The Rapid Ascent of China’s Corporate Giants ~ Prof Andrew G Walder, Stanford University

EAI Hybrid Seminar
Organised by East Asian Institute, National University of Singapore
0:00:00
0:00:22 - Introduction by Prof Alfred Schipke
0:02:22 - Seminar by Prof Andrew G Walder
0:43:30 - Q & A / Discussion
Topic:
The Rapid Ascent of China’s Corporate Giants
Speaker:
Professor Andrew G Walder
Denise O’Leary and Kent Thiry Professor
Department of Sociology, Stanford University
Date & Time:
Monday, 1 July 2024
3:30 pm - 5:00 pm
Abstract:
With a remarkable 5-fold increase after 2008, China now has as many corporations among the world’s largest 500 as the United States. The rate of increase is puzzling-it was twice that of China’s economic expansion, during a period when the national growth rate declined markedly. The rapid proliferation of corporate giants was due to three developments that distinguished China from all other major economies. The first was the massive and sustained expansion of credit for domestic infrastructure projects in response to the global financial crisis. The second was the allocation of close to $2.3 trillion of China’s foreign currency surpluses to finance foreign asset acquisitions and construction projects. The third was a drive to consolidate state firms, primarily those owned by regional governments, into larger conglomerates. All these corporations, along with nonstate firms, rode the updraft of opportunities provided by the infrastructure drive and outward investment. One byproduct of this expansion is an extreme concentration of giant firms, both state and nonstate, in sectors related to infrastructure and heavy manufacturing. This corporate profile contrasts markedly with all other major economies, even with Japan’s at its height.
About the Speaker:
Andrew G Walder is the Denise O’Leary and Kent Thiry Professor in the Department of Sociology at Stanford University where he is also a Senior Fellow in the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. His recent publications include Agents of Disorder: Inside China’s Cultural Revolution (Harvard 2019), (with Dong Guoqiang) A Decade of Upheaval: The Cultural Revolution in Rural China (Princeton, 2021) and Civil War in Guangxi: The Cultural Revolution in China’s Southern Periphery (Stanford, 2023).
About the Moderator:
Prof Alfred Schipke is the director of the East Asian Institute and Professor of the Practice of International Finance at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at NUS. Before joining NUS, he was Director of the IMF-Singapore Regional Training Institute for Asia and the Pacific in charge of technical assistance, training, and research. Prior to that he was Assistant Director and Mission Chief for India and Senior Resident Representative and Mission Chief for China providing policy advice, spearheading analytical work, and coordinating capacity development. He has worked closely with key Chinese economic and financial sector agencies including the People’s Bank of China, the Ministry of Finance, and the financial sector regulatory agencies. At the IMF, he was also division chief in the Asia and Pacific Department leading the department’s work on fast-growing low-income countries in Southeast Asia (Frontier Economies) and was Mission Chief for Vietnam. In the IMF’s Western Hemisphere Department, he negotiated several successful IMF programs including for El Salvador and St. Kitts and Nevis.
He has taught international finance at Harvard Kennedy School and the National School of Development at Peking University and has authored and edited several books and articles. He is currently also working on China-Africa economic relationships. He holds a PhD from Duisburg-Essen University, an MPA from Harvard, and a BA from Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
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