The Spatial Politics of Global Interdependencies: Chinese Large-Scale Infrastructure

Description

The cumulative dissertation engages with the relatively recent phenomenon of Chinese large-scale clean technology projects in Europe’s peripheries. It seeks to understand how their on-the-ground implementation unfolds and the role played by local planning, administration, and policy professionals in these processes. The inquiry originates from the assumption that local professionals involved in project implementation face growing pressure, as they have to navigate a complex landscape of diverse international and national actors, institutions, and planning cultures, while also addressing tensions arising from conflicting economic, (geo)political, and ecological interests and constraints. At the same time, they are tasked with delivering streamlined planning procedures and managing competing public interest objectives, such as land-use conflict, environmental concerns, and demands for participatory governance.

Against this backdrop, the study centres around the following gaps. First, while existing research on China’s global economic and infrastructural expansion into Europe has provided valuable multidisciplinary findings, China’s recent pivot towards large-scale clean technology projects remains underexplored, as do insights into the actual on-the-ground implementation and effects of such green transition projects. Second, aligning with a broader peripheral turn in urban studies, there has recently emerged a renewed scholarly interest addressing the future of peripheral regions, so called ‘left-behind’ places, and small-town contexts. Although these studies have already addressed the planning and implementation of large-scale green transition projects—particularly concerning local contestation and public protest—in-depth studies investigating the actual cooperation practices among local professionals and their cooperation partners in the implementation of such projects, particularly from cross-sectoral perspectives and from the inside of their institutions, are notably scarce.

The dissertation anchors itself at the interface of urban and planning studies, drawing on various conceptual grounds, including critical urban theory, qualitative policy research, and infrastructure studies. At first, it frames Chinese large-scale clean technology projects in Europe’s peripheries as multi-scalar endeavours, intricately intertwined with variegated and discontinuous urban geographies under extended urbanisation. This enables the study to move beyond ’methodological cityism’, instead accounting for the variegated and extended forms of urbanisation in peripheries. To analyse on-the-ground implementation, the study incorporates additional concepts that emphasise dynamic power relations and diverse temporalities, which are regarded as active agents shaping the implementation of large-scale projects. By adapting Institutional Ethnography to the domains of urban and planning studies, the dissertation centres the situated practices and perspectives of local professionals as its methodological starting point for qualitative inquiry. Empirically, it examines the implementation of two electric vehicle battery cell gigafactories pursued by Chinese corporations in peripheral East Germany: one successfully completed project in the town of Arnstadt-Ichtershausen, Thuringia, and one failed initiative nearby the town of Bitterfeld-Wolfen, Saxony-Anhalt.

In addition to one conceptually oriented article, the findings of the dissertation are presented across three predominantly empirical research articles. They are synthesised into three distinct yet interlinked themes. First, contrary to numerous political-economic and geopolitical perspectives that portray China as pursuing a ‘grand strategy’ to achieve foreign economic and political objectives through ‘economic statecraft’, the dissertation uncovers how emerging conflicts in Sino-German cooperation gave rise to a series of improvised, fragmented, and often failed on-the-ground practices. These outcomes cannot be attributed solely to the presumed ignorance of Chinese investors; instead, they were equally rooted in the practices and manoeuvres of local host-state professionals. Second, employing a temporal lens, the dissertation illustrates how federal state-level professionals emerged as key drivers behind the projects, not only during their implementation but also well beyond the actual project time. Through post-reunification restructuring processes and strategic state-led development measures, deeply embedded in East Germany’s specific historical context, federal state-level professionals gradually created the critical conditions necessary for successful project implementation. At the same time, these measures contributed to the re-scaling of state power, gradually marginalising local level authorities. Third, the dissertation underscores how the implementation of Chinese large-scale clean technology projects reflects a continuation of the recurring ’boom-and-bust’ dynamics that have characterised East Germany’s economic trajectory for over two decades. This has compelled local professionals to pledge recurring visions surrounding innovative flagship projects, resulting in a ’perpetual present’ that is marked by the lingering influence of past decision and unfulfilled promises for the future.

In sum, the dissertation contributes across disciplinary boundaries on empirical, methodological, and conceptual levels. On the one hand, it advances the growing body of literature on global China’s expansion into Europe, particularly from a situated, on-the-ground urban and planning studies perspective. On the other side, it also engages with the renewed interest in the future of peripheral regions and so-called ‘left-behind’ places. Here, in particular, it critically examines how infrastructure developments may genuinely enable such places to ‘catch up’ or, conversely, how they are unevenly impacted by Europe’s green transition strategies. Thus, the dissertation aligns with a broader ‘peripheral turn’ in urban studies, emphasising the epistemological, economic, socio-spatial, and ecological significance of peripheries in the production of the contemporary urban. At both methodological and conceptual levels, it offers a qualitative approach to studying cross-sectoral professional practices from within institutions and across places and scales, while providing a fresh perspective on how temporality actively shapes spatial manifestations.

Period	19 Oct 2022 → 19 May 2025