China’s global engagements were deepening across sectors and geographies when BROKEX was conceptualized. The objective of BROKEX was to fill key knowledge gaps about how China’s extraversion advances by studying brokers—actors who mediate transnationally across economic, social, and professional fields.
While conventional social science approaches begin with fixed network structures, BROKEX examined how brokers actively reshape network morphologies, creating or redefining connections across gaps, moving beyond descriptions of global integration to illuminate the underlying dynamics of how transnational connections are initiated and sustained.
The project was organized in three stages:
Stage 1 Literature review of empirical research on “Global China,” centering on the Pearl River Delta (PRD) in South China. The review surveyed theories of brokerage across disciplines, including history, geography, political science, sociology, and architecture.
Stage 2 Data collection through four case studies in the PRD. These explored:
(a) export of China-made goods to African markets,
(b) industrial upgrading through start-ups and entrepreneurship,
(c) Cantonese merchant capitalism in the late Qing period,
(d) transnational architecture production.
Fieldwork in Guangdong, in part made difficult by Covid, was complemented by archival research, online interviews, and overseas fieldwork (e.g. in Ghana). The diverse cases provided rich insights into brokerage mechanisms across different sectors.
Stage 3: Using empirical findings to advance theoretical work on brokerage. The project contributed to understanding:
•Motivations for brokerage, including how socially privileged individuals are enrolled into entrepreneurial roles meant to drive innovation, often at personal cost;
•Geopolitical influences on interpersonal relationships and the transmission of standards and norms;
•Geographic diffusion of management styles via Chinese trade conglomerates; and
•Brokerage as a driver of flexibility in transnational Chinese capitalist ventures.
The project deepened understanding of how transnational flows—of people, goods, and capital—are maintained through South China. These flows have proven remarkably resilient to disruption. Both politically desired and undesired flows often rely on common infrastructures, producing a paradox where Chinese state power appears both pervasive and absent. Instead of centralized control, diverse actors adapt and transform existing systems to stabilize circulation. This challenges assumptions about monolithic state control and shows how resilience arises from flexibility.
Brokers play a key role in governing these flows. The PRD was a strategic site for studying these processes, as China’s primary gateway to the world historically, a testing ground for reforms in the post-1978 era, and a spearhead in the current project of upgrading China’s industrial structure.
Despite goals to upgrade, Guangdong remains deeply reliant on manufacturing-driven flows and their associated informality. BROKEX examined why “low-end” flows—often linked to pollution, illegality, or perceived backwardness—persist. The project found that these flows are not merely remnants but foundational to more celebrated and state-sanctioned economic activity. Formal innovation often depends on informal infrastructures that enable flexibility, especially under uncertain conditions.
The project had contributed to global debates on China's expanding international presence. It addressed critical questions such as:
•How do Chinese migrants shape host societies?
•What differentiates Chinese capital abroad from other foreign investments?
•Will Chinese standards or the RMB become dominant in global trade?
These questions are central not only to China’s trajectory but to shifting global economic and political geographies.
BROKEX further tracked how circulation became politicized within China. Xi Jinping’s 2020 “dual circulation” strategy marked a push toward domestic self-reliance and reduced dependence on global flows. Grassroots discourse—including online campaigns—has increasingly supported greater state control over migration and border-crossing. The project documented how these internal debates reshape the very meaning of circulation and the state’s role in it.
Finally, BROKEX contributes to brokerage theory more broadly by emphasizing the relational groundwork that precedes brokerage acts. This perspective helps explain how and why brokered connections emerge, offering insights applicable beyond the Chinese context.
