The Mapping China’s Strategic Space: Borderlands research project investigates how China invests in, engages with, and deepens its presence within its land and maritime border neighbors in an attempt to reshape its immediate periphery. This research effort constitutes the second phase of NBR’s Mapping China’s Strategic Space project. The first phase defined strategic space as a realm vital to the pursuit of China’s national economic and security objectives and to the enduring survival of the Chinese state. Beijing aspires to freely wield its influence and assert its leadership over this realm. This dashboard was compiled in collaboration between NBR and AidData to identify thirteen indicators across 28 countries sharing maritime or land borders (or close proximity to) the People’s Republic China.
The borderland areas surrounding China’s national territory are a critical component of its strategic space. Whereas China’s geopolitical horizons stretch globally, its capacity to exercise control and effectively exert its transformative power over the full extent of its desired strategic space is still uncertain. By contrast, the country’s contiguous regions, situated in its immediate reach, present opportunities for making use of power and wealth asymmetries—testing out methods that may become trademarks of a future globally dominant China, and laying the ground for an entirely reconfigured Asia. In addition, shaping a cooperative neighborhood appears as the necessary preliminary step toward ensuring that Beijing’s global ambitions can eventually come to pass.
The Borderlands project examines the practice of Chinese statecraft in the fourteen countries with which it shares a land border (Afghanistan, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Vietnam) and in six countries with which it shares or claims a maritime border (Brunei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, and South Korea). Following Beijing’s own priorities as defined by the Global Initiatives on Development, Security, and Civilization (GDI, GSI, and GCI), the project’s analysis is conducted across the economic, security, and political domains.
The Borderlands Dashboard visually presents data collected on parameters across the three domains to track China’s engagement with its borderlands neighbors since 2013, the year when the Chinese party-state began designating them as China’s “periphery.”
Visualizations reflect the most contemporary data available, though coverage varies by country and indicator. Eight additional countries in the region were included for additional context and comparability (Bangladesh, Cambodia, Maldives, Myanmar, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan). Where applicable, maps display both the absolute magnitude of each indicator (circle size) and the relative change over the available time period (circle shading). Specific date ranges, data sources, and calculation methods accompany each map. Users may also access more detail by hovering over or clicking on country data points of interest.
