Twenty-five years of progress in geopolitics research： Efforts from China＇s geographers

The world is currently undergoing profound changes, with a shift in global power centers and reordering of international power spaces, assigning new theoretical tasks as well as providing new opportunities for geopolitics research in China. Despite the peripheral nature of geopolitics research within their discipline, geographers have played a fundamental role in its origins and revival, from classical geopolitics（i.e., the German school of geopolitics and the Anglo-American school of geo-strategy）, to internal geopolitics（i.e., electoral geography and administrative geography）, to the new geopolitics（i.e., formal geopolitics）, and to recent critical geopolitics（i.e., popular geopolitics）. Although only few of these researchers were from China, great strides have been made in geopolitics and political geography research in China, with useful results being obtained. After demonstrating the importance of geopolitics research for the rising China, this review provides an overview of geopolitics papers led by China＇s geographers in the past few decades, describing their achievements, the problems they have faced, and the directions they have taken. Twenty-five years of geopolitics have produced a range of accomplishments, with a growth in the quality and size of research groups and institutions, an expanding literature, and some geo-strategic breakthroughs. Obviously, geographers have successfully reclaimed geopolitics, but some crucial topics are still absent or weak in the geopolitical research agenda, and need to be pursued vigorously. Most of the attention, from a positivistic perspective, has been paid to reflecting Western geopolitical thoughts, describing patterns of international power relations, and offering foreign policy advice（in a problem-focused orientation）, rather than determining mechanisms and performing theoretical analyses（in a theoretical orientation）, resulting in a lack of independent value judgments and of a theoretical basis for the subject. Moreover, in comparison with other disciplines, in terms of its academic community, research output, and status as a discipline, geopolitics research is very different from how it was three or four decades ago, when it was mainly the property of geographers, rather than political scientists and diplomats. For now, whether to support national geo-strategies or to enhance the diversity of the discipline, the involvement of geographers in geopolitics needs to become both more intensive and more extensive. The top priority is to strengthen theoretical, methodological, and problem- oriented research, including studies of geopolitical philosophy and methodology, the theoretical framework of the subject, global geopolitical evolution and shifts in power space, the roles of major powers and their geo-strategies, as well as China＇s surrounding geopolitical environment.

China-Pakistan Economic Corridor: A Perspective from Pakistan

The framework of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor CPEC envisions an intrinsic regional development goal.It promises connectivity across the length and breadth of the region and its periphery,together with achieving an economically strengthened neighborhood.It is this compulsion that merits deliberations on the strength of Pak-China relations and their impact on the phenomenal CPEC vision.The idea rests on the notion of China’s newer role in the evolving geostrategic and geo-economic underpinnings of the world,and also Pakistan’s resilience towards carving out a strengthened economic base amidst major security challenges.Hence,with the opportunities that lay ahead of CPEC for the region and beyond,Pakistan holds high the dictum of‘strong economy is sin-qua-non for strong security’.With its significant geostrategic location as a mainstay of CPEC,Pakistan aims to provide a platform for economic growth for the region and beyond.It has also envisioned to booster development and raise the standards of living across the corridor,which includes Western China as well as areas of Pakistan which have suffered at the hands of agitated neighborhood as a burden of history.However,it is also worth mentioning that,viewing the opportunities that lie within CPEC,in isolation from the challenges may indeed be delusional.Particularly,in the security,socioeconomic and cultural domains,CPEC may generate challenges to Pakistan and the region,which need to be considered seriously.Nonetheless,this study aims to provide an insight to Pakistan’s resolve towards domestic and regional developments amidst the Chinese vision of CPEC and also considers the strength of Pak-China relations as the mainstay of materializing the CPEC goal of development for all.