Mapping Global China and Chinese Corporate Statecraft: An Interdisciplinary Research Roundtable

Chinese firms are central to China’s expanding global presence in infrastructure, technology, manufacturing, finance, energy, critical minerals, and supply chains. Yet their international activities cannot be understood through a simple choice between commercial autonomy and direction by the Chinese party-state. The relationship between firms and states varies across sectors, ownership structures, locations, and time; host-country institutions and local actors also shape outcomes. This workshop brings together researchers working from different empirical, disciplinary, and policy perspectives to explore these questions. Mapping Global China offers maps, datasets, and comparative research tools; the emerging Chinese Corporate Statecraft framework offers one possible way to interpret firm–state relationships. Neither is intended to define the discussion in advance. Participants are invited to contribute their own cases, concepts, methods, and alternative explanations, with the aim of identifying questions that are more productively pursued together.

Broad Questions for Discussion

• What do Chinese firms abroad reveal about global China that country-level accounts may overlook

When do commercial strategies, Chinese policy priorities, and host-country interests converge, diverge, or change over time?

• How do ownership, sector, geography, institutional context, and supply-chain position shape firms’ conduct and influence?
• What evidence can distinguish state control, coordination, dependence, alignment, and ordinary commercial behaviour?
• How can mapping, firm-level data, fieldwork, and comparative or historical research challenge or complement one another?
• Which questions and cases matter most for scholarship, public debate, and policymaking—and why?