This thesis contributes to the literature of critical geopolitics. Based on the exploration of existing studies of critical geopolitics, in this thesis I first argue that this body of literature only presents a partial picture of the world from the perspective of political geographies. While it does offer a solidly critical stance in the investigation of how spatiality influences the exercise of power, it also has certain limitations from ontological and epistemological perspectives. Many studies in this literature suffer from three problems. First, many works have empirically and overly focused on Western states while neglecting both non-Western spaces/places and non-Western geopolitical theories. Second, this body of literature has paid too much attention to media texts rather than the audience who consume those media. In the small amount of audience studies, fans, who are considered to be the most passionate consumer, have always been equated with the audience, thereby ignoring other consumption forces, such as critics and occasional readers. Third, the majority of extant critical geopolitical studies have been concerned with constructionism, which emphasises the significance of human beings in creating a space and thus influencing the exercise of power, while much less attention has been paid to the materiality that underlines the being, or object, playing any of a set of active roles in a narrative. Those limitations of critical geopolitical studies, in particular the lack of non-Western examples, provide new possibilities for the development of the current field of critical geopolitics. This thesis focuses on Chinese political geographies, a non-Western socio-political background. It indicates that the socio-political context of China has brought potentialities for investigating the complex entanglement between spatial practices and the exercise of power. Specifically, this thesis gives an overview of Chinese geopolitical traditions, hua-yi distinction and Sino-centrism, that have had, and still have, a significant impact upon Chinese political cultures. At the same time, this thesis also reviews the extant literature of Chinese geopolitics. On this basis, it argues that previous works of/in Chinese geopolitical studies have been intimately associated with Western dominance, in particular the classical geopolitical tradition in Western academia, and thus lacked the examination of internal geopolitical voices. These overviews have built two fundamental frameworks for this thesis: critical geopolitics and non-Western geopolitics. Critical geopolitics is the main theoretical framework for this thesis, while non-Western geopolitics is the primary empirical framework for this thesis, although its contribution is not limited to empirics. Thus I argue that geopolitical space is seldom a pure space controlled by any single force or any single element, but rather a heterogeneous space influenced by a mixed range of forces and factors, including both Western and non-Western forces and values, ruling and ruled forces and values, and socially constructed and material factors. In particular for popular geopolitics, I argue that popular space usually strengthens cultural hegemony, but at the same time it also erodes authority. It is a space of difference and antagonism. Armed with the above perspectives, this thesis will use three chapters of empirical studies to explain how various spaces, forces and values are involved in the exercise of power. Three stories are narrated in this thesis: (1) Two different – even opposite – Chinese newspaper writings of terrorism and the US war on terror, which can be read as an examination of how Chinese elites practice and perform their geopolitical identities. (2) Audience imaginations of terrorism and the US war on terror through their readings of Chinese newspapers as mentioned above (1), which can be read as an investigation of how Chinese elitist views are spread and how geopolitical visions are established in Chinese society. (3) Discussion of terrorism and the US war on terror in the Internet community, in which both Internet users and computer algorithms and bots have a significant impact upon the creation of public opinion.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, with China's remarkable success in economic developments and greater openness to the outside world, two sharply opposing views of China have appeared in the Western perception of China - a rising superpower as well as a threat to the West, economically, militarily and environmentally. The West, particularly the US and Britain fears that China is likely to take advantage of its growing economic and geopolitical influence in order to change the world's power pattern. Within such a social context, this thesis sets out to explore if the old concepts of Orientalism on China has ever changed in modern times and how the modern images China and the Chinese are framed in the contemporary British news media. It is carried out through four cases – Chinese migration, Hong Kong handover (1997), Tibet issue and Sichuan Great Earthquake (2008). More specifically, the thesis examines: how the two dominating masterframes – ethno-nationalist and liberal individualist masterframes coexist or compete with each other in the reporting; and what the differences are between newspapers in terms of frame choice and the ratio of struggle between two frames. The study implies that the old Orientalist stereotypes, such as ‘Yellow Peril', which were used to describe China and the Chinese have not often appeared in the recent British news media representations in the selected four cases. Instead, the liberal individualist views have been widely and deeply embedded in the British news reporting, criticising China being essentially a Communist dictatorship as opposed to Western democracy. Additionally, the relations between two masterframes appear in three forms – coexistence or intertwining, supporting each other, and struggle.

This thesis analyses the implementation and impact of a succession of reform policies in a reasonably typical county in central China between 1978 and 2013. Three phases in the recent history of Li County – a fairly representative microcosm – are examined. These phases emerged as China witnessed transitions across three generations of the central leadership. This study pays special attention to certain key reforms: the allocation of lands to households, the development of Township and Village Enterprises, and self-governance for villagers in the 1980s; the decentralisation of fiscal authority, and the tax sharing system in the 1990s; and the reforms of taxes and fees, reforms beneficial to agriculture, and other supporting reforms from 2000 to 2013. By assessing the implementation of these policies in one predominantly agrarian county in central China – in which 81.5% of the population was rural in 2010 - the thesis attempts to present a vivid picture of what has been happening in China, and to explain why China became what it is now. It also seeks to contribute to an understanding of the diverse political and social impacts of the reforms. The methodology which the current study employs is mainly qualitative. The findings in the thesis are based in part on secondary sources, but it mainly relies on two types of primary sources, which were examined during several phases of fieldwork between 2011 and 2013. First, documentary materials archived by many government departments at different levels within the county were consulted. Second, oral evidence was collected through recorded interviews with local party cadres and peasants in 53 villages in thirty townships within the county. The quantitative data set out in the thesis is drawn either from official statistics or from personal testimonies. The two sets of evidence complement each other, enable cross checking, and lend credibility to this analysis. They help us to understand conflicts that arose amid reform between different groups, and between traditional customs and modern values – and the strategies that have been adopted by a diversity of actors to ease those conflicts and to stabilise society. They also yield insights into the economic, social and environmental impediments which confronted the reform process, and into both the hardships and opportunities which ordinary people encountered.