The belt and road Initiative as a case of agrarian Para-Coloniality

Abstract

This article analyses the Belt and Road Initiative through the lens of ‘agrarian expansionism’ and infrastructuring ‘para-coloniality.’ It focuses on China’s expanding investments in the soy landscapes of South America, particularly in the Brazilian Cerrado. The article argues that Chinese investments in large-scale soy monocultures (and according infrastructures) build on and reinforce Eurocentric patterns of ecological and economic coloniality in the Americas. While the infrastructure-driven approach of the BRI contributes to the colossal rescaling of agrarian extractivism, it also benefits from state-sponsored innovations in Brazilian agribusiness during the 1970s. Therefore, this case of agrarian para-coloniality also builds on the effects of home-grown biotechnologies, which paved the way for the expansion of soybean plantations in previously unthinkable places, now needed to keep carbon levels at bay.