Chinese Politics Mini-Conference: Firms, Industries, and China's (International) Political Economy

Session Submission Type: Created Panel

Part of Mini-Conference

• Chinese Politics Mini-Conference

Session Description

This panel focuses on the role of firms and industries in China’s international and domestic political economy. This set of papers addresses two main themes: 1) the strategies and patterns of firms and industries in an age of economic decoupling between the US and China; 2) the interplay between state and market and how the domestic political economy of China affects firm performance. Newman and Xiong’s paper argue that autocracies face a new type of dictator’s dilemma in a world of weaponized interdependence, where authoritarian leaders are likely to prioritize domestic political control over global competitiveness of its large MNCs, as is illustrated by the case of Ant Group. Jaros, Vortherms, and Zhang’s paper study how China’s local political economy impacts foreign firm exits after the outbreak of the trade war, and finds that local industrial policies and investment agglomeration decreases the possibility of firm exit. Jialu Li’s paper examines the strategic response of the state in the context of the United States' economic sanctions against China, and finds that sanctions reinforce the state’s perception of firms as core to national security, leading to increased industry support. Meng, Xu, and Xu’s paper studies the effect of China’s economic development zones (EDZs) on economic development, and finds that firms located near and within provincial EDZs benefit similarly from EDZs, while the effects of national EDZs lead to a divergence in firm performance. Qin Huang’s paper uses both machine learning methods and in-depth interviews to uncover local state types in China’s economic governance, elucidating the reasons behind divergent developmental models both subnationally and across different time periods in China.

Sub Unit

• Division 13: Politics of Communist and Former Communist Countries

Individual Presentations

• China’s Dilemma to Asserting Economic Coercion - Gloria Xiong, Cornell University; Abraham Newman, Georgetown University

• Industrial Policy and Investment Networks in the US-China Trade War - Jiakun Zhang, University of Kansas; Samantha Vortherms, University of California, Irvine; Kyle Alan Jaros, University of Notre Dame

• China' s Strategic Response to US Sanctions - Jialu Li, Harvard University

• Firm-Level Evidence on Market Competition and Corporate Performance - Jian Xu, National University of Singapore; Tianguang Meng, Tsinghua University; Jing Xu, Tsinghua University

• Varieties of Socialist Market Economy: Categories, Cases, and Explanations - Qin Huang

Chair

• Siyao Li University of Pittsburgh

Discussants

• Xiaojun Li University of British Columbia

• Seung-Youn Oh Bryn Mawr College