Zhengli Huang
Biographic Data
| ID | 3719075 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Zhengli Huang |
| GIVEN NAMES | Zhengli |
| FAMILY NAME | Huang |
| SIGNATURE | HUANG Z |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tongji University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-7567-8041 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 9 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 39 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 9 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Lucrative infrastructure and intentional bypassing
This paper traces the evolution of Chinese finance in infrastructure development in Kenya, transitioning from a government-to-government (G2G) to a public-private-partnership (PPP) model, as exemplified by the Kenyan Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the Nairobi Expressway. It demonstrates how financing models redistribute risks and control among stakeholders, producing distinct spatial outcomes. The G2G-financed SGR placed financial risks on Keny…
Homeownership and tenure (in)security in fractured urban peripheries
Global China as positionality
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/outsi…
Force and Aspiration
While the emergence of social class is usually associated with relations of production or patterns of consumption, this article argues for centring mobility in class analysis, especially within rapidly growing cities. It focuses on the peripheries of Addis Ababa, where Africa’s most remarkable state‐led housing programme has produced wrenching sociospatial change. As a wide spectrum of households are sucked or expelled into these peripheries, new…
Improvised Hybridity in the “Fixing” of Chinese Infrastructure Capital
The article explores the role of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) in the globalisation of China's infrastructure capital. Examining how accumulation strategies of Chinese SOEs are driven by a complex set of political and economic, state and private, interests, it foregrounds the inherently hybrid nature of China's state capitalism. We use Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as a case study to analyse how state infrastructure capital traverses bord…
Between highways and fintech platforms
In this paper, we juxtapose two different sectors of China’s economic presence in Africa: transport and digital infrastructure. Using the case of Kenya, a country that hosts several flagship corridors funded by Chinese loans and where Chinese “digital champions” have been active for two decades, we highlight some of the differences and similarities between these two forms of China’s going-out capitalism in the continent. Our argument is that thes…
Manufacturing urbanism
The relationship between industrialisation and urban development is subject to assumptions based on experiences in the global North, with little research on how it plays out in countries undergoing urbanisation and industrialisation today. In the context of recent excitement about China’s role in stimulating an ‘industrial revolution’ in Africa, we examine how Chinese zones in Ethiopia and Uganda are influencing the urban–industrial nexus. We arg…
Contingent infrastructure and the dilution of 'Chineseness
Amid growing interest in China's role in financing and building infrastructure in Africa, there is still little research on how Chinese-financed infrastructures are negotiated and realised at the city and metropolitan scale. We compare the Light Rail Transit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with the expressway linking Kampala to Entebbe airport in Uganda, examining the processes of bargaining behind these transport infrastructures and their emergent effe…
Rwanda Market in Addis Ababa
The increasing number of Chinese migrants in Ethiopia has created a niche market for Chinese food consumption, turning Rwanda Market into the only urban food market specialising in Chinese products in the city of Addis Ababa. The specific character of this market is that even though it primarily serves the demands of foreign migrants, the food value chain and the business network is predominantly local. Positioned in a relatively conservative bus…
Contingent infrastructure and the dilution of 'Chineseness
Amid growing interest in China's role in financing and building infrastructure in Africa, there is still little research on how Chinese-financed infrastructures are negotiated and realised at the city and metropolitan scale. We compare the Light Rail Transit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with the expressway linking Kampala to Entebbe airport in Uganda, examining the processes of bargaining behind these transport infrastructures and their emergent effe…
Improvised Hybridity in the “Fixing” of Chinese Infrastructure Capital
The article explores the role of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) in the globalisation of China's infrastructure capital. Examining how accumulation strategies of Chinese SOEs are driven by a complex set of political and economic, state and private, interests, it foregrounds the inherently hybrid nature of China's state capitalism. We use Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as a case study to analyse how state infrastructure capital traverses bord…
Between highways and fintech platforms
In this paper, we juxtapose two different sectors of China’s economic presence in Africa: transport and digital infrastructure. Using the case of Kenya, a country that hosts several flagship corridors funded by Chinese loans and where Chinese “digital champions” have been active for two decades, we highlight some of the differences and similarities between these two forms of China’s going-out capitalism in the continent. Our argument is that thes…
Manufacturing urbanism
The relationship between industrialisation and urban development is subject to assumptions based on experiences in the global North, with little research on how it plays out in countries undergoing urbanisation and industrialisation today. In the context of recent excitement about China’s role in stimulating an ‘industrial revolution’ in Africa, we examine how Chinese zones in Ethiopia and Uganda are influencing the urban–industrial nexus. We arg…
Homeownership and tenure (in)security in fractured urban peripheries
Rwanda Market in Addis Ababa
The increasing number of Chinese migrants in Ethiopia has created a niche market for Chinese food consumption, turning Rwanda Market into the only urban food market specialising in Chinese products in the city of Addis Ababa. The specific character of this market is that even though it primarily serves the demands of foreign migrants, the food value chain and the business network is predominantly local. Positioned in a relatively conservative bus…
Contingent infrastructure and the dilution of 'Chineseness
Amid growing interest in China's role in financing and building infrastructure in Africa, there is still little research on how Chinese-financed infrastructures are negotiated and realised at the city and metropolitan scale. We compare the Light Rail Transit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia with the expressway linking Kampala to Entebbe airport in Uganda, examining the processes of bargaining behind these transport infrastructures and their emergent effe…
Manufacturing urbanism
The relationship between industrialisation and urban development is subject to assumptions based on experiences in the global North, with little research on how it plays out in countries undergoing urbanisation and industrialisation today. In the context of recent excitement about China’s role in stimulating an ‘industrial revolution’ in Africa, we examine how Chinese zones in Ethiopia and Uganda are influencing the urban–industrial nexus. We arg…
Improvised Hybridity in the “Fixing” of Chinese Infrastructure Capital
The article explores the role of state‐owned enterprises (SOEs) in the globalisation of China's infrastructure capital. Examining how accumulation strategies of Chinese SOEs are driven by a complex set of political and economic, state and private, interests, it foregrounds the inherently hybrid nature of China's state capitalism. We use Kenya's Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) as a case study to analyse how state infrastructure capital traverses bord…
Between highways and fintech platforms
In this paper, we juxtapose two different sectors of China’s economic presence in Africa: transport and digital infrastructure. Using the case of Kenya, a country that hosts several flagship corridors funded by Chinese loans and where Chinese “digital champions” have been active for two decades, we highlight some of the differences and similarities between these two forms of China’s going-out capitalism in the continent. Our argument is that thes…
Global China as positionality
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/outsi…
Force and Aspiration
While the emergence of social class is usually associated with relations of production or patterns of consumption, this article argues for centring mobility in class analysis, especially within rapidly growing cities. It focuses on the peripheries of Addis Ababa, where Africa’s most remarkable state‐led housing programme has produced wrenching sociospatial change. As a wide spectrum of households are sucked or expelled into these peripheries, new…
Lucrative infrastructure and intentional bypassing
This paper traces the evolution of Chinese finance in infrastructure development in Kenya, transitioning from a government-to-government (G2G) to a public-private-partnership (PPP) model, as exemplified by the Kenyan Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) and the Nairobi Expressway. It demonstrates how financing models redistribute risks and control among stakeholders, producing distinct spatial outcomes. The G2G-financed SGR placed financial risks on Keny…
Homeownership and tenure (in)security in fractured urban peripheries
Geography (7 works) · China (6 works) · China's Global Influence and Migration (6 works) · Economics (6 works) · Political science (5 works) · Business (4 works) · Economic growth (4 works) · International Development and Aid (4 works) · China's Socioeconomic Reforms and Governance (3 works) · Economic system (3 works)