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 has prioritized its neighborhood, following the first Periphery Diplomacy Work Conference in 2013, where Xi acknowledged that to many surrounding countries the PRC was “close but not friendly.”¹ In attempting to become a friendlier neighbor, the PRC has encouraged its provinces to play a more active role.

At the same time, the centralization of the PRC’s foreign policymaking in recent years has promoted tighter control over the foreign policy work of sub-central entities in China.² Understanding how provinces engage abroad within these constraints is critical to making sense of the PRC’s overall neighborhood engagement strategy, especially as the country seeks to portray itself as a regional alternative to an increasingly inward-looking United States.³ The following analysis explores the role of the PRC’s border provinces as diplomatic actors and the central-local management system and rhetoric that govern provincial diplomacy. It finds that numerous border provinces follow flexible but clear directions to engage with specific external regions, with implications for the PRC’s overall approach to the world.

The Foundations of Central-Local Foreign Affairs Work

The PRC’s conceptualization of central-local relations in foreign affairs dates back to its constitution. In Article 3, the idea of democratic centralism mandates that the division of power between central and local institutions must respect the leadership of the unified central authority, while still “giving full play to the initiative and enthusiasm of local authorities.”⁴ In the early 2000s, scholar Wang Yizhou introduced the term “sub-central diplomacy” to characterize the globalization-driven emergence of powerful subnational governments in China as diplomatic actors.⁵ Since 2013, however, a series of Central Committee decisions and State Council opinions have transferred power to the central government in areas such as national defense, foreign affairs, and national security. This likely reflects an effort by the central government to reassert strategic control over the expansion of sub-central diplomacy, mirroring broader political trends in China.

When the Leading Small Group on Foreign Affairs was elevated to become the Central Foreign Affairs Commission under Xi Jinping’s direct leadership in 2018, its first meeting established local foreign affairs work as a priority to advance both external diplomacy and internal development.⁶ The most recent Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs in December 2023 re-emphasized the importance of periphery diplomacy, as well as the responsibility of provinces and localities to uphold central control.⁷ Specifically, the Central Committee voiced a desire to enhance unified Chinese Communist Party leadership of foreign relations through new governance mechanisms, including the 2023 Law on Foreign Relations.⁸ The new law formalizes provincial responsibilities in foreign affairs, authorizing provinces, autonomous regions, and directly governed municipalities to “carry out foreign exchanges and cooperation within a specified scope.”⁹ The National Local Foreign Affairs Work Conference in 2024 explicitly addressed central-local foreign policy coordination to clarify the recent policy shifts, emphasizing Xi Jinping Thought as the bottom line while again encouraging localities to be proactive and leverage their respective advantages for diplomatic engagement.¹⁰ These high-level policy and legal developments suggest that the PRC aspires to leverage the cultural, economic, and geographic ties of provinces at its borders to improve regional diplomatic relationships—but only in strict alignment with strategic guidance from the center.

The Vocabulary of Central-Local Foreign Affairs Work

As is characteristic of the PRC’s bureaucracy, the central government employs an internal phraseology to instruct provincial entities on how to approach the outside world.¹¹ These linguistic formulations appear in official sources, including central leadership speeches, provincial government documents, and readouts of Xi Jinping’s provincial inspection tours. Most frequently, provinces are reminded to “leverage geographical advantages” (发挥区位优势) or “leverage local advantages” (发挥地方优势) to conduct foreign affairs work.¹² Central and local government entities also use minor variations of this wording. During Xi’s June 2025 state visit to Kazakhstan, for example, he encouraged both countries to leverage Ningxia province’s technological advantages (发挥宁夏技术优势) for collaboration.¹³ Similarly, the readout from Qinghai’s 2024 Provincial Foreign Affairs Work Conference emphasized leveraging resource and energy advantages (发挥青海资源能源优势).¹⁴ This set of phrases seems to encompass making best use of a province’s historical, cultural, economic, or technological strengths to engage in international cooperation. It reflects the PRC constitution’s framing of central-local relations as a whole, which introduces the concept of leveraging local initiative (发挥地方的主动性). Leveraging geographic or local advantages is often paired with a reference to “high-level provincial opening up” (省高水平对外开放) to the world or to a nearby region.

The more general vocabulary for central-local relations involves common terms found in both central and local government documents. Notably, local foreign affairs work (地方外事工作) appears to be the best equivalent of what the U.S. State Department labels “subnational diplomacy.” Periphery diplomacy (周边外交), good and friendly neighborhood diplomacy (睦邻友好外交), and periphery work (周边工作) also characterize the provinces’ external engagement with neighbors.¹⁵ Delegations from provinces to visit other countries are described as “friendly provincial delegations” (省友好代表). Finally, provinces maintain formal sister cities—in Chinese, “friendship cities” (友好城市 or 友城)—and international friendly exchange provinces and states (国际友好交流省州), which refer to foreign subnational entities that have established cooperative relationships with provinces or cities in China.

Since the 2010s, the PRC central government has increasingly employed an emergent vocabulary to designate provinces as key players in engagement with specific external regions. Radiation center (辐射中心), hub (枢纽地), core area (核心区), important window (重要窗口), and channel (渠道) all feature in recent reporting on provincial foreign affairs activities.¹⁶ This lexicon has evolved somewhat from the wording in the PRC’s 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), which identifies certain provinces as hubs, bases (重要基地), highlands (新高地), and bridges (桥头堡) for industry-focused opening-up to border regions.¹⁷

Leveraging Local Advantages: From Rhetoric to Practice (2024–25)

Based on a data set of hundreds of official provincial government reports on foreign engagements from 2024 to 2025, the vocabulary of leveraging local advantages accurately translates to provincial diplomacy on the ground. The PRC appears to strategically leverage the advantages of provinces with economic, historical, cultural, or people-to-people ties to neighboring countries or regions for diplomatic engagement with these geographies.¹⁸ Some provinces, such as Yunnan, Liaoning, and Jilin, are explicitly designated hubs for Southeast Asia or Northeast Asia, respectively. Others, especially those with maritime rather than land borders, display a broader range of international engagement. The pace of provincial diplomacy is highly variable. Jiangsu and Fujian top the list with over two hundred diplomatic engagements since January 2024, while Inner Mongolia, Hebei, Zhejiang, and Qinghai trail behind, at approximately ten engagements each.

Provinces with land borders tend to prioritize engagement with countries or regions geographically close to them, though with varying levels of intensity. Yunnan’s external engagement is dominated by Vietnam (21%), followed by Laos and Myanmar, displaying its Southeast Asia focus. Guangxi also prioritizes Vietnam (32%) and other Southeast Asian countries, with members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) representing the overwhelming majority of the province’s engagement. This corresponds with its recently stated effort to create an ASEAN-facing hub.¹⁹ Liaoning focuses on Russia (35%), as well as other Northeast Asian countries. Jilin has dialogued most with South Korea (19%), followed closely by Japan. Its engagement is also relatively more diversified across Northeast Asia and other parts of the world. Heilongjiang serves as a wider-ranging platform for international engagement, interfacing almost equally with the United States and Russia, although its overall diplomatic interactions are limited. Inner Mongolia also has low engagement distributed across regions, with a slight bias toward Mongolia. Gansu takes the lead on Mongolia and Central Asia as a whole (17%), especially Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Turkmenistan, reflecting its role as a key “channel” for collaboration under the Belt and Road Initiative.²⁰ Xinjiang’s diplomacy is also dominated by Central Asian countries (over 50% of the total) and Pakistan, with some engagement across Africa and the Middle East. This demonstrates the PRC’s attempt to leverage Xinjiang as a diplomatic gateway to Arab and Muslim-majority countries.²¹

The maritime borderlands display more diversified regional portfolios. In Hainan, Singapore is a frequent partner (10%), followed by Cambodia, South Korea, and a number of island nations, indicating a maritime focus. This tracks with Hainan’s organization of the annual Boao Forum for Asia and negotiation of port agreements with key regional actors.²² Guangdong’s engagement reveals a notable prioritization of African countries (17%), but remains diverse overall. Africa is also Hebei’s closest region of choice, with Malawi, Kenya, Zambia, and Egypt representing 22% of total engagements. Jiangsu engages most often with Japan and South Korea, but has ramped up dialogue with countries in Southeast Asia, Central Asia, and Africa, reflecting stated ambitions to become a two-way hub (looking both eastward and westward) by leveraging its industrial and geographic advantages.²³ Shandong’s outreach is similarly varied, with East Asia and Africa spotlighted as regional priorities. Among maritime border provinces, Fujian stands out with the clearest geographic focus; nearly 19% of total exchanges are with Pacific Island countries, including Fiji, Solomon Islands, Micronesia, Samoa, and Papua New Guinea, as well as with Maldives in South Asia. This, along with a steady drumbeat of engagement with Central Asia and Northeast Asia, aligns with Fujian’s Maritime Silk Road mandate.²⁴ For Zhejiang, Hebei, and Qinghai, the limited data does not reveal clear regional priorities. These provinces primarily host visiting delegations or representatives.

In the majority of border provinces, international sister cities and friendship provinces or states play a limited role, outside of occasional cultural exchanges and holiday greetings. These formal relationships do not map clearly onto a prioritization framework, nor do they reflect the pace of a province’s substantive engagement. Guangxi and Gansu, for example, have both held over 100 engagements with foreign entities in the past two years; however, Guangxi boasts over 130 international friendship provinces and cities, while Gansu has only 65.²⁵

The nature and timing of provincial engagements abroad also shed light on the system governing central-local foreign affairs work in China. The Provincial Party Committee’s Foreign Affairs Work Committee, led by the provincial party secretary, conducts strategic planning and high-level decision-making.²⁶ The subordinate Foreign Affairs Work Committee Office handles management and implementation of foreign affairs in the region, including relations with other countries, overseas Chinese, and Hong Kong and Macau affairs. The work committee holds provincial foreign affairs meetings, the timing of which do not appear to be centrally coordinated but rather based on provincial needs.²⁷ In all foreign engagements in the past two years, the provincial party secretaries or their deputies assume the responsibility of meeting with high-level foreign officials, which range from visiting prime ministers, to ambassadors, to leaders of foreign localities.²⁸ Most foreign engagement occurs at the provincial rather than the municipal or county level; when there is municipal engagement, provincial officials also attend.²⁹ On occasion, provincial foreign affairs offices will conduct research in autonomous or minority regions within provinces.³⁰ Provincial foreign affairs offices may also hold learning exchanges or joint conferences, such as the February 2025 exchange between Liaoning, Tianjin, and Shandong on management of foreign fishery issues.³¹ A closer examination of Yunnan’s “South and Southeast Asia–facing radiation center” and Liaoning’s “Northeast Asia–facing hub” demonstrates the importance of provincial diplomacy.

Yunnan: South and Southeast Asia–Facing Center

Yunnan has prioritized Vietnam, Laos, Myanmar, and Southeast Asia as a whole in recent years, with approximately 70% of its activities directed toward ASEAN countries. These engagements include high-level meetings with foreign leadership, receiving and sending official delegations, trade expositions, forums, economic cooperation initiatives, and cultural exchanges. In addition to bilateral engagements, Yunnan hosts major multilateral forums, including the China–South Asia Cooperation Forum and Greater Mekong Subregion Economic Corridor Governors Forum. Frequent interactions with Vietnam’s border provinces Dien Bien and Lao Cai indicate a focus on border management and cross-border economic exchange.³² Yunnan also engages with global players from the United States to Burundi, often when diplomatic officials based in China make formal visits.

Yunnan adopted the strategy of constructing a South and Southeast Asia–facing radiation center in 2016, following Xi Jinping’s 2015 instruction during an inspection tour.³³ This remains an explicit strategy today, reiterated in Xi’s most recent 2025 tour. Yunnan’s Three-Year Action Plan for Promoting High-Quality Development of Foreign Trade in Yunnan Province (2022–2024) centers on its role as a strategic link between China’s domestic market and the South Asian and Southeast Asian markets.³⁴ The connection between Yunnan’s external engagement track record and the PRC’s higher-level focus on Southeast Asia exemplifies the role of provincial diplomacy in furthering central objectives.

Liaoning: Northeast Asia–Facing Hub

Facing the opposite frontier, Liaoning serves as a liaison to Russia and Northeast Asia as a whole. This includes meetings with representatives from Russian provinces and business delegations at a nearly monthly frequency from 2024 to 2025. Liaoning also often engages South Korea and Japan through business, cultural, educational, and sports exchanges, in addition to high-level diplomacy. Over 70% of its foreign exchange takes place with Northeast Asian countries. Liaoning also hosted the Northeast Asia Region Local Government Association Meeting in September 2024, convening provincial and local government representatives from Japan, South Korea, Russia, Mongolia, and North Korea.³⁵ The association’s secretary-general requested that Liaoning host the meeting again in 2025.

Liaoning’s engagements likely reflect a central directive—or strong hint—to construct a Northeast Asia–facing hub for international cooperation. During Xi Jinping’s inspection tour in 2025, he urged Liaoning to leverage its advantages to accelerate innovation and construct a central city for Northeast Asia.³⁶ Provincial leaders reiterated this direction in June, expressing a commitment to “anchor the construction of a hub for opening up and cooperation in Northeast Asia.”³⁷ The high frequency of business delegations and trade-related meetings suggests that Liaoning prioritizes technological and industrial fields to promote tangible cooperation.³⁸

Conclusion

The past two years of the PRC’s provincial diplomacy demonstrate a desire to balance increased centralization of foreign policymaking with strategic use of geographic, cultural, and resource diversity within China to build better relationships abroad. The central government has clearly designated certain provinces to prioritize engagement with specific regions—for example, Yunnan with South and Southeast Asia and Liaoning with Northeast Asia. The center provides broad directional guidance rather than prescriptive, country-specific assignments, allowing provinces to determine the details of engagement while maintaining central oversight. The overwhelming majority of provincial engagements are economic, cultural, and educational, with security cooperation being notably absent, at least from public records. Additional research is needed to characterize the substance of provincial diplomatic engagement. Ultimately, improved understanding of the PRC’s coordinated central-local approach to diplomacy with its peripheries and the world can help countries better navigate, engage with, and challenge when necessary a multi-layered PRC presence abroad.

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Karuna Nandkumar is the Head of Policy Programmes at the Oxford China Policy Lab, where her research focuses on Chinese foreign policy and U.S.-China relations. She is an alumna of NBR’s China Open-Source Research Course for Rising China Specialists (class of 2024) and was a fellow in NBR’s Chinese Language Fellowship Program in 2022–23.

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IMAGE CREDITS

Banner illustration by Nate Christenson ©The National Bureau of Asian Research.

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