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Rethinking the Role of State-owned Enterprises in China’s Rise

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  • Lee Jones
  • Yizheng Zou

Abstract

The massive overseas expansion of Chinese state-owned enterprises (SOEs) is a central aspect of China’s ‘rise’ to great-power status. There is significant disagreement, however, over how to interpret SOEs’ role. Are they instruments of Chinese statecraft, being directed purposefully from Beijing as part of a ‘grand strategy’? Or are they relatively autonomous, profit-maximising businesses, their free-wheeling behaviour often undermining Chinese foreign policy? Finding that there is evidence for both theses, we provide a framework to explain this. We propose theorising party-state/SOEs relations using the concepts of state transformation and regulatory statehood. We show that the Chinese state’s fragmentation, decentralisation and internationalisation since the late 1970s has substantially increased SOE autonomy and weakened but also transformed the executive’s control, reconfiguring it towards a regulatory mode of governance. Party-state/SOEs relations are thus characterised not by direct command and control but weak oversight and ongoing struggles within the party-state. We illustrate this using a case study of China Power Investment Corporation and its Myitsone hydropower dam project in Myanmar. Here, a central SOE clearly defied and subverted central regulations, profoundly damaging Sino-Myanmar state-to-state relations. Party-state authorities are now struggling to rein in this and other central SOEs.

Suggested Citation

  • Lee Jones & Yizheng Zou, 2017. "Rethinking the Role of State-owned Enterprises in China’s Rise," New Political Economy, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 22(6), pages 743-760, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:cnpexx:v:22:y:2017:i:6:p:743-760
    DOI: 10.1080/13563467.2017.1321625
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    Cited by:

    1. Scott Rozelle & Yiran Xia & Dimitris Friesen & Bronson Vanderjack & Nourya Cohen, 2020. "Moving Beyond Lewis: Employment and Wage Trends in China’s High- and Low-Skilled Industries and the Emergence of an Era of Polarization," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(4), pages 555-589, December.
    2. Vukicevic, Jelena & Fallon, Grahame & Ott, Ursula F., 2021. "A theoretical and empirical investigation into investment activities of technologically-intensive Chinese state-owned enterprises in the UK," International Business Review, Elsevier, vol. 30(1).
    3. Zhenfa Li & Fulong Wu & Fangzhu Zhang, 2023. "Adaptable state-controlled market actors: Underwriters and investors in the market of local government bonds in China," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 55(8), pages 2088-2107, November.
    4. Rui Torres de Oliveira & Simona Gentile-Lüdecke & Sandra Figueira, 2022. "Barriers to innovation and innovation performance: the mediating role of external knowledge search in emerging economies," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(4), pages 1953-1974, April.
    5. Nicholas Jepson & Oyuna Baldakova, 2024. "Chinese State Capital as a Partner for Resource-Based Structural Transformation? The Belt and Road Initiative and Downstream Linkages in Bolivia and Kazakhstan [¿El capital estatal chino como socio," The European Journal of Development Research, Palgrave Macmillan;European Association of Development Research and Training Institutes (EADI), vol. 36(3), pages 718-745, June.
    6. Su, Tong & Lin, Boqiang, 2022. "The liquidity impact of Chinese green bonds spreads," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 318-334.
    7. Wang, Shengbin & Zheng, Jiafeng & Tu, Yongqian, 2023. "The Communist Party of China embedded in corporate governance and enterprise value: Evidence from state-owned enterprises," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 54(C).
    8. Zhang, Ailian & Wang, Shuyao & Lien, Donald & Yu, Chia-Feng (Jeffrey), 2023. "Are banks rewarded for financial consumer protection? Evidence from a quasi-natural experiment," Finance Research Letters, Elsevier, vol. 52(C).
    9. Shahzad, Farrukh & Fareed, Zeeshan & Wang, Zhenkun & Shah, Syed Ghulam Meran, 2020. "Do idiosyncratic risk, market risk, and total risk matter during different firm life cycle stages?," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 537(C).
    10. Andrei Panibratov & Daria Klishevich, 2023. "Emerging market state-owned multinationals: a review and implications for the state capitalism debate," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 22(1), pages 84-117, February.
    11. Catherine Locatelli & Mehdi Abbas, 2022. "China-Russia energy interdependence and the hybridization of the governance of international hydrocarbon markets [L'interdépendance énergétique Chine-Russie et l'hybridation des institutions de gou," Post-Print hal-04297005, HAL.
    12. Taghizadeh-Hesary, Farhad & Yoshino, Naoyuki & Kim, Chul Ju & Mortha, Aline, 2019. "A Comprehensive Evaluation Framework on the Economic Performance of State-Owned Enterprises," ADBI Working Papers 949, Asian Development Bank Institute.

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