The tapestry of Chinese capital in the Global South

Abstract

Though China's capital export is not as big as many journalistic and think tank reports portray, it is definitely a rising force in shaping the context of development in many developing countries. Excluding capital flight to financial centers, most Chinese outward investment to developing regions is in the extractive, infrastructure, and trade sectors. Chinese governmental foreign aid, mostly in the form of grants and loans, has been rising in the developing world too. The form and size of China's inroad into the Global South vary from country to country, depending on individual countries' geopolitical and geoeconomic relation with China, as well as the countries' natural resources endowment. The existing literature on China in the Global South focuses mostly on Africa. This paper accompanies an article collection that expands our knowledge on China's variegated impact by looking into Argentina, Pakistan, the Philippines, and Central Asia. It also looks into how China is reshaping the structure of global politics at large.

Chinese Investment in Turkey: The Belt and Road Initiative, Rising Expectations and Ground Realities

“…TOBB's list originally contained 43 sectors, and a closer inspection of the firms' activities revealed frequent false classifications. In order to make the data conducive for potential cross-country comparisons, 13 sectors were specified based on the existing literature (AEI 2020;Camba 2020;Hung 2018). Additionally, we created an 'Others' classification (Table 1).…”

In a fix: Africa’s place in the Belt and Road Initiative and the reproduction of dependency

“…This pressure is in conjunction with the reorientation of China's foreign policy from passive cooperation with existing powers to active conversion of China's economic weight to geopolitical influences'. 36 The transferral of China's problems overseas via the BRI however holds within its dynamics serious challenges for Africa. These are namely, continued underdevelopment and dependency on the continent, while debt deepens.…”

Deconstructing the Belt and Road Initiative in Latin America

“…Furthermore, the BRI has also been described as an investment policy that resulted from Chinese domestic overcapacity in industries such as steel and heavy equipment (Narins, 2016, p. 284). Ho-fung Hung adds that once the effects of the Chinese government's 2009 mega stimulus package wore off, Chinese companies needed to move their capital abroad “in search of profitable investment, just like over-accumulation of capital has been driving many capitalist powers to export capital throughout the history of capitalism” (Hung, 2018, p. 2).…”