Global China as positionality: A reflexive account from a Chinese scholar in Africa

This commentary reflects on ‘Global China’ as a question of positionality by drawing from the author's personal experience as a Chinese scholar conducting fieldwork in Africa. Moving beyond state-centric or geopolitical framings, the article considers how Chinese researchers abroad navigate identity, essentialism, and knowledge production within a global academic system still shaped by binary logics – such as East/West, North/South, insider/outsider. The article proposes that Global China is not only a methodological object or strategy but a lived condition and reflexive space of scholarly engagement. I therefore call for a critical reading of Global China as a site of in-betweenness – an ambiguous yet productive space for epistemic negotiation.