State Sovereignty in the age of strategic competition: China’s extraterritorial forays in Europe

In recent years, the disciplinary apparatus of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) has been strengthened to police dissent outside China’s borders. New mechanisms have been devised to control those deemed ‘Chinese’ under the leadership’s understanding of state sovereignty and citizenship – one that is characteristically based on territorial, legal citizenship and racial rationales (Gonzalez-Vicente, 2017). This is exemplified by two recent developments. The first is the emergence of clandestine Chinese police bases in countries such as Croatia, Italy or the Netherlands. The main function of such bases is to put pressure on dissidents to cease their activism, or even to return to China and face the legal consequences of their subversive activities. The second development is the agreements with financial entities such as HSBC to block Hong Kong activists exiled in the UK from accessing their bank accounts and pension savings. These developments have led to clashes with governments and civil societies that prioritize the idea of citizenship as a set of rights over citizenship as subjection to state power. Interestingly, these developments are also at odds with the legal territorial understandings of sovereignty embraced by not only most European states, but also the Chinese government itself, at least in its official rhetoric. Effectively, the PRC’s emerging extraterritorial practices imply that the Chinese government considers that it has the prerogative to impose its rule on ‘biologically Chinese’ citizens wherever they are. This paper reflects on this clash and interplay of Chinese and European sovereignties in European soil, emphasizing sovereignty as constituted by flexible and dynamic practices (Agnew, 2008; Kyris, 2022). While the use of extraterritorial forms of state power targeted at dissidents and other ‘enemies’ of the state is not at all new, the present clash between Chinese and European notions and practices of sovereignty is of upmost importance given the rising power of the Asian country, the new stage in the relationship between China and many Western countries, and the rising number of Chinese and Hong Kong dissidents seeking refuge in Europe. By doing so, we are allowed to understand better the various ways state sovereignty is practised and beyond typical static and monolithic understandings of the concept.