Political Science

The Transnationalization of China’s oil industry: Company strategies, embedded projects, and relations with institutions and stakeholders in resource-rich countries

Programme group Transnational configurations, conflict and governance

This joint comparative research project, funded by KNAW, CASS, and by the International Institute for Asian Studies. will analyse China’s increasing involvement with governments, local institutions and local stakeholders in the energy sectors of a number of resource-rich countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, notably Sudan, Ghana, Saudi-Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Venezuela, and Brazil.

Funded by the Chinese Exchange Programme of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Social Sciences (KNAW) and the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences-CASS, and by the International Institute for Asian Studies

Period: 2/2013 – 1/2017. 

We seek to determine patterns of interaction between national institutions and Chinese companies, their relationships to foreign investment projects, and the extent to which they are embedded in the local economies.

China’s huge demand and novel,  professedly non-political, approach to investment (including tied aid, loans, and trading credits) sets it apart from European international practices. The effects of investments  in these resource-rich economies and societies, many of which are managed by China’s state-owned oil companies, require further analysis of transactions, flows of capital, employment and income-generation, etc.

Hypothesis 

Our hypothesis assumes a growing symbiosis between these enterprises and local institutions on the one hand, and Chinese company and government behaviour on the other that differs significantly from country to country because of differences in institutional context, and place- and time-specific economic opportunities.

Our analysis of these investments and running operations may provide important general insights into the local effects of bilateral and global energy cooperation, and the learning curves of international and local oil companies.

Project team

This interdisciplinary research project will be managed by

  • Dr. M.P. Amineh (The Energy Programme Asia –EPA- IIAS/UvA)  
  • Prof. Yang Guang (Institute of West Asian and African Studies - CASS) 

In cooperation with the following Chinese/CASS and Dutch research centres and universities:

  • the Institute of Industrial Economy-CASS (IIE)
  • the Institute of Latin American Studies-CASS
  • the Centre for Latin American Studies/CEDLA
  • Department of Politics and Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology of the University of Amsterdam
  • the International Institute for Asian Studies,
  • Leiden University

 

The resulting studies will be published in refereed journals such as Energy Policy, Social Aspects of Energy [Elsevier], China Information, and a book volume.

Published by  AISSR

27 June 2013