Ruben Gonzalez-Vicente

Mapping Chinese Mining Investment in Latin America: Politics or Market?

Analyses of Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) sometimes question the investment criteria of Chinese firms, suggesting that market rules are not fundamental but secondary to political and geostrategic concerns. Questioning the apolitical nature of markets, the present article uses the internationalization of Chinas mining industry as a case study to ascertain the criteria that guide Chinese FDI. It first examines quantitative data from 2000 to 2010 which suggests that Chinese mining investment in Latin America and worldwide gravitates towards liberal economies. Second, by focusing on the projects of Chinese mining firms in Peru, the article illustrates how Chinas overseas mineral quest is best explained by probing into the integrated strategies of individual mining firms which seek to capitalize their comparative advantage in accessing Chinese markets and the political momentum of the “Going Out” strategy.

The limits to China's non-interference foreign policy: pro-state interventionism and the rescaling of economic governance

Chinas foreign policy has been long committed to a principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign countries. While one could easily point out past and present-day inconsistencies in its implementation, this article argues that defenders and critics of the principle both rely on a limited interpretation of ‘interference’ or ‘intervention’ based on an ideology of Westphalian sovereignty. Particularly problematic is the conceptual distinction between the ‘political’ or ‘diplomatic’, on the one hand, and the ‘economic’, on the other. As Polanyis concept of embeddedness reminds us, markets, society and politics occur simultaneously, and can only act as discrete realms in epistemological abstractions. It is thus argued that non-interference is a semi-formal institution that governs Chinas diplomatic engagements and affects its economic activities. While the totality of Chinas interactions with the world has diverse and sometimes contradictory impacts on global governance, non-interference itself has apparent consequences for the rescaling of regional economic governance. Specifically, this article contends that Chinese non-interference results in the empowerment of political elites at national levels, and thus in the (re-)emergence of the nation state as a gatekeeper and facilitator of the advancement of capitalist enterprises. As a result, through non-intervention, Chinas foreign policy undermines supranational regulatory approaches and fosters state-based regional architectures.

Politics after National Development: Explaining the Populist Rise under Late Capitalism

Abstract Ten years after the global financial crisis, the world is living through times of great political uncertainty and turbulence. While the current historical juncture has presented renewed opportunities for progressive articulations against marketisation and the individualisation of risk (i.e. neoliberalism), more prominently it has awoken the ghosts of nationalism and various reactionary forms of populism. This article’s contribution is in contextualising this novel momentum within late capitalism. We argue that the combination of techno-logistical transformations in production and pro-market policy sets that facilitated the globalisation of capital, and which dealt a death blow to national development strategies, was met by elites with intensified efforts to dislocate politics from society through processes of ‘depoliticisation’ that in turn allowed for further marketising efforts. However, this dislocation has dovetailed with a formidable social crisis characterised by unprecedented levels of inequality and vulnerability amid immense wealth, calling into question the elite consensus around neoliberalism. While the leaders of the current political reawakening often distinguish themselves against post-political forms of neoliberal governance, they remain confronted by powerful interests and significant structural constraints as they promote solutions for global problems within the anachronistic confines of the nation-state.

South–South relations under world market capitalism: the state and the elusive promise of national development in the China–Ecuador resource-development nexus

ABSTRACT Optimistic commentators welcome ‘the rise of the South’ as a phenomenon that will transform geopolitical architectures and development thought. This essay situates this alleged rise and ‘South–South relations’ within world market capitalism and discusses their liberating potential with a case study of Chinese mining investment in Ecuador. Despite the ostensibly differing approaches to development embodied in the Chinese and Ecuadorian alternatives to neoliberalism, the Mirador project reveals eerily familiar outcomes, dominated by visions of national modernization and business-state alliances that reproduce market inequalities and postcolonial exclusions. While the Mirador project grants significant economic clout to pursue development through redistributive means, it also attests to the role of the state in opening new market frontiers and securing conditions for transnational capital accumulation. I argue that in this context and similar ones, it is problematic to project the attributes of the South as a symbol of struggle for emancipation on to the nation-state. Although the South remains a useful concept, it should be understood as a space made up by those who are subject to diverse forms of oppression in the name of globalization and national development – a space that is reshaped by the works of the state in multiple and often contradictory ways.