This chapter provides an overview of this book, which examines China’s economic expansion into the Western Hemisphere from both the creditor and debtor perspectives while making several contributions. First, this study brings new and original data to bear on the classic question of states’ room to maneuver under ?nancial globalization, a question that is increasingly pertinent given the rise of state-led ?nance over the past two decades. Second, employing a mixed-method approach, this book sheds light on the behavior of state-led ?nancing, particularly how its commercial conditionality rather than policy conditionality a?ects national-level governance decisions. Finally, it makes an important theoretical contribution by disaggregating the structure of global ?nance. The globalization scholarship suggests local state capacity and institutional development can mitigate "race to the bottom" pressures, but this study ?nds that the type of international investment (state vs. market) can also in?uence the extent of policy discretion. The emergence of China’s state-led ?nancing endows governments with greater ?scal space, or the ability to sustain their spending through volatility.

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?