"older circuits of trade, migration, education, family networks and cultural familiarity that make China both more intimate and politically sensitive" [family networks]
The phrase 'older circuits' explicitly frames pre-existing social infrastructure as the substrate on which contemporary state-led engagement operates, directly supporting the claim that diaspora networks amplify formal investment into durable leverage.
Reasoning from this article
The article situates Belt and Road and US-China rivalry as overlays on a much older social substrate. This generalises to a structural dynamic: powers with deep historical diaspora presence in a region enjoy a compounding advantage when they also deploy capital and technology, because trust and familiarity lower friction for adoption. External powers (e.g., the US or EU in Southeast Asia) lack equivalent social roots, creating an asymmetric baseline that policy instruments alone cannot close.