Thread. China’s GGFs are the quiet giants of industrial policy. While Western debates obsess over subsidies, Beijing has built a massive state–market financial infrastructure to channel capital into strategic tech sectors. Let’s unpack.

This new paper by Xuan Li and @cornelban.bsky.social is so great I have a nickname for it and it’s VC à la CCP. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Just out: How China builds strategic dominance in high-innovation niches fracturing the economic status quo in the world: Government Guidance Funds turn fiscal money + SOE assets into venture capital with planning discipline. A different game than Europe or Korea. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

No one in European automotive will worry about Chinese EVs now

Must read

Weiss and Thurbon’s (2021: 477): economic statecraft is when state actions are designed to fend off, outflank, or move in step with clearly defined rival powers’ in key sectors. US and increasingly Europe acknowledge they lost to China on green tech. www.politico.eu/article/eu-d...

Even the best of European clean tech firms groan and fold under the combined weight of frayed European macro-finance and Trumpian climate nihilism. www.ft.com/content/eb76...

Sandbu: "Maga antipathy for anything green strengthens the case for doubling down on incentives to make more profitable in Europe the decarbonisation investments that have just become less profitable in the US." How to pay, given US-demanded defence spending and more US LNG dependence?

Generally import substitution is not a great idea in technology. Unless you are China and weaponized US export controls force you to focus decades of investment in technoscientific capabilities on homegrown innovation. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/t...

The US green coalition and its manufacturing base was too weak for a sustainable green derisking state to survive political cycles even with geoeconomics in place. The IRA was too little to change the balance of power inside US capital. Fossil, finance and tech have green capital for breakfast.

There is probably a Latin expression for this.

My new article on IMF economic ideas and climate advocacy explores how the IMF highlights environmental tipping points and call for deep decarbonization, yet its technocratic, economistic approach neglects fossil-fuelled capitalism‘s political power dynamics. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

the British derisking state, promising to partner with AI firms while doling out more austerity for public services and calling it the 'golden age of public service reform'- @cornelban.bsky.social

Why it's probable that in open competition (big if) big Western legacy automakers will likely go out of business in the coming decade or become niche producers. Kind of like mechanical watchmakers going into jewelry watches and the rest disappearing. cleantechnica.com/2024/12/24/w...

When states are not good at industrial policy it is municipalities that can develop that muscle. And not just city states, but cities of 500k as well if they have what it takes. New article in Competition and Change with @Medve-Balint and @Clara Volintiru journals.sagepub.com/eprint/T56CA...

Excellent

I'm skeptical of Pettis arguments in this piece. Even with tariffs, China (& others) have spent decades building manufacturing expertise, supply chains, and infrastructure. You can't simply price-advantage your way past that kind of industrial ecosystem. 1/ www.foreignaffairs.com/united-state...

I wrote this short review of an essential book on the role of the EU in reshaping welfare states & labor markets, pushing commodification under the guise of governance, while opening unexpected decommodification windows. The neo-Polanyian book of the year! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

FT are correct in highlighting how China’s industrial policy, rare earth abundance and subsidies have left Europe lagging behind in the race to electrify the automobile industry. But this narrative obscures more than it reveals. Thread www.ft.com/content/a73c...

Indicative planning can mitigate the climate crisis. But under capitalism it only happens when the stakes are sky-high: wars, energy crises, post-war rubble. Jacob Hasselbalch and I took a dive in the topic. #GreenState #PoliticalEconomy #ClimateAction www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Below their very top tier, Europe’s policy elites have conventional careers with little public–private mobility or high-end educational prestige. Furthermore, these elites have ‘fidelity’ in staying with public organizations. New paper with Leonard Seabrooke www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....