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This introductory essay historicizes the evolution of China’s geopolitical strategy from the Maoist era (1949–1976) to the present. It examines the Chinese strategic thinking in four spatial settings: Eurasia, maritime Southeast Asia, the Indian subcontinent and the wider Indo-Pacific region. The Chinese strategic concerns are comparable across these regions, but the ability to pursue security interests is contingent on many circumstantial factors. This study refers to some snapshots of the ongoing regional disputes to discuss the continuities and breakpoints in China’s strategic outreach in a multipolar world.

This study draws on the scholarly literature and policy papers to examine the interrelated forces that shape China’s rise to regional dominance: how Beijing has co-opted a series of global and regional crises for its rise to domination; how China, the USA and neighbouring countries have adjusted and adapted to a new changing international order; and how major powers in littoral and maritime Asia respond to an increasingly assertive Chinese state.

This study documents the combination of smart, soft and sharp power that China has deployed, since the global financial crisis of 2008, to enforce its dominance against the USA across the Pacific Rim and Eurasia. It argues that General Secretary of the Chinese Communist PartyXi Jinping initially launched the Belt and Road Initiative to respond to former US President Barak Obama’s policy of rebalancing Asia, and he has expanded these expansionary projects to counter US President Donald Trump’s “America First” doctrine, thereby asserting Chinese influence abroad and tightening control against discontented populations at home.

Many Western policy analysts are wondering whether a rising China will be a “status quo” state or a revisionist state that attempts to challenge the existing world order. The lack of clarification from Beijing has prompted Washington to shift from a longstanding strategy of diplomatic engagement to that of geostrategic containment to balance against China.

The strategic goals of China in the early 21st century pertain to security reassurance, access to energy resources and national image building. Since the global financial crisis of 2008, China has become immensely confident of its own socio-economic accomplishments and scornful of what it perceives as an American conspiracy to undermine its rise to power. Following in the footsteps of the USA in the post-Second World War era, Japan in the 1980s and Taiwan in the 1990s, Beijing has used international commercial activities and business contracts to achieve specific political, strategic and diplomatic objectives.

The goal of this article is to examine the current trends of political cinema in postcolonial Hong Kong. Many leaders of the Hong Kong mainstream cinema have accepted the Chinese authoritarian rule as a precondition for expanding into the ever-expanding Mainland film market, but a handful of conscientious filmmakers choose to make political cinema under the shadow of a wealthy and descendant industry, expressing their desire for democracy and justice and critiquing the unequal power relations between Hong Kong and China.

This paper consults relevant documentary materials and cinematic texts to contextualize the latest development of political cinema in Hong Kong. It presents an in-depth analysis of the works of two local independent filmmakers Herman Yau and Vincent Chui.

This study reveals a glimpse of hope in the current films of Herman Yau and Vincent Chui, which suggests that a reconfiguration of local identity and communal relationship may turn around the collective despair caused by the oppressive measures of the Chinese authoritarian state and the end of the Umbrella Movement in late 2014.

Despite the small sample size, this paper highlights the rise of cinematic localism through a closer look at the works of Hong Kong independent filmmakers.

This study reveals an ambivalent mentality in the Hong Kong film industry where critical filmmakers strive to assert their creativity and agency against the externally imposed Chinese hegemonic power.

This investigation is an original scholarly study of film and politics in postcolonial Hong Kong.

Taking an inter-Asian perspective on the perception of China’s rise and power shifts in Asia, this reflection draws on the examples of Hong Kong’s years-long pro-democracy movement, Taiwan’s democratization and India’s anti-China sentiments to discuss the growth of domestic and international discontents against China’s projection of sharp power, even military power, along its peripheries. The severity of these crises suggests that an assertive China has trapped itself in a perpetual cycle of intensifying authoritarian rule at home and seeking expansionary outreach abroad. China’s diplomatic and military adventurism is likely to antagonize potential allies, jeopardizing the hope for inter-Asian solidarity and cooperation.

The authors consult relevant secondary literature to contextualize the perception of China’s rise to domination from an inter-Asian perspective.

Following the end of the Cold War in 1990 and the demise of the Soviet Union as a Eurasian empire, some cultural theorists proposed a postcolonial, inter-Asian perspective to de-globalize the Euro-American-dominated humanities and social sciences, recognizing that many areas once deemed by the West as marginal and peripheral had contributed to the transformation of the modern world. The nineteenth-century Western imperialists and early twentieth-century Japanese militarists once deployed the geopolitical concept of “Asia” to advance their respective discourses of modernity and progress. Thus, the very notion of Asian solidarity or Pan-Asianism is deeply problematic because it reminds us of the entwined histories of colonial oppression and resistance against imperialistic intrusions.

The conventional “inter-Asian” perspective that emphasizes relational connectedness across and within nations does not seem applicable to explaining the troublesome relationship between American universalism and China-centric authoritarianism.

In today’s multipolar world, the USA and China are embroiled in a competitive relationship regarding the shape the global order should take. The recent US-China trade war is only the opening shot in the wider bilateral conflict. Behind this contest for global leadership in economic influence and technology is a serious battle of ideas.

China is still coming to terms with many unexpected consequences of globalization. Steady recovery gave China a temporary reprieve but the overall economy has weakened due to many years of trade disputes with the USA and the COVID-19 pandemic. China has yet to find a way to coexist with a fast-developing India, address the genuine grievances and demands for democratic change in Hong Kong and accommodate a stronger pro-independence force in Taiwan. To revive the vision of inter-Asian solidarity, China should build trust at home and abroad and reimagine institutional mechanisms for conflict resolution. Otherwise, it would trap itself in endless cycles of tensions and conflicts that benefit no one.

The rapid rise of China to power in the Eurasian continent and Asian waters has not only distorted the inter-Asian vision of seeking unity among postcolonial states but also accelerated competitions for territorial resources and regional dominance. By reflecting on the latest interventions of China in geopolitical affairs, this paper shows that despite the rhetorical appeal of horizontality, the engagement of many emerging Asian powers has diverged from the ideal of inter-Asian cooperation. The task for scholars is to gain a more accurate understanding of the fluid situations on the ground.

The five-decade-long Chinese colonialization of Tibet has led to a refugee flow. No longer confined to the Tibetan Plateau, Tibetans are scattered over the world, placing deep roots in host nations, in cities stretching from Oslo to New York City. Faced with new ideas, cultures and ways of life, diasporic Tibetans confront the same challenges as countless refugees before them. The purpose of this study is to investigate the efforts of Tibetan New Yorkers to preserve their language and culture. To what extent should they integrate themselves into host countries? What mechanisms could they use to hold onto their native heritage without isolating themselves in a foreign environment? How should they construct new diasporic identities and reconcile such efforts with their ongoing political struggles?

This paper draws on documentary sources and interviews to examine the ways in which diasporic Tibetans understood and portrayed the conventional categories of language, cultural heritage and religion, especially with respect to the Tibetan Government-in-exile in India, and in which they maintained and reinvented their linguistic and cultural heritage in the cosmopolitan environment of New York City.

There is a gradual process of identity formation among Tibetan New Yorkers. While exiled Tibetans are asserting their agency to reinvent a new sense of belonging to America, they still hold onto the regional identity of their family households. Meanwhile, the US-born younger generations strengthen their ties with the larger Tibetan diaspora through community events, socio-cultural activism and electronic media.

Despite the small sample size, this study presents the first investigation of the Tibetan New Yorkers, and it provides an insider’s perspective on the efforts to preserve their native heritage in a globalized environment.

This study is a useful case study of the Tibetan diasporas in comparison with other Chinese diasporas in the West and beyond.

This study is the first scholarly investigation of the sociocultural experiences of Tibetan New Yorkers.

This paper aims to analyse how both Lin’s birthplace identity and his Christian identity contributed to his fruitful public career and to ascertain which identity became the most significant.

Archival research is the main method used in this paper. The most important archives drawn from are the Daniel Tse Collection in the Special Collection and Archives of the Hong Kong Baptist University Library. Oral history has also been used in this paper to uncover more material that has not yet been discussed in existing scholarly works.

This paper argues that although Lin’s birthplace identity and social networks helped him to start his business career in Nam Pak Hong and develop into a leader in the local Chaozhou communities, these factors were insufficient to his becoming a respectable member of the Chinese elite in post-war Hong Kong. He became well known not because of his leading position in local Chaozhou communities or any great achievement he had obtained in business but because of his contribution to the development of Christian education. These achievements earned him a reputation as a “Christian educator”. Thus Lin’s Christian identity became more important than his birthplace identity in contributing to his successful public career.

This paper has value in showing how Christian influences interacted with various cultural factors in early Hong Kong. It also offers insights into Lin’s life and motivations as well as the history of the institutions he contributed to/founded. It not only furthers our understanding of the Chinese Christian business elite in early Hong Kong but also provides us with insights when further studying this group of people in other British colonies in Asia.

A qualitative development is discernible in China’s pursuit of global influence in knowledge following the launch of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). China has embarked on expanding the frontiers of its higher education and research enterprise in different geographies, a subset of its global power project. This paper employs the geointellect concept to analyze this phenomenon.

The paper applies the geointellect model, formed inductively, to illuminate China’s geographical expanse in higher education and research.

The BRI has provided a platform for China to shape the educational architecture of the participating countries, apart from receiving a boost in its prestige by leading educational alliances and opening overseas research centres. In quantitative terms, it has made progress in specific knowledge metrics. Nevertheless, certain challenges and limitations need to be overcome.

The role of a foreign policy in boosting a country’s knowledge profile has been identified. Future research directions have been provided in using the geointellect model.

This study provides a direction to evaluate the implications of China’s foreign policy for its knowledge segment, especially in terms of capturing its leading prowess in higher education and research.

It contributes a conceptual model to capture the different facets of China’s geointellect, with foreign policy, geography, higher education, and research being its constituents.