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Title:
The South-South Conundrum: The China-Ecuador Resource Development Nexus and the Elusive Promise of National Development
Speaker:
Dr. Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente (Assistant Professor, Department of Asian and International Studies, City University of Hong Kong)
Date:
November 29, 2016
Time:
12:00 nn – 1:00 pm
Venue:
Room 201, 2/F, May Hall, The University of Hong Kong (Map)
Language:
English
Enquiry:
(Tel) (852) 3917-5772
(Email) ihss@hku.hk
Optimistic accounts of globalization welcome “the rise of the South” and “South-South relations” as phenomena that will challenge existing geopolitical architectures and conventional development thought. These accounts present the South-South paradigm as characterized by “horizontal partnerships, based on equity, trust, [and] mutual benefit” (OECD 2011). This article studies South-South relations through a case study of Chinese mining investment in Ecuador. Despite the ostensibly differing approaches to development embodied in the Ecuadorian and Chinese alternatives to neoliberalism, the Mirador project reveals eerily familiar outcomes, dominated by visions of modernization and business-state alliances that reproduce postcolonial exclusions and market inequalities. As technocrats in developing countries devise competitive ways to leverage national assets — such as Ecuador’s natural resources or China’s large population — and lure transnational capital, they are compelled to cultivate business-enabling environments and acquiesce in the social and environmental externalities of production, extraction and consumption. Ultimately, the article calls for an understanding of the global South not as a compendium of developing or underdeveloped countries, but rather as a space made up by those who are subject to diverse forms of economic, political and cultural oppression in the name of globalization and national development.
Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Asian and International Studies in City University of Hong Kong. His research studies South-South relations (with a focus on China’s engagement in Latin America and the Caribbean), natural resources and development, and the transformation of politics under late capitalism. Ruben’s work has been published in journals such as Political Geography, The Pacific Review and The China Quarterly.
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