The 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 section will present a collection of contributions examining the practice of Chinese statecraft in the fourteen countries with which it shares a land border and six countries with which it shares a maritime border. Watch for more contributions to come.
Mapping China’s Borderlands: Dashboard
Research Papers, Commentaries, Q&As, and Podcasts
Over the past two decades, economic sanctions have emerged as a central instrument in the foreign policy toolkit of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Since the early 1990s, China’s borderlands have played a crucial role in the central government’s “opening-up” program. However, starting in the mid-2010s, at the same
The Chinese Communist Party’s borderlands policies fluctuated over time since its founding, alternating between periods of gradual integration and forced assimilation. Regardless of the methods
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) faces a mounting challenge from transnational organized crime along its southern periphery. Myanmar has become the world’s most criminalized
The People’s Republic of China’s national territory today is roughly equivalent to that of the Qing empire—with the notable exceptions of outer Mongolia, Taiwan, and
The discourse of China’s Belt and Road Initiative and trio of global initiatives implies that the country’s geopolitical interests are firmly global. Nonetheless, in recent
In April 2025, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) held the Central Conference on Work Relating to the Periphery. The PRC’s diplomacy under Xi Jinping
The first phase of the National Bureau of Asian Research’s Mapping China’s Strategic Space project concluded with two possible scenarios for the future of China’s
The project Mapping China’s Strategic Space: Borderlands is led by Nadège Rolland, Distinguished Fellow for China Studies at NBR. The project investigates how China invests