Harden the Hardline, Soften the Softline: Unravelling China's <i>Qiaoling</i>-centred Diaspora Governance in Laos

Abstract Since the 1990s, Chinese government has intensified efforts to control political life of diaspora by recruiting proxies, or qiaoling ??, from extraterritorial population for community-based governance. This paper examines efficacy this co-optive strategy investigating its ramifications in Lao business communities. Following a group Vientiane through qualitative fieldwork, I reveal how these individuals are self-motivated perform patriotism desire earn symbolic recognition. Their fame and prestige as critical their material accumulation often-fraudulent intermediation bureaucrats investors. As such, while contributing realigning allegiance diaspora, simultaneously reshape ongoing expansion capitalism ways that diverge Beijing's developmental agenda. finding complicates long-held imaginary an autonomous state–diaspora synergy post-socialist China.