Ms Geyi Xie1
1The University of Adelaide, Australia
Biography:
Geyi Xie is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Adelaide. Her PhD project reassesses China’s roles in the Pacific Islands region from a poststructuralist perspective. She is the first to apply a non-state-centric approach and interpretive methods to analyse China’s roles, interests, and power relations with Pacific Island countries. Her research interests include IR theory, China’s foreign policy, China-Pacific Island countries relations, international order, identity, power/knowledge, and sovereignty. During her candidature, Geyi co-authored a publication in the Chinese Journal of International Politics and contributed a book chapter related to her research.
Abstract:
China’s growing presence in the Pacific Islands region has drawn extensive attention, but existing studies in International Relations (IR) often examine this presence on an ad hoc basis. These studies tend to focus on great power competition between China and the United States (US), lacking theoretical innovation and reducing the complexities of IR to oversimplified narratives. In response, I argue that Michel Foucault’s concept of power/knowledge offers a useful lens for a deeper understanding of IR, with maps serving as narratives. Through a genealogical-deconstructive analysis, I demonstrate that China’s roles, interests, and power relations with the Pacific Islands region do not emerge from a vacuum but through a series of discursive struggles.
Rather than treating the region as a static concept, I examine the perspectives of Chinese intellectuals from the 19th century to explore how the meanings of the region have evolved across different spatial and temporal references. These long-overlooked maps reveal how China’s understanding of the region is intertextually and socially constructed to serve contemporary goals. I show that China’s approach to the region is deeply intertwined with how it perceives itself in relation to external powers, particularly Japan and the US. This study aims to contribute to IR theory through the lens of power/knowledge while shedding new light on empirical studies of China in the Pacific Islands region.