Order. We challenge the binaries proposed by prevalent ‘realist’ and ‘liberal’ narratives in International Relations and International Political Economy. We also interrogate ‘postcolonial’ readings, which emphasise the persistence of colonial relations of power and radicalised hierarchies in international relations and global development politics. By drawing attention to the dynamics underpinning growing Chinese investments in Europe, the project contributes to understanding a crucial intellectual challenge of our time: the growing presence of a "developing" country in the economies, societies and polities of the "developed" world. By emphasising the political and ideational implications of Chinese investments in Europe, this project offers us empirical material to analyse the growing importance of actors in the Global South vis-à-vis those in the Global North, thereby interrogating the hierarchies that have been assumed by realist, liberal and postcolonial theorists alike.

The project builds on two workshops we've had with established and emerging scholars who research the political dynamics and impacts of Chinese investments (financial, infrastructural and social) in Europe, reflecting on the implications for liberalism, democracy and capitalism in Europe and beyond. 

We are currently assembling a volume where we collectively reflect on the implications of China’s European investments on the Liberal International Order.