How Do Chinese Firms Approach Overseas Investment Risk? w/ Alvin Camba

09/28/21 • 51 min

On this episode Erik speaks with returning guest Dr. Alvin Camba about his latest research paper "How Chinese firms approach investment risk: strong leaders, cancellation, and pushback" (link to paper)
This groundbreaking research uses hundreds of in-depth interviews with top officials from China, Chinese SOEs, state-owned banks as well as Philippine and Indonesian political and economic elite to get a glimpse at how Chinese firms view the strength of a foreign leader, how that affects their investment decisions and how miscalculating strength can lead to undesirable outcomes for Chinese investors and/or State.
Alvin Camba is an assistant professor at the Josef Korbel School of International Studies at the University of Denver. He received his PhD in Sociology from Johns Hopkins University and is also a non-resident fellow at the Climate Policy Lab at the Fletcher School at Tufts University.
Recommendations
Alvin:
1. How Duterte Strong-Armed Chinese Dam-builders but weakened Philippine Institutions
2. How China Lends: A Rare look into 100 debt contracts with foreign governments. Anna Gelpern, Sebastian Horn, Scott Morris, Brad Parks, Christopher Trebesch at AIDDATA
Erik:
1. Get a treadmill desk!
2. The nihilistic electronic noise music of Pharmakon - specifically recommending the song No Natural Order

Thanks for listening!

Thanks for listening!

Previous Episode

The Continued Transformations of the Belt and Road Initiative w/ Jonathan Hillman

On the episode, Juliet and Erik speak with Senior Fellow and Director of the Reconnecting Asia Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Jonathan E. Hillman. Jon discusses the BRI in a historical context and talks about the way he's seen the BRI shift since its inception in 2013. The interview is based on Jon's 2020 book The Emperor's New Road: China and the Project of the Century (Yale University Press -- Juliet's review of the book)
Recommendations:
Juliet:
1) Feature on the main takeaways of the 2020 China census, South China Morning Post
2) Sophia Yan at the Telegraph: Xinjiang reporting, Hong Kong Silenced
Erik:
1) China's Population Conundrum, Sinica podcast
2) an enthusiastic plea to come to North Dakota
Jon:
1) Reconnecting Asia, CSIS
2) A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders, 2021

Thanks for listening!

Next Episode

Episode 50!! Grounded Understanding Within BRI / B3W "Competition" with Juliet & Erik

Juliet and Erik celebrate their 50th episode by discussing their first co-authored article "Beyond Competition: Why the BRI and the B3W Can’t and Shouldn’t Be Considered Rivals" (Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung)
On June 12, 2021, US President Biden along with the leaders of the Group of Seven (G7) launched their own “positive alternative” to the BRI - the Build Back Better for the World (B3W) multilateral infrastructure investment initiative. Juliet and Erik make the case that framing the two initiatives as competing alternatives is deceptive as on one hand, they are not comparable in many important ways, and that they each face the same challenges that all infrastructure initiatives face, regardless of the implementing country(ies).
Importantly, they also see that the focus on US-China competition distracts from the important role of host countries in directing how infrastructure investments unfold on the ground and that the focus on the geopolitics surrounding the two initiatives misrepresents their stakes for local communities and environments that are to be affected by these projects, the workers that will build them, and the people they will connect.

Recommendations:
Erik
1. I think you should leave with Tim Robinson
2. Party like it's 2003! Put away any screen that is connected to the internet and enjoy your evenings with friends in family in an analog world
Juliet
1. Last week tonight with John Oliver's analysis of the current state of Taiwan

Thanks for listening!