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P80


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Global China and the (re-)making of Europe’s 'inner peripheries': The local effects and agencies of Chinese infrastructure investment in the EU’s green transition 
Convenors:
Hannes Langguth (HafenCity University Hamburg)
Maggi Leung (University of Amsterdam)
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Format:
Panel
Stream:
Politics and political economy
:
Palmer G.03
Sessions:
Thursday 29 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London

Short Abstract:

The panel addresses the local effects and agencies of increasing Chinese infrastructure investment in the EU's green transition, with a particular focus on the emergence of new and the reinforcement of existing inner peripheries across Europe.

Long Abstract:

According to the EU, the decarbonization of the European mobility sector would represent a major milestone towards achieving the targets of the European Green Deal and thus tackling the global climate crisis. A key technology for this is electric vehicle (EV) battery cells, whose production pretends to both deal with the crisis and, at the same time, stimulate the EU’s capitalist economy. As a result, since 2019, strategic investment in the European EV battery sector and related research, manufacturing, recycling, energy and logistics infrastructures has been steadily increasing. In this context, foreign direct investment (FDI) by East Asian, especially Chinese state-owned and private enterprises plays a central role, as the EU remains dependent on their leading position in the production and recycling of battery cells.

The panel takes this particular EU-China interdependency as a starting point to explore the multiple aspects and (trans)local implications of the growing presence of Global China in Europe. Here, the panel focuses on the emergence of new and the reinforcement of existing ‚inner peripheries‘ across Europe: sites remote from urban centers that are impacted by infrastructure-led developments, forms of extractivism, or policies of externalizing ecological, economic and societal problems related to the EU’s green transition. Against this background, the discussion aims to address the situated agencies of local/ regional actors (workers, policy and planning professionals, citizens, NGOs) involved and/ or impacted by the manifold processes of localizing Chinese investment projects and welcomes contributions concerning issues such as, but not limited to:

• Intersections of Chinese infrastructure development with urban/ rural development, territorial rescaling, ecological change, and/or sociospatial injustice

• Multiple scales and/ or temporalities of Chinese infrastructure development

• Multiple voices and agencies in localizing Chinese infrastructure development

• Planning, policymaking, coalition-formation and policy mobilities of Chinese infrastructure development

• Methodological challenges and opportunities in studying Chinese infrastructure development

Accepted papers:

Session 1 Thursday 29 June, 2023, -
Panel Video visible to paid-up delegates