2 - The Emergence of Chinese Patient Capital

Summary

What are the Chinese government’s motivations behind promoting overseas ?nancing, trade, and investment? To what extent are these motivations geopolitical, geoeconomic, domestically driven, or purely commercial? Compared to private creditors, how does the "visible hand" of the Chinese government affect China’s policy bank lending terms? What are the strengths and weaknesses of state-led capital, and how persistent might this creditor approach be over the long run? Understanding China’s goals as an international creditor helps us evaluate the sustainability of these investment ?ows over time, and ultimately the potential costs and bene?ts for Latin American debtors. Given that ?ve of the top ten international borrowers from China are in Latin America we can simultaneously evaluate China’s global banking strategy and examine questions about its policy banks’ lending behavior outside of the Asian region. For example, are their operations more commercially oriented outside of East Asia, or equally geopolitical beyond regional borders? To what extent is a state-led approach to global capital formation, focusing on market rather than profit maxmization, sustainable outside of China?