Paper short abstract:

Chinese investment in rubber in Laos is an important case of Chinese development cooperation. It demonstrates a conviction among Chinese actors of the transferability of China’s development approaches to other country contexts.

Paper long abstract:

China's spectacular economic rise presents an alternative to the Western story of development. As China increasingly engages in development cooperation, its own unique development experience informs its interventions in other countries. The case of Chinese rubber investments in Laos is an important harbinger for the long-term consequences of Chinese development cooperation, and presents a key counter example to cases of China-Africa cooperation which dominate the literature.

This paper argues that China's experience with rubber as a driver of development in Xishuangbanna (the region in Southwest China bordering Laos) provided political justification and structured the investment strategies of Chinese companies promoting rubber in Laos throughout the early 2000s. This occurred in part because most investing companies, their equipment and inputs, and the managers they hired to establish and run their rubber plantations came directly from Xishuangbanna. But Chinese actors from the state to the plantation level also drew on perceived similarities between Xishuangbanna and northern Laos to cultivate a belief in the transferability of Chinese development strategies to other country contexts. Through an analysis of Chinese investment in this border area, I aim to address calls for greater attention to the geopolitical specificities shaping patterns of Chinese investment and development cooperation. Nevertheless, these findings demonstrate that critically examining how Chinese investors relate their own development experience to other country contexts reveals common logics in the operation of Chinese capital and thus approaches to development cooperation across its interventions globally.