Simulating territory: the rise and demise of Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan as an imaginary regional formation

The leadership of the People’s Republic of China has crafted several creative territorialization strategies designed to consolidate the administrative control and extend the geopolitical influence of its ruling Chinese Communist Party. This article focuses one such strategy aimed at three distinct polities – Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan – by examining the bureaucratic establishment of an imaginary regional formation that spans them, and its suture to the “One Country, Two Systems” formulation of variegated sovereignty. I propose that this suture constitutes a novel geopolitical strategy of simulation in the service of territorial expansion. Material devices to implement the strategy include mobility and residence permits, while discursive tactics include the reattribution of statements by past leaders to match the new imaginary formation. However, rather than forging cultural unity and compelling territorial unification, the intensification of the simulation corresponded with a spike in self-determination sentiment and demonstrations in both Hong Kong and Taiwan. This case shows that by fabricating an imaginary regional formation, a state can facilitate the multiplication of different bordering schemes between and within territories it effectively administers, while at the same time press irredentist claims against a different and de facto independent state, with explosive outcomes.