The past two decades have witnessed a heightened research interest in the emerging field of “Global China” (Lee 2022, Franceshini et al. 2022). This field interrogates China’s role in and its profound influence on the global stage. A myriad of studies, initiatives, and media reports have focused on China’s global footprint; its overseas investments, especially the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the political, socio-economic, environmental, and human rights implications; and its influence on geopolitics and regional dynamics. However, not enough attention has been paid to the gender aspect of Global China, and the issue of gender and sexuality has been largely ignored (Jolly 2016, Cai and Li 2021). Recently, with China’s increasing global commitment to gender equality and women’s development at various international forums and in international cooperation programs, gender issues have been given greater prominence and attention in the country’s foreign policy (Xi 2015, 2020). This has prompted researchers and activists to raise concerns about the use of gendered discourses in soft power propaganda in diplomacy and its implications for gender politics in China and across the world. In collaboration with researchers and activists, DAWN intends to develop an analysis to understand China’s global economic, political, and security expansion, and its profound impacts on gender equality and women’s human rights in the global South.
First, this analytical framework paper is based on the review of existing literature on themes related to gender and Global China, including but not limited to the Chinese government’s official documents and policy guidelines, academic research as well as reports and analyses by civil society groups located both inside and outside China. The framework examines and synthesizes the main theories, methods, and arguments of the current research on this subject; identifies the knowledge gaps; and suggests topics and methodologies for further research to be conducted by scholars in the form of case studies set in different regions of the South.
This is a webinar with authors and researchers involved with the project and with this subject.