Brett Neilson and Ned Rossiter
For decades now, political economic analysis of China’s going out strategy has emphasized the problem of overaccumulation. As the story goes, industrial overcapacity, weak consumption, and large trade surpluses have prompted the export of surplus capital. There are various versions of this argument. Giovanni Arrighi takes China’s outward investment as a sign of hegemonic transition. Minqi Li understands it as a spatial fix that attempts to stave off a systemic capitalist crisis. Matthew C. Klein and Michael Pettis focus on policies that suppress domestic consumption and exacerbate economic inequalities. Whatever the truth of this matter, China’s capital export has expanded since the late 1970s, although not without setbacks. Passing through the end of the Cold War, the 1998 Asian financial crisis, the 2001 WTO ascension, the 2008 meltdown, the 2013 announcement of the Belt and Road Initiative, the Trump-initiated trade wars, the pandemic, and the latest phase of high-tech competition and green energy export, China’s interventions in global political economy have both crossed and shaped changing geopolitical realities. The question is how these shifting scenarios transform the meaning and direction of China’s economic outreach.
Full text published in Portolan (2025)
