Negotiating Global China Beyond the State–Diaspora Divide

Recent decades of China’s global rise have shifted scholarly attention away from traditional Chinese mass migration to the West toward Chinese entrepreneurial diasporic activities in the Global South. Rather than centering assimilation and adaptation to host societies, contemporary transnational Chinese communities increasingly engage with China’s expanding global political and economic inuence. Against the backdrop of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s global ascent has enabled the commodication of Chineseness, with state-linked enclaves and industrial zones embodying its overseas strategic outreach. Conventional frameworks and narratives derived from Western experiences of
Chinese transnational migration are therefore insucient to grasp the complex realities of globalizing China. is special issue advances the conceptualization of global China by transcending the analytical binary between the nation-state and its overseas diaspora. Based on empirical evidence from Africa, the Middle East, and Chinese migrant-origin regions, the contributors investigate how China’s deepening globalization reshapes transnational migration, medical diplomacy, diasporic entrepreneurship, technology transfer, and governance. The findings collectively illuminate the interplay between top-down state strategies and bottom-up diasporic agency. They further reveal how evolving state–private dynamics spill across national borders to shape China’s global presence.