How Chinese firms approach investment risk: strong leaders, cancellation, and pushback

Abstract

How do Chinese firms assess investment risk? I argue that major Chinese firms tend to invest in countries whose leaders they perceive as strong. However, their perception of a host country leader’s strength arises from a range of subjective and relational factors, including their party school socialization, Chinese state’s preferences for strong leaders, efforts by the host country regime to ‘sell’ the image of a strong leader, and information brokerage by Chinese think tanks. Thus, the path taken by Chinese firms cannot be fully explained by ‘objective’ measurable indicators such as policy bank financing or natural endowments; social relationships and norms are crucial too. There are also unintended consequences of investing in countries where they consider leaders to be strong. If the leader turns out to be weak, this ultimately increases the likelihood of cancellation of ongoing major Chinese projects. In contrast, if the leader is indeed strong, this strategy could result in pushback, leaving Chinese firms vulnerable to the leader’s whim to act against Chinese interests. To illustrate, I draw on elite interviews, contrasting Chinese investment in the Philippines under Arroyo (2001–2010) and Duterte (2016-), Malaysia under Najib (2009–2018), and Indonesia under Jokowi (2014-).