From the National Bureau of Asian Research, an Asia Insight miniseries exploring the geostrategic significance of China’s borderlands, led by Nadège Rolland, Distinguished Fellow for China Studies at NBR.

In this special episode, NBR Project Manager Alayna Bone sits down with NBR Distinguished Fellow for China Studies Nadège Rolland to look back at NBR’s Mapping China’s Strategic Space: Borderlands project, what we have learned so far, and to share some highlights of what is in store for 2026.

From the National Bureau of Asian Research, an Asia Insight miniseries exploring the geostrategic significance of China’s borderlands, led by Nadège Rolland, Distinguished Fellow for China Studies at NBR.

Episode Five: The Himalayan Rim

China’s growing economic and political power is redrawing the map of South Asia as a cluster of countries centered around its Himalayan borderlands, connecting its land neighbors through infrastructure building and economic corridors, while redefining the region’s governance norms according to the so-called "Chinese model."

This fifth episode, recorded in New Delhi with Professor Jabin T. Jacob (Shiv Nadar Institute of Eminence, India), Shruti Jargad (Australian Strategic Policy Institute), and Dr. Constantino Xavier (Center for Social and Economic Progress, India) takes a look at the many facets of China’s increased presence in the Himalayan region.

Materials cited or referenced in the recording

• Constantino Xavier and Jabin T. Jacob (Eds.) “How China Engages in South Asia: In the Open and Behind the Scenes,” CSEP Report, July 2025.
• Constantino Xavier and Jabin T. Jacob (Eds.) “How China Engages in South Asia: Themes, Partners and Tools,” CSEP Report, May 2023.
• Shruti Jargad and Constantino Xavier, “Semantics as Strategy: Interpreting China’s Official Discourse on South Asia,” CSEP Working Paper 103, September 2025.
• National Land Borders Law of the People’s Republic of China (adopted on October 23, 2021 and officially in effect as of January 1, 2022) https://www.mfa.gov.cn/web/wjb_673085/zzjg_673183/bjhysws_674671/bhflfg/ldfxzhxfl/202303/P020230313533924391693.pdf.

Recommended additional readings

• The PRC’s Land Borders Law, USINDOPACOM J06/SJA TACAID Series, October 23, 2023 https://www.pacom.mil/Portals/55/Documents/Legal/J06%20TACAID%20-%20PRC%20LAND%20BORDERS%20LAW%20-%20FINAL.pdf.

From the National Bureau of Asian Research, an Asia Insight miniseries exploring the geostrategic significance of China’s borderlands, led by Nadège Rolland, Distinguished Fellow for China Studies at NBR.

Episode Four: The Great Wall of Villages

Since 2016, China has been building or refurbishing several hundreds of so-called “xiaokang (well-off) villages” along its Borderlands, complete with new infrastructure and an increased security presence. Some of these villages have been built on Bhutan’s sovereign territory.

This fourth episode trails the strategic motives and the unfolding development of China’s border villages revitalization campaign. With contributions from Japneet Kaur (Center of Excellence for Himalayan Studies, Shiv Nadar University, India), Professor James Leibold (La Trobe University, Australia) and Professor Robert Barnett (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and Lau China Institute, King’s College, United Kingdom).

Materials cited or referenced in the recording

• “South China Sea: What’s China’s Plan for Its ‘Great Wall of Sand’?” BBC, July 14, 2020 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-53344449.
• Muyi Xiao, Agnes Chang, “China’s Great Wall of Villages,” New York Times, August 8, 2024 https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/08/10/world/asia/china-border-villages.html.
• Robert Barnett, “Forceful Diplomacy: China’s Cross-Border Villages in Bhutan,” Turquoise Roof Bulletin, October 15, 2024 https://turquoiseroof.org/forceful-diplomacy-china-cross-border-villages-in-bhutan/.
• Japneet Kaur, Devendra Kumar, Jabin T. Jacob, “Beyond the Military Prism: China’s Development Objectives in Xiaokang Villages in Tibet Autonomous Region,” Shiv Nadar University Centre of Excellence for Himalayan Studies Occasional Paper no.4 (February 2025) https://snu.edu.in/centres/centre-of-excellence-for-himalayan-studies/research/beyond-the-military-prism-chinas-development-objectives-in-xiaokang-villages-in-tibet-autonomous-region/.
• Sun Chunri [孙春日] “Population Loss in the Border Areas between China and North Korea, and Countermeasures：A Case Study of Yanbian Korean Ethnic Minority Autonomous Prefecture” [中朝边境地区人口流失及对策 – 以延边朝鲜族自治州为列] Journal of Northern Minzu University no.93 (2010).
• Yang Minghong [样明洪] and Wang Zhoubo [王周博] “Types, Causes and Governance of the ‘Hollowing Out’ of China’s Land Border Regions” [我国陆地边境地区 ‘空心化’ 的类型、成因与治理] Journal of Sichuan Normal University 47 no.6 (2020).
• “Xi Jinping Delivers an Important Speech at the Second Xinjiang Work Forum” [习近平在第二次中央新疆工作谈会上发表重要讲话] People’s Daily, May 30, 2014.
• Owen Lattimore, The Inner Asian Frontiers of China, 1940.

Glossary of Chinese terms used in the recording

• 边境小康村 bianjing xiaokang cun: border areas moderately-prosperous (or well-off) villages
• 成都山地所 Chengdu shandi suo: Chengdu Mountain Institute (a research institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences)
• 三农问题 sannong wenti: “Three rural problems”(nongmin 农民rural people, nongcun 农村rural areas, nongye 农业rural production)
• 兴边副民行动 xingbian fumin xingdong: “Border Revitalization and Prosperous Residents Program” (a State campaign aimed at boosting economic development along China’s borderlands launched in 1998)
• 治国必治边、治边先稳藏 zhiguo bi zhibian, zhibian xian wen zang: “To govern the country, one must govern the borders; to govern the borders, one must first stabilize Tibet” (Xi Jinping addressing a delegation of officials from the Tibetan Autonomous Region in 2013 https://cpc.people.com.cn/n/2013/0902/c64102-22771651.html)
• 空心化 kongxinhua: hollowing out
• 神圣国土守护者 shensheng guotu shouhuzhe: “Guardians of the sacred lands”
• 中华民族 zhonghua minzu: Chinese nation

This episode of Asia Insight complements an ongoing NBR initiative examining Indo-Pacific approaches to digital regulations and competition policy, with this episode focusing on Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) enforcement activities targeting U.S. firms, featuring NBR Senior Director of Research and Programs Doug Strub in conversation with NBR Advisor Tami Overby and NBR Nonresident Fellow Nigel Cory.

Nigel Cory is a Nonresident Fellow at NBR and is a Director with Crowell Global Advisors.

Tami Overby is a member of the Board of Advisors at NBR and is a Partner at DGA Group Government Relations.

Doug Strub is Senior Director of Research and Programs at NBR.

From the National Bureau of Asian Research, an Asia Insight miniseries exploring the geostrategic significance of China’s borderlands, led by Nadège Rolland, Distinguished Fellow for China Studies at NBR.

Episode Three: The Opening-Up/Securitization Paradox

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 time as the Belt and Road Initiative was supposed to accelerate China’s opening-up to the rest of the world, Beijing also began to harden the security of its borders – a trend intensified by the Covid-19 pandemic.

This third episode examines the tension between prioritizing openness and maintaining security. With contributions from Professor Victor Konrad (Carleton University, Canada), and Professor Alessandro Rippa (University of Oslo, Norway).

Materials cited or referenced in the recording

• Zhuang Rui [庄芮], Song Huike [宋荟柯], Zhang Xiaojing [张晓静], "Strategic Considerations on China’s Border Opening-Up: Historical Logic and Forward Direction" [我国沿边开放战略思考：历史逻辑与推进方向] Chinese Economy and Trade, no.7 (2021).
• "More Indulgence, My Dear Friend? Why China Is Grudgingly Mending Ties with North Korea," The Economist, September 27, 2025.

Glossary of Chinese terms used in the recording

• Xibu dakaifa 西部大开发 Great Development of the West / Great Western Development

Recommended additional readings

• Zhiding Hu and Victor Konrad, "Repositioning Security Spaces of Exclusion, Exception, and Integration in China-Southeast Asia Borderlands," Regions & Cohesion 11, no. 2 (Summer 2021).
• Thomas Ptak, Jussi P. Laine, Zhiding Hu, Yuli Liu, Victor Konrad, Martin van der Velde, "Understanding Borders Through Dynamic Processes: Capturing Relational Motion from South-West China’s Radiation Centre," Territory, Politics, Governance 10, no.2 (2022).
• Alessandro Rippa, Borderland Infrastructures: Trade, Development, and Control in Western China (Amsterdam University Press, 2020).
• Alessandro Rippa, "Mapping the Margins of China’s Global Ambitions: Economic Corridors, Silk Roads, and the End of Proximity in the Borderlands," Eurasian Geography and Economics 61, no.1 (2020).
• Zhang Zheren [张哲人] Li Wei [李慰] "Comprehensively Optimizing the Regional Opening-Up" [全面优化区域开放布局] Hongqi no.16 (2023).
• Guo Yinhong [郭垠宏] Song Tao [宋涛] Sun Man [孙曼] "The Functional Evolution and Temporal Division of China’s Border Regions in the Context of the Security-Development-Opening Up Nexus" [安全、发展与开放关联下的中国边境地区功能演化及时段划分] Geographical Research 42, no.10 (October 2023).

On this episode of Asia Insight, NBR Senior Director of Research and Programs Doug Strub sits down with NBR Advisor Meredith Miller and SAFE Senior Policy Analyst Zoe Oysul to discuss U.S. and Indonesian critical minerals strategies and opportunities and challenges for the two countries to work together within the larger geopolitical context.

Meredith Miller is a member of the Board of Advisors at NBR and is a Senior Advisor at DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group.

Zoe Oysul is a Senior Policy Analyst at SAFE’s Center for Critical Minerals Strategy.

Doug Strub is Senior Director of Research and Programs at NBR.

From the National Bureau of Asian Research, an Asia Insight miniseries exploring the geostrategic significance of China’s borderlands, led by Nadège Rolland, Distinguished Fellow for China Studies at NBR.

Episode Two: A Hundred Years of CCP Borderlands Policies

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 used, the Party’s goal has remained the same: to meld all these regions and their people into a coherent national whole.

This second episode examines how the notions of Borderlands, of nation-building, and of ethnic policies have been intimately intertwined throughout the hundred years of CCP existence. With contributions from Professor Benno Weiner (Carnegie Mellon University), Professor Robert Barnett (School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London and Lau China Institute, King’s College), and Professor James Leibold (La Trobe University).

Materials cited or referenced in the recording

• Benno Weiner, The Chinese Revolution on the Tibetan Frontier (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2020)
• Andrew Martin Fisher, The Disempowered Development of Tibet in China: A Study in the Economics of Marginalization (Plymouth: Lexington Books, 2014)
• Fei Xiaotong [费孝通], The Chinese Nation’s Diversity to Unity Model [中华民族多元一体格局] (Beijing: Central University for Nationalities Press, 1989)
• Ernest Renan, “What is a Nation?” (speech delivered at the Sorbonne University, Paris, on March 11, 1882)

Glossary of Chinese terms used in the recording

• Minzu 民族 nation, nationality(ies), ethnic group(s)
• Shaoshu minzu 少数民族 ethnic minorities
• Minzu tuanjie 民族团结 ethnic/national unity
• Minzu gongzuo 民族工作 ethnic policy work / nation building work
• Duoyuanyiti 多元一体 diversity within unity / plurality and unity / multiple origins, one body / from diversity towards unity
• Zhonghua minzu 中华民族 Chinese nation
• Zhulao 铸牢 to forge
• Zhuhun 铸魂 to cast souls
• Zhonghua minzu gongtongti yishi 中华民族共同体意识 collective consciousness of the Chinese nation / a strong sense of community for the Chinese nation

Recommended additional readings

• Uradyn E. Bulag, “Good Han, Bad Han: The Moral Parameters of Ethnopolitics in China,” in Thomas Mullaney et.al. (Eds.) Critical Han Studies: The History, Representation, and Identity of China’s Majority (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012)
• Vanessa Frangville, “‘Unity Within Diversity’: The Chinese Communist Party’s Construction of the Chinese Nation,” in Jérôme Doyon et.al. (Eds.) The Chinese Communist Party: A 100-Year Trajectory (Canberra: Australian National University Press, 2024)
• James Leibold, “Toward A Second Generation of Ethnic Policies?” Jamestown China Brief 12(13) July 7, 2012
• James Leibold, “Ethnic Policy in China: Is Reform Inevitable?” East-West Center Policy Studies 68, 2013
• Benno Weiner, “‘This Absolutely Is Not a Hui Rebellion!’: The Ethnopolitics of Great Nationality Chauvinism in Early Maoist China,” Twentieth-Century China 48(3) 2023

In this episode of Asia Insight, we explore a recent NBR research project that examined the cumulative impact of three trends—the evolution of the Indo-Pacific geopolitical landscape, recurring questions about U.S. alliance commitments, and domestic political debates on nuclear armament—on the sustainability of U.S. extended deterrence and nuclear restraint in Australia, Japan, and South Korea.

Zack Cooper is the project’s Principal Investigator, and he is also a Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Bee Yun Jo is a Research Fellow in the Center for Security Strategy at the Sejong Institute in South Korea.

Lavina Lee is Director of the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre, University of Sydney in Australia.