China’s Economic Statecraft in Latin America: Evidence from China’s Policy Banks

Most scholars and policy-makers classify the motivation behind China’s global economic activity as an effort to project soft power or to exercise “extractive diplomacy” by locking up natural resources across the globe. In this paper we argue that China, through its state financial institutions and firms, is also significantly motivated by simply commercial reasons. To shed light on this debate, we examine the extent to which China’s policy banks provide finance to sovereign governments in Latin America. We find that Chinese policy banks now provide more finance to Latin American governments each year than do the World Bank and Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). Indeed, the large loan size, high interest rates and focus on industry and infrastructure of Chinese finance has less in common with these international financial institutions (IFIs) and more in common with the private sovereign bond market. In this way, Chinese finance appears primarily commercial in nature. Chinese banks offer slightly lower interest rates than the private market, but these are not necessarily concessional subsidies to support a political agenda. The Chinese banks are exposed to less risk because they tie their loans to equipment purchase requirements and oil purchase contracts. Through these risk-lowering arrangements, Chinese banks can profit by lending to countries that have been priced out of the sovereign debt market. While it can be difficult to distinguish between the three types of economic statecraft outlined above, we argue that commercial profit is also a major force behind China’s economic statecraft that has been largely overlooked.

中国在拉丁美洲的国家经济事务管理：来自中国政策性银行的证据

对中国在全球的经济活动，大多数学者和政策制定者将其动机要么归类为投射“软权力”，要么视之为在全球范围内锁定自然资源来进行“采矿业外交”。本文章提出，通过其国家金融体制及公司，中国也在相当程度上受到纯粹商业动机的驱动。为加强对这一争论的理解，我们考察了中国的政策性银行为拉丁美洲主权国家政府提供资金的情况。我们发现，中国的政策性银行现在每年为拉美政府提供资金的额度已经超出了世界银行和泛美开发银行。实际上，中国资金贷款额度大、利率高，并且钟情于工业和基础设施，较为有别于以上这些国际金融机构而更类似于私有主权债券市场。在这个意义上，中国资金看起来本质上具有商业属性。中国的银行提供比私人市场略低一点的利率，但这并不一定就是为扶持某一政治议程而提供的优惠性补贴。这些中国的银行面临的风险较低，因为他们将贷款与设备采购要求和石油购买合同捆绑在一起。通过采纳这些规避风险的措施，中国的银行能够从借贷给这些无力负担主权债务市场高价的国家中获利。尽管辨识以上三种类型的国家经济事务管理方式并不容易，我们认为，商业利益也是中国的国家经济事务管理中一个重要的驱动力量，只是一直以来基本上遭到忽视。

Translated from English by Li Guo