LSE Global South Dialogue Series: Whose Global South? China’s Narratives, Coalitions, and Geoeconomic Strategy
China increasingly invokes the “Global South,” but the term carries multiple meanings in its foreign policy. This talk examines how Beijing frames the Global South as a community of developing countries, a coalition for reforming global governance, and a geoeconomic arena shaped by trade, technology, infrastructure, and great-power competition.
It argues that these narratives matter because they seek to legitimize China’s leadership while also creating space for strategic influence. Yet Global South countries are not passive recipients: they selectively adopt, reinterpret, or resist these framings according to their own interests, making the Global South a contested rather than unified political category.
Meet the Speakers
Dr. Xue Gong is Assistant Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, where she also serves as Deputy Coordinator of the China Programme. Her research focuses on China’s economic statecraft, state–business relations, geoeconomics, supply-chain security, and China’s engagement with Southeast Asia and the Global South. Her recent work examines how Chinese firms, technologies, and investment networks are shaped by great-power competition, sanctions, and export controls, with particular attention to biotechnology, critical minerals, and emerging technologies. She is a non-resident scholar at Carnegie China.
Gregory T. Chin (PhD, York University) is an Associate Professor of Political Science/Political Economy at York University, Canada, and a Senior Fellow of the Global Development Policy Center at Boston University, and of the Foreign Policy Institute at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies. He is Co-Director of the Emerging Global Governance (EGG) Project at Global
Policy journal online. He has published widely on the international andc omparative political economy of China, Asia, the BRICS, international money and global finance. Greg worked in the Government of Canada from 2000 to 2007, in Ottawa at the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade, and the Canadian International Development Agency,2000-2003, and as First Secretary at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, 2003-2006.
Álvaro Mendez is the Director of the Global South Unit at the London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE), and a Senior Associate Fellow at LSE IDEAS. He is a Full Research Professor at Rey JuanCarlos University in Madrid, working on a project funded by the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation that focuses on strategies for internationalisation, innovation, and social responsibility. Prof. Mendez is also an Associate Fellow at the Geneva Centre for Security Policy (GCSP), and a Member of the Colombian Council of Foreign Affairs (CORI). He teaches at LSE, Sciences Po Paris, and Fudan University. Ha has won numerous teaching awards, such as the IR Departmental Teaching Prize in recognition of his teaching of International Relations at the LSE, and he has contributed to numerous books as an author, co-author, or editor of numerous books.
LSE holds a wide range of events, covering many of the most controversial issues of the day, and speakers at our events may express views that cause offence. The views expressed by speakers at LSE events do not reflect the position or views of the London School of Economics and Political Science.