The Causes and Effects of China’s Economic Statecraft

Session Submission Type: Full Paper Panel

Session Description

The goal of this panel is to examine the causes and effects of China’s economic statecraft. A wide consensus exists among scholars that the Chinese state leverages various tools of economic policy to meet its geostrategic objectives. These include the pursuit of industrial policy and technological upgrading; the promotion of exports and outward investments of national firms; and the curtailment of imports and inward investments. We collectively address this phenomenon by asking such questions as: How has China’s economic statecraft evolved? What areas of domestic economic policy are more likely to be shaped by security concerns? What is the role of domestic interest groups in shaping China’s economic statecraft? How do China’s peer competitors respond to changes in its domestic economic policies? What are the consequences of China’s economic statecraft on developing countries?

In addressing these questions, we make several contributions to our understanding of economic statecraft. First, we combine insights from international political economy and security studies to underscore how economic statecraft operates in a global, open economy. We show how states deploy this strategy through various tools of economic policymaking (macroeconomic policy, trade, foreign investments, among others) and the particular challenges this strategy faces under conditions of economic interdependence. Second, we highlight the key role that the private sector plays in economic statecraft. While most of the existing literature adopts a state-centric approach, the papers presented in this panel place firms at the center of theory and empirics, and interrogate the conditions under which states and national firms can collaborate to carry out economic statecraft. Lastly, a focus on economic statecraft allows us to underscore the role that great power competition plays in contemporary economic policies. While most literature in international political economy focuses on domestic distributive concerns as drivers of foreign economy policy, the papers in this panel study the effects of international distributive concerns.


William Norris (Texas A&M University) will serve as panel chair. Kellee Tsai (Hong Kong University of Science & Technology) and Yeling Tan (University of Oregon) will serve as discussants.

The panel will begin with a paper by William Norris (Texas A&M University) and his coauthors which explains how the Chinese state and national firms have aligned their interests to meet the goals of economic statecraft. The next paper, authored by Ling Chen (Johns Hopkins University- SAIS) and Miles Evers (University of Connecticut) discusses how the international structure generated incentives for this public-private alignment to take place. The last three papers focus on the effects of Chinese economic statecraft abroad. Jazmin Sierra (University of Notre Dame) studies how China’s promotion of outward investments in developed countries led liberal economies to adopt restrictionist policies. Meg Rithmire (Harvard Business School) and Hong ZHANG (Harvard Kennedy School) examine how Chinese investments affect institutional capacity and economic stability in developing countries. Austin Strange (University of Hong Kong )explores how pre-existing narratives shape attitudes toward Chinese development projects in the Global South.

Sub Unit

• Division 17: International Collaboration

Chair

• William J. Norris Texas A&M University

Discussants

• Kellee S. Tsai Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

• Yeling Tan University of Oxford

Individual Presentations

• Party Committees in Private Enterprises - Ted Tyler, Stand Together Trust; Kedar Pandya; William J. Norris, Texas A&M University

• Weaponization during Power Transitions - Ling Chen, Johns Hopkins University; Miles Evers, University of Connecticut

• Economic Balancing and China-U.S. Financial Ties - Jazmin Sierra, University of Notre Dame

• Economic Entanglements and the Limits of Economic Statecraft - Meg E. Rithmire, Harvard Business School; Hong Zhang, Indiana University Bloomington

• Nostalgia, and Influence: China's Rehabilitation of Historical Overseas Development Projects since 1949 - Austin Strange, University of Hong Kong; Songtao Duan, Pennsylvania State University