Contested administrative capacity in border management: China and the Greater Mekong Subregion

Abstract

This article investigates China’s efforts to develop the administrative capacity of its border agents to effectively provide border security. It does so by contextualizing national efforts in relevant multilateral cooperation on border and immigration management. Regional frameworks such as ASEAN and Greater Mekong Subregion follow a regional border management approach that challenges Beijing’s notion of sovereign border management. However, China and the border provinces selectively engage in cross-border cooperation. These cooperation projects include training programmes for immigrants, standardizing and facilitating immigration procedures at the border, joint efforts against human trafficking and illicit border mobilities, and enhancing local cross-border relations. Against this background, this article investigates how norms – such as administrative capacity and cooperation through border liaison mechanisms – are negotiated, adapted, and practised in the different regional organizations, as well as how they are implemented locally in national immigration laws and procedures in Yunnan Province. The analysis builds on a multi-method approach including fieldwork, policy, and institutional analysis. The article finds that while Chinese local and regional security interests are closely intertwined, norm dynamics are not.

GRAY GOVERNANCE AT BORDER CHECKPOINTS: Regulating Shadow Trade at the Sino‐Kazakh Border

“…This is most notable when border control is shaped by multiple factors, including state policies, bilateral relations, bureaucratic competence, local/borderland practices and in situ adaptation, resulting in contradictory goals in border control. Moreover, since a border is usually managed from both sides, the differences in the institutional setup, administrative capacity, concept of legality, cultural norms and border policies of the neighboring states are not readily reconcilable, not to mention possible disputes in sovereignty, territoriality and diasporic practices (Plümmer, 2022). As Saxer et al .…”