New Actors in Chinese Foreign Policy: Energy Companies and the PLA

A public talk in Washington, D.C. will focus on newly formed political relationships that now affect the way China addresses foreign policy.

Speaker
Linda Jakobson - Director of the China and Global Security Program, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI)

Discussants
Erica S. Downs - Fellow, John L. Thornton China Center, Brookings Institution

David Finkelstein - Vice President of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), and Director of CNA China Studies
 
Moderated by
Bonnie S. Glaser - Senior Fellow, CSIS Freeman Chair in China Studies

The foreign policy formulation process in China is increasingly complex. Expanding pluralism within Chinese society and China’s growing interdependence with the international community have led to the emergence of new foreign policy actors. Some of these new interest groups try to sway official policy and seek additional leverage by influencing each other and public opinion. Other actors, who are on the margins, do not necessarily seek an active role in foreign policy, but can at times end up complicating Chinese diplomacy. Large state-owned enterprises in pursuit of commercial interests, for example, can inadvertently entangle foreign policy officials in a web of human rights, energy security concerns and political interests by their actions. Linda Jakobson, Director of the China and Global Security Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) is the lead author of a new SIPRI report New Foreign Policy Actors in China. She will explain the roles and influence of the new actors in China and assess the implications of new foreign policy trends in China.

Erica Downs, Fellow at the Brookings Institution, will discuss the evolving role and influence of Chinese energy companies in foreign policy.  David Finkelstein, Vice President and Director of China Studies at the CNA Corporation, will address the changing role and impact of the People’s Liberation Army on Chinese foreign policy.

Linda Jakobson is the Director of the China and Global Security Programme at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). Jakobson has lived and worked in China for nearly 20 years and published six books on Chinese and East Asian society. The Finnish edition of A Million Truths: A Decade in China (New York: M. Evans 1998) won the 1998 Finnish Government Publication Award. A Mandarin speaker, she has published extensively on China’s foreign policy, the Taiwan Straits, China’s energy security, and climate change and science & technology polices. Her most recent publications are China prepares for an ice-free Arctic (SIPRI Insights on Peace and Security 2010/2) and “The Myth of a Sino-Russian Challenge to the West” (International Spectator, with Hiski Haukkala, vol. 44, no. 3,September 2009). Jakobson’s research at SIPRI focuses on China’s foreign and security policy as well as regional security issues in Northeast Asia. Prior to joining SIPRI in March 2009, Jakobson worked for ten years at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (FIIA).

Erica S. Downs is a Fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution, where she focuses on Chinese energy and foreign policies, as well as institutional change and government-business relations in China’s energy sector.  Dr. Downs has also worked as an energy analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, a lecturer at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, and an analyst at the RAND Corporation.  She received her PhD from Princeton University.

David M. Finkelstein is the Vice President and Director of the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA) China Studies, which focuses on US-China relations, China’s changing role in the world order, and emerging trends within China.  As a retired US Army officer, he has held command and staff positions, as well as significant China-related positions at the Pentagon as an advisor to the Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff.  He received his PhD from Princeton University.