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In Chinese Economic Statecraft , William J. Norris introduces an innovative theory that pinpoints how states employ economic tools of national power to pursue their strategic objectives. Norris shows what Chinese economic statecraft is, how it works, and why it is more or less effective. Norris provides an accessible tool kit to help us better understand important economic developments in the People's Republic of China. He links domestic Chinese political economy with the international ramifications of China's economic power as a tool for realizing China's strategic foreign policy interests. He presents a novel approach to studying economic statecraft that calls attention to the central challenge of how the state is (or is not) able to control and direct the behavior of economic actors. Norris identifies key causes of Chinese state control through tightly structured, substate and crossnational comparisons of business-government relations. These cases range across three important arenas of China's grand strategy that prominently feature a strategic role for economics: China's efforts to secure access to vital raw materials located abroad, Mainland relations toward Taiwan, and China's sovereign wealth funds. Norris spent more than two years conducting field research in China and Taiwan during which he interviewed current and former government officials, academics, bankers, journalists, advisors, lawyers, and businesspeople. The ideas in this book are applicable beyond China and help us to understand how states exercise international economic power in the twenty-first century. In Chinese Economic Statecraft , William J. Norris introduces an innovative theory that pinpoints how states employ economic tools of national power to pursue their strategic objectives. Norris shows what Chinese economic statecraft is, how it works, and why it is more or less effective. Norris provides an accessible tool kit to help us better understand important economic developments in the People's Republic of China. He links domestic Chinese political economy with the international ramifications of China's economic power as a tool for realizing China's strategic foreign policy interests. He presents a novel approach to studying economic statecraft that calls attention to the central challenge of how the state is (or is not) able to control and direct the behavior of economic actors.Norris identifies key causes of Chinese state control through tightly structured, substate and crossnational comparisons of business-government relations. These cases range across three important arenas of China's grand strategy that prominently feature a strategic role for economics: China's efforts to secure access to vital raw materials located abroad, Mainland relations toward Taiwan, and China's sovereign wealth funds. Norris spent more than two years conducting field research in China and Taiwan during which he interviewed current and former government officials, academics, bankers, journalists, advisors, lawyers, and businesspeople. The ideas in this book are applicable beyond China and help us to understand how states exercise international economic power in the twenty-first century.

According to conventional wisdom, rising corruption reduces economic growth. And yet, between 1978 and 2010, even as officials were looting state coffers, extorting bribes, raking in kickbacks, and scraping off rents at unprecedented rates, the Chinese economy grew at an average annual rate of 9 percent. InDouble Paradox, Andrew Wedeman seeks to explain why the Chinese economy performed so well despite widespread corruption at almost kleptocratic levels. Wedeman finds that the Chinese economy was able to survive predatory corruption because corruption did not explode until after economic reforms had unleashed dynamic growth. To a considerable extent corruption was also a by-product of the transfer of undervalued assets from the state to the emerging private and corporate sectors and a scramble to capture the windfall profits created by their transfer. Perhaps most critically, an anticorruption campaign, however flawed, has proved sufficient to prevent corruption from spiraling out of control. Drawing on more than three decades of data from China-as well as examples of the interplay between corruption and growth in South Korea, Taiwan, Equatorial Guinea, and other nations in Africa and the Caribbean-Wedeman cautions that rapid growth requires not only ongoing and improved anticorruption efforts but also consolidated and strengthened property rights.

This first issue of Volume 10 (2024) of the Contemporary Chinese Political Economy and Strategic Relations: An International Journal (CCPS) offers three select articles and one book review that delves into the Chinese influence in Africa and Central Asia and the Sino-US power competitions, specifically in Southeast Asia.

Since the 1990s, China’s engagement beyond its geographical periphery, especially with Asian regions, has grown exceptionally, which is best evident in the Gulf sub-region and Western Asian nations. Indeed, energy-based interactions were the first to be established with Gulf Arab countries, and today, more than two decades after the Cold War, such relationships have evolved into tighter partnerships and engagement networks. Thus, in the last decade, China has increased its economic and political footprint in the Gulf region, as it has become one of the region’s largest external investors and trade partners. In its relations with the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states, China faces varying challenges as each country pursues its interests, making the Chinese strategy in the region more complex. The Gulf countries have had to balance their relationship between the US as a security guarantor and China as an important economic partner. They strive to maximize their political and economic interests in the process. The main contention of this paper is that the GCC should not be viewed as a homogenous entity and that the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a flexible approach designed to bolster China’s economic objectives in each Gulf country. Our research scrutinizes China’s geo-economic strategy and geopolitical aims about the Gulf States’ aspirations to maximize their economic ties with China. Against this background, this paper discusses the political and economic relationships between the People’s Republic of China and the Gulf Arab states: Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

This CCPS issue features four articles. These papers reflect the multidimensional nature of China’s rise. They argue that China’s global presence today is not defined by domination or isolation but by “mutual entanglement”—an interdependence that is simultaneously economic, narrative, and perceptual. Hence, it can be argued further that Beijing’s influence emerges not merely from its economic might but from the interplay of structural, discursive, and perceptual forces. These forces are integrated, specifically, as dimensions of perceptual geo–economics.