Chain migration hub: interconnected migration flows in China’s southwest borderlands amid BRI-driven industrialization in a neijuan era

We develop an analytical framework of ‘chain migration hub’ through an investigation of three interconnected migration flows in China’s southwest borderland (specifically Ruili City, Yunnan Province) in the context of Belt and Road Initiative-driven industrialization and the pressures of China’s neijuan society. It examines three migration flows: the relocation of industrial capital from China’s coastal regions, the movement of immigrant labor from Myanmar, and the influx of rural Chinese men seeking foreign spouses. This study argues that the interplay between China’s pervasive domestic socioeconomic pressures, termed neijuan (or involution), and the external geopolitical strategy of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) has reconfigured Ruili into a chain migration hub, where these heterogeneous flows not only intersects but functionally reinforce one another. The research thus sheds light on the relationships between socioeconomic conditions, national strategy, labor mobility, and socio-cultural shifts that make Ruili as a microcosm of China’s evolving borderland dynamics.