Qujing ( 取经) as policy mobility with Chinese characteristics: A case study of ultralow-energy building policy in China

Abstract

This article introduces the concept and practice of qujing as a Chinese state-organized form of policy mobility. The term qujing originates in the journey of a Tang Dynasty monk Xuanzang who brought Buddhism’s sutras from India to China in the 7th century; qujing has been appropriated by modern Chinese leaders to promote learning from the experiences of other regions. In post-reform China, qujing has become routinized within the Chinese bureaucracy as an integral step in its distinctive experimentalist governance. By bringing insights from the literature of China’s policy experimentation to situate trans-local learning, I challenge the disproportionate attention the policy mobility literature has paid to local and transnational actors in mobilizing policies under neoliberalism. Instead, I locate the origins, agency, and knowledge mutation of Chinese qujing within the multi-scalar policy experimentation protocols of China’s authoritarian regime. This article contrasts qujing with generalized patterns of policy mobility in the existing literature, thereby decentering political mobility research from more familiar western political contexts and actors. Using multi-year interviews and official documents, I trace China’s introduction of ultralow-energy passive building from Germany as a case-study to show the relationships between foreign learning (qujing), local experimentation, and policy making in greening China’s built environment.