Shifting Grounds:

The article addresses the political economy of large-scale green technology projects increasingly driven by East Asian, particularly Chinese, firms in the context of Europe’s energy and mobility transition. Using the empirical case of a recent investment in a new electric vehicle battery-cell factory and associated infrastructure in the Free State of Thuringia, Eastern Germany, the article traces the global shift towards an increasingly East Asian-dominated supply-chain urbanism. In doing so, it highlights the shift away from centuries of Western hegemony in technological innovation and investment, which in recent years has increasingly manifested in the form of East Asian-driven ‘resource peripheries’ across Europe. The article illustrates the nature of these newly emerging sites, showing how they are globally linked with numerous other operational sites of, for instance, resource extraction, logistics, manufacturing, and recycling.