Suchergebnisse

China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has become the lodestar of Beijing's efforts to increase its global political and economic influence. This article interrogates BRI discourse, arguing that the normative adoption of BRI narratives as a means for making sense of connectivity's between China and other places risks producing new forms of epistemic violence against subaltern populations. The empirical focus of this paper is on China-Laos relations, and the epistemic positioning of highland ethnic minority groups in northern Laos. This context offers a valuable case study for examining BRI discourse due to: the profound effects of Chinese investment in Laos; the geostrategic importance of Laos as a BRI 'gateway' between China and Southeast Asia; the deep histories of ethnic minority engagements across China and Laos; and the limited extant research on both China-Laos relations and the more localized effects of Chinese actors within the highland border regions.

[Extract] It was a milestone year for Laos in 2021. The ruling Lao Peoples' Revolutionary Party held its 11th Congress, finally realised its long-held aspiration to graduate from Least Developed Country status, and released a draft of the country's ninth National Socio-Economic Development Plan. Laos also joined the newly ratified Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), commenced operations on the highly controversial Kunming to Vientiane high-speed railway, and the leadership duo of President Thongloun Sisoulith and Prime Minister Phankham Viphavanh undertook some much-needed action on political corruption.

Following the extraordinary wealth generation of casinos in Macau and Singapore, governments and non-state actors across Southeast Asia have developed gambling establishments as a means of fast-tracking economic growth and stimulating national development. Yet, here and elsewhere, casinos have been heavily criticized for their association with immoral behaviour, problem gambling, corruption, and organized crime. In this article, I focus on two casinos in northern Laos to address two research questions. First, I consider how casinos have come to exist within the remote border regions of one of Asia's least developed countries. I discuss vice economies within the Golden Triangle region, multi-actor aspirations to boost transnational connectivity within continental Southeast Asia, strengthening political-economic relationships between Laos and China, and Government of Laos efforts to use foreign investment as a mechanism for increasing governance capacities in borderlands. Following this, I critically analyze the relationship between casinos and development in Laos. I focus specifically on the multifarious effects of casinos on the lives and livelihoods of local communities to argue that casino development has been informed by logics of expulsion and the establishment of new predatory formations. To make this argument, the article draws on four fieldwork visits to each of the casino sites between 2011 and 2015, desk-based research, and interviews with local residents, casino staff, and members of the Government of Laos. (Pac Aff/GIGA)

Development in Laos has occurred slowly, with uneven distribution and significant negative effects. This article challenges the simplistic assumption of human development and human security as mutually reinforcing processes. It suggests a holistic approach addressing simultaneously competing demands from the perspective of the most vulnerable sectors of society.