Politics of State-Owned Enterprises: The Case of China

Date

2023-8-14

Author

Durdu, Jessica

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With the Belt and Road Initiative released by Chinese President Xi Jinping in 2013, China has become a significant power with great potential to influence the global system. The foundational basis established by Mao and the Going Out policy of Deng both prepared China for the next step of being a global leader in the international system. BRI, in this regard, is the most concrete step taken in this way. It has been observed that with BRI, Chinese diplomacy has been decentralized and that the non-state actors are started to be used as active diplomacy tools. As institutions that were abolished by most countries due to the loss of influence of developmentalism, State-owned enterprises have turned out to be effective diplomacy tools and started to be de facto ambassadors abroad. This thesis will explore the unique case of Chinese SOEs, which were transformed from loss-making economic agencies into profit-making political agencies. It has been seen that the SOE reforms have been shaped by the core principles of Chinese politics of the primacy of the Communist Party, integration of the Party with the state, and developmentalism with Chinese characteristics. It has been observed that the reform process of Chinese SOEs has balanced economic liberalization with political authority, turning them into effective institutions for Chinese developmentalism. This thesis argues that the political influence over SOEs, which was strengthened through the reforms, turns out to be two-way directional with BRI and that SOEs can turn into politically influential institutions over the government.

Subject Keywords

State-Owned Enterprises, Belt and Road, Chinese Developmentalism

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/104851

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis