Paper short abstract:

Complex relationships and lives between Chinese economic actors and the Fijian people have been transformed by growing Chinese infrastructure development in the region. Chinese general infrastructures are maintained during Covid19, keeping alive aspirations of the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative.

Paper long abstract:

China uses transnational companies with close ties to Beijing to take out long-term leases on host islands in the Pacific, enabling them to take control of key infrastructures. The project will examine Chinese influence on the Fijian tourist sector, particularly mega-projects where new properties are acquired to cater for resort development. Additionally, Chinese infrastructure projects and loans catered to those projects and beyond will be examined, due to overlapping interests of Chinese transnational companies' pursuit of furthering China's Belt and Road Initiative's agenda in the Pacific. Issues to be addressed include the negotiation of often opaque contracts at high institutional levels, the transformation and control of supply chains especially at the local level, capital flight and relations with local labour. The project's research will be informed by theories of social justice, and will pursue anthropological questions relating to identity, political ecology, power and agency. These questions may reveal fractures in Fiji's ability to ensure maintenance of the population's well-being in the face of hegemonic forms of development imposed by Chinese transnational corporations in the tourism and general infrastructure sectors.