The Hoover Project on China’s Global Sharp Power held: Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances Its Global Ambitions on January 18, 2024 from 12:00 - 1:30 PM PT at the Herbert Hoover Memorial Building, Room 330.
No other country in history has so rapidly transformed its economy from being among the world’s poorest and most isolated to the world’s second largest economies, at the heart of the global supply chain, and a leading source of international investment capital. For the last two decades, China’s sovereign funds have played a significant role in China’s economy, mitigating financial crises and tempering exogenous shocks. In this talk, Zoe will discuss how sovereign funds have supported China’s industrial policies by financing the state’s procurement of strategic overseas assets, bankrolling Chinese enterprises’ mergers and acquisitions abroad, and sponsoring the development of indigenous Chinese technology startups. As Zoe makes clear, sovereign funds are not just for oil exporters. The CPC is a leader in both foreign exchange reserves investment and economic statecraft, using state capital to encourage domestic economic activity and create spheres of influence worldwide.
FEATURING
Zongyuan Zoe Liu is the Maurice R. Greenberg Fellow for China Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. At CFR, Zoe’s work focuses on international political economy, global financial markets, and energy transition. Her regional expertise is in East Asia and the Middle East. She is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? (2022) and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances its Global Ambitions (2023). Zoe received her PhD in international relations from SAIS Johns Hopkins University. She is a Chartered Financial Analyst (CFA) charterholder, and a columnist at Foreign Policy. Prior to joining CFR, Dr. Liu was an assistant professor at Texas A&M’s Bush School in Washington, D.C.
HOST
Glenn Tiffert is a distinguished research fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He co-chairs Hoover’s project on China’s Global Sharp Power and directs its research portfolio. He also works closely with government and civil society partners around the world to document and build resilience against authoritarian interference with democratic institutions. Most recently, he co-authored Eyes Wide Open: Ethical Risks in Research Collaboration with China (2021).
DISCUSSANT
Eyck Freymann is a Hoover Fellow at Stanford University, where he studies the geopolitics of climate change and strategic deterrence in the Taiwan Strait. Trained as an economic historian and China specialist, he is also the Indo-Pacific Director at Greenmantle, a New York-based advisory firm, and a Non-Resident Research Fellow with the China Maritime Studies Institute at the U.S. Naval War College.