Commentary
Evan A. Feigenbaum
{
"authors": [
"Evan A. Feigenbaum"
],
"type": "legacyinthemedia",
"centerAffiliationAll": "dc",
"centers": [
"Carnegie Endowment for International Peace"
],
"collections": [],
"englishNewsletterAll": "asia",
"nonEnglishNewsletterAll": "",
"primaryCenter": "Carnegie Endowment for International Peace",
"programAffiliation": "AP",
"programs": [
"Asia"
],
"projects": [],
"regions": [
"South Asia",
"Pakistan",
"East Asia",
"China"
],
"topics": []
}
Source: Getty
In The Media
China’s Pakistan Conundrum: The End of the All-Weather Friendship
China will not simply bail out Pakistan with loans, investment, and aid, as those watching the deterioration of U.S.-Pakistani relations seem to expect. Rather, China will pursue profits, security, and geopolitical advantage regardless of Islamabad's preferences.
Published on Dec 4, 2011
Source: Foreign Affairs
But do things look so straightforward when viewed from Beijing? To be sure, Chinese money pours into places Western cash fears to tread. But Beijing is not oblivious to risk. In fact, Chinese money flows disproportionately to investments that carry little to no risk and deliver returns that, however modest, are predictable. Moreover, at least some Chinese companies have proved willing to abandon investments as their perception of risk has risen. In September, for example, Kingho, a large private Chinese miner, is reported to have abandoned a proposed $19 billion investment to build a coal mine and power and chemical plants in Pakistan's Sindh province after reassessing investment and security risks.
Indeed, Beijing's investment calculus is increasingly based on a sophisticated balancing of three types of risk: geopolitical, political, and financial.
Geopolitical risk (not least China's rivalry with India) has long led Beijing to support Islamabad through thick and thin. Friendly ties between the two help satisfy four Chinese strategic objectives: They ensure security and stability in China's western provinces and along its continental Asian border; anchor China's poorer western provinces in a web of cross-border economic activity; bottle up India in the subcontinent, forestalling the emergence of a continental-sized rival and precluding more extensive Indian security activities in East Asia; and assure that no other major power, particularly the United States, advances its interests in continental Asia at China's expense through, for instance, military deployments or permanent access arrangements...
About the Author
Evan A. Feigenbaum
Vice President for Studies
Evan A. Feigenbaum is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where he oversees work at its offices in Washington, New Delhi, and Singapore on a dynamic region encompassing both East Asia and South Asia. He served twice as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State and advised two Secretaries of State and a former Treasury Secretary on Asia.
- Is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation Performance Art or Meaningful Collaboration?
- In Its Iran War Debate, Washington Has Lost the Plot in AsiaCommentary
Evan A. Feigenbaum
Recent Work
Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
More Work from Carnegie China
- The Plaza Accord and Its Relevance for ChinaCommentary
The Plaza Accord was not an externally imposed punishment of Japan but part of a broader restructuring that Japanese economists and policymakers themselves recognized was necessary. Its effects were undermined, however, when Tokyo responded to the resulting slowdown with policies that exacerbated investment, credit expansion, and the very imbalances the adjustment was intended to resolve.
Michael Pettis
- Untangling the Nuclear Knot: A Constructive Agenda for Managing China’s Nuclear Relations with the United States and Its AlliesPaper
The nuclear relationship between China and the United States is increasingly shaped by widening perception gaps rather than deliberate strategic design.
Tong Zhao
- Who Paid for China’s Last Debt Cleanup, and Who Will Pay for the Next?Commentary
China’s banking crisis in the 2000s was resolved by transferring the costs to households through financial repression—a decision that recapitalized the banks while exacerbating the structural imbalances that continue to shape the Chinese economy today.
Michael Pettis
- Caught in the Middle: Chinese Biotech Firms’ Divergent Responses to U.S. SanctionsCommentary
Chinese biotech companies have been on the receiving end of U.S. economic coercion. Yet their responses have differed significantly because firm and state interests are not uniformly aligned. For Washington, treating all Chinese tech firms the same, irrespective of their actual interests, risks pushing them farther into Beijing’s corner.
Xue Gong
- Are Data Centers the Solution to China’s Renewables Excess Capacity?Commentary
China’s latest energy plan explicitly calls for integrating data centers into the electricity system, particularly connecting them to green energy. It appears Beijing wants to use compute as a source of domestic demand to absorb renewables excess capacity.
Damien Ma
