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Abstract

The reform of China’s state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in the 1990s was politically unpleasant and socially threatening. There were mass closures of firms, tens of millions of lay-offs, and stock market listings for many of the biggest state firms, which made them run like private companies. Today, SOEs produce one-third of China’s GDP and provide one-fifth of all its jobs. SOEs have been given the task of re-engineering the relations of production so that they remain at the ‘core’ as espoused by Communist Party of China General Secretary Xi Jinping during the 19th Party Congress. Internally, SOEs drive China’s brand of state capitalism while externally SOEs form part of well-crafted Chinese economic statecraft, signing deals around the world giving the impression of ‘good’ state-run giants comprising an elite class of Chinese firms from the Fortune 500 that are influencing relations between nations and economies.

About the Panellists

Aravind Yelery  is Senior Research Fellow at the HSBC Business School, Peking University, Beijing/Shenzhen. He is involved in teaching and curating courses for PKU and select universities globally and at a few Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) in India. In 2019, he won the Best Courseware Project Funds Award at Peking University. Yelery is also a visiting faculty at the Fudan School of Management, Shanghai. Prior to joining PKU, he was Associate Fellow and Assistant Director at the Institute of Chinese Studies, Delhi, India. Yelery holds a Ph.D. in Chinese Studies with a particular interest in Political Economy. He has co-edited a book titled Tailspin: The Politics of India-China Economic Relations (London: Routledge, 2020) and recently authored a book titled China Inc.: Between State Capitalism and Economic Statecraft (New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2021).

Santishree Pandit  is professor of Political Science at Savitribai Phule University. She has an illustrious teaching and research career spanning over three decades. Her fields of expertise are International Relations, Asian Studies, Culture and Foreign Policy., Conflict, Violence and Gender. Professor Pandit has also been a member of several committees of the Government of India like ICSSR, ICCR, IIAS, MAKAIAS MPISS, among others. Her publications include Parliament and Foreign Policy in India, New Delhi: Kanishka Publishers, 1990; Restructuring Environmental governance in Asia-Ethics and Policy, [editor] [Hongkong: City University Press, 2003; and Retreat of the State: Implications of Drug Trafficking in Asia [co-author], among others. She has received her MPhil and Ph.D. from Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.

Jaimini Bhagwati  is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP), New Delhi. He is also Chairman of the IDFC Asset Management Trustee Company and member of the Board of Infrastructure Development Finance Company Ltd. In his long and distinguished career, Mr. Bhagwati has served as India’s High Commissioner to the UK, India’s Ambassador to the EU, Belgium and Luxembourg and as Joint Secretary in the Ministry of Finance. He has also worked in several positions at the World Bank for more than a decade. Mr. Bhagwati was the RBI Chair Professor for macro-economics at ICRIER between 2013-18. He has a Ph.D. from Tufts University, USA and MS in Finance from MIT, USA. His book The Promise of India, How Prime Ministers Nehru to Modi Shape the Nation (1947-2019) was published in 2019. Dr. Bhagwati has also been a columnist at Business Standard since 2005.

Partha Mukhopadhyay  is Honorary Fellow at the Institute of Chinese Studies, New Delhi. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Centre for Policy Research since 2006. He was previously part of the founding team at the Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), focusing on private participation in infrastructure. In previous positions, he has been with the Export-Import Bank of India, and with the World Bank in Washington. He has been on the faculty at Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, Xavier Labour Relations Institute, Jamshedpur and the School of Planning and Architecture in Delhi. He has published extensively, frequently writes for the national media and has also been associated with a number of government committees. Most recently, he was chair of the Working Group on Migration, Government of India and member of the High-Level Railway Restructuring Committee, Ministry of Railways and of the Technical Advisory Committee of the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation. He has previously been associated with the Committee on Allocation of Natural Resources and with the Prime Minister's Task Force on Infrastructure. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Council of LIRNEasia, Colombo. He received his PhD in economics from New York University and an MA and M.Phil from the Delhi School of Economics.

About the Chair

Madhu Bhalla  is currently editor of India Quarterly published by the Indian Council of World Affairs. She was a professor of Chinese Studies at the Department of East Asian Studies, Delhi University. Before joining University of Delhi in 2005, she taught at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, and Queens’ University, Canada. She has held a visiting fellowship at the Fudan University, Shanghai, and has been a visiting scholar at the University of Sichuan at Chengdu. Professor Bhalla has served on the executive council of the Institute for Defence Studies and Analysis, New Delhi (2006-2010), and is currently on the advisory councils of the China centres at IIT Madras, MG University, Kottayam, and Jamia Millia Islamia, New Delhi. She has an M.A. and Ph.D. from Queens' University, Canada.