Strategic governance and economic diplomacy in China: The political economy of government-linked companies from Singapore

East Asia

Volumn 21, Issue 1, 2004, Pages 40-64

  Yeung, Henry Wai Chung ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

DIPLOMATIC RELATIONS; GOVERNANCE APPROACH; POLITICAL ECONOMY; STATE ROLE;

ASIA; CHINA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; EURASIA; FAR EAST; SINGAPORE [SINGAPORE (NTN)]; SINGAPORE [SOUTHEAST ASIA]; SOUTHEAST ASIA; WORLD;

EID: 13744256125     PISSN: 10966838     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1007/s12140-004-0009-8     Document Type: Article

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43. See also Li Kui-Wai, Capitalist Development and Economism in East Asia: The Rise of Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan and South Korea (London: Routledge, 2002).
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54. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Local politics and foreign ventures in China's transitional economy: the political economy of Singaporean investments in China', Political Geography 19:7 (2000), 809-40.
55. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, Entrepreneurship and... (2002).
56. Roger H. Gordon and Li Wei, 'Chinese enterprise behavior under the reform,' American Economic Review 81:2 (1991), 202.
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63. See also Lisa A. Keister, Chinese Business Groups: The Structure and Impact of Interfirm Relations During Economic Development (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000).
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65. Douglas Guthrie, 'Between markets and politics: organizational responses to reform in China' American Journal of Sociology 102:5 (1997), 1258-304.
66. Nee, ibid, 1.
67. For other recent studies of guanxi, bureaucracy and politics in China, see Frank Pieke, 'Bureaucracy, friends and money: the growth of capital socialism in China,' Comparative Studies in Society and History 37:3 (1995), 494-518.
68. Lucien W. Pye, 'Factions and the politics of guanxi: paradoxes in Chinese administrative and political behaviour,' The China Journal 34 (1995), 35-53.
69. David L. Wank, 'The institutional process of market clientelism: guanxi and private business in a south China city' The China Quarterly 147 (1996), 820-38.
70. David L. Wank, Commodifying Communism: Business, Trust, and Politics in a Chinese City Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).
71. Alan Smart, 'Oriental despotism and sugar-coated bullets: representations of the market in China,' in James G. Carrier, ed., Meanings of the Market: The Free Market in Western Culture (Oxford: Berg, 1997), 159-95.
72. Douglas Guthrie, 'The declining significance of guanxi in China's economic transition,' The China Quarterly 154 (1998), 254-282.
73. For a critique of this "new guanxi scholarship", see Mayfair M.H. Yang, 'The resilience of guanxi and its new deployments: A critique of some new guanxi scholarship,' The China Quarterly 170 (2002), 459-76.
74. Fan Ying, 'Questioning guanxi: definition, classification and implications,' International Business Review, 11: 5 (2002), 543-61.
75. Thomas W. Dunfee and Danielle E. Warren, 'Is guanxi ethical? A normative analysis of doing business in China,' Journal of Business Ethics 32:3 (2001), 191-204.
76. Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang, Gifts, Favors and Banquets: The Art of Social Relationships in China (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1994), 158.
77. Ibid, 308.
78. Ibid, 73.
79. Ibid, 77.
80. Walder, 'Local Government...'(1995), 270, original italics.
81. See Nee,'Organisational Dynamics...' (1992),
82. Jin Dengjian and Kingsley E. Haynes, 'Economic transition at the edge of order and chaos: China's dualism and leading sectoral approach,' Journal of Economic Issues 31:1 (1997),
83. Che Jiahua and Qian Yingyi, 'Institutional environment, community government, and corporate governance: understanding China's township-village enterprises,' Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization 14:1 (1998), 1-23.
84. Luo Yadong, Multinational Corporations in China: Benefitting from Structural Transformation (Copenhagen: Copenhagen Business School Press, 2000).
85. John Child, Management in China During the Age of Reform (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994), 20.
86. Ruth McVey, 'The materialization of the Southeast Asian entrepreneur', in Ruth McVey, ed., Southeast Asian Capitalists (Ithaca: Cornell University Southeast Asia Program, 1992), 7-33.
87. Thomas Menkhoff, Trade Routes, Trust and Trading Networks - Chinese Small Enterprises in Singapore (Saarbrucken, Germany: Verlag breitenback Publishers, 1993).
88. Ho Kong Chong, 'Industrial restructuring, the Singapore city-state, and the regional division of labour,' Environment and Planning A 26:1 (1994), 48.
89. See details in Rodan, 'The Political Economy...' (1989).
90. W.G. Huff, 'The developmental state, government, and Singapore's economic development since 1960,' World Development 23:8 (1995), 1421-38.
91. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Regulating investment abroad? The political economy of the regionalisation of Singaporean firms,' Antipode 31:3 (1999), 245-73.
92. See Rodan, ibid. Low, "Accounting for Outward....' (1998).
93. Henry Wai-chung Yeung,'The political economy of transnational corporations: a study of the regionalisation of Singaporean firms,' Political Geography 17:4 (1998), 389-416.
94. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'State intervention and neoliberalism in the globalising world economy: lessons from Singapore's regionalisation programme,' The Pacific Review 13:1 (2000), 133-62.
95. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Entrepreneurship...' (2002).
96. Rodan, ibid, Table 3.2.
97. Rodan, ibid, 77.
98. The Straits Times (25 June 1999), 74.
99. I b i d.
100. Huff, 'The Developmental State...' (1995), 1428.
101. Ministry of Finance, Interim Report of the Committee to Promote Enterprise Overseas (Singapore: MOF, 1993), 39.
102. See also Kulwant Singh and Ang Siah Hwee, The Strategies and Success of Government Linked Corporations in Singapore, Research Paper Series #98-06, (Faculty of Business Administration, National University of Singapore, Singapore, 1998).
103. Quoted in The Straits Times (25 June 1999), 74.
104. Quoted in The Straits Times (25 June 1999), 1.
105. Ministry of Trade and Industry, Committee on Singapore's Competitiveness (Singapore: MTI, 1998).
106. Quoted in The Straits Times (25 June 1999), 1.
107. Alexius A. Pereira, 'State collaboration with transnational corporations: the case of Singapore's industrial programmes (1965-1999),' Competition and Change 4:4 (2000), 1-29.
108. Takao Kanai, 'Singapore's new focus on regional business expansion,' NRI Quarterly 2:3 (1993), 41.
109. For some empirical studies of outward investment from Singapore, see Philippe Régnier, 'Spreading Singapore's wings worldwide: a review of traditional and new investment strategies,' The Pacific Review 6(4) (1993), 305-12.
110. Tsao Yuan Lee, Overseas Investment: Experience of Singapore Manufacturing Companies (Singapore: McGraw-Hill, 1994).
111. Samuel Bassey Okposin, The Extent of Singapore's Investments Abroad (Aldershot, Hants: Ashgate, 1999). Yeung, 'Entrepreneurship...' (2002).
112. Alexius A. Pereira, State Collaboration and Development Strategies in China: The Case of the China-Singapore Suzhou Industrial Park (London: RoutledgeCurzon, 2003).
113. Ministry of Finance, 'Interim Report...' (1993), 20.
114. Ibid, 70.
115. See Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Transnational corporations from Asian developing countries: their characteristics and competitive edge,' Journal of Asian Business 10:4 (1994), 17-58.
116. Henry Waichung Yeung, ed., The Globalisation of Business Firms from Emerging Economies, Two Volumes (Cheltenham: Edward Elgar, 1999c).
117. Henry Waichung Yeung, 'Entrepreneurship...' (2002).
118. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'The political economy of transnational corporations: a study of the regionalisation of Singaporean firms,' Political Geography 17:4 (1998), 389-416.
119. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Entrepreneurship...' (2002) and Pereira, 'State Collaboration...' (2003).
120. Ministry of Finance, 'Interim Report' (1993),42-43.
121. Data are downloaded from [http://www.singstat.gov.sg] (accessed on 25 August 2003).
122. Department of Statistics, Singapore's Investment Abroad (Singapore: DOS, 1998), 5.
123. These data are reported in China Investment Report 2000 [http:// www.chinafdi.org.en] (accessed on 20 September 2003).
124. UNCTAD, World Investment Report 1998 (New York: United Nations, 1998).
125. See Linda Low, Eric D. Ramstetter and Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Accounting for outward direct investment from Hong Kong and Singapore: who controls what, in Robert E. Baldwin, Robert E. Lipsey and J. David Richardson, eds., Geography and Ownership as Bases for Economic Accounting (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998), 144.
126. The empirical data presented in this section originate from personal interviews with subsidiaries and affiliates of Singapore GLCs in China during May-June 1998. These interviews were completely unstructured and all taped. Their duration ranged from one hour to several hours. I managed to interview the top executives of all 7 GLC operations in Guangdong province and Jiangsu province, China. For two of these GLC operations, I also interviewed the top executives from their parent companies in Singapore. For the purpose of anonymity and confidentiality, the interviewees and their company information reported in this paper are examined as a group rather than as individual executives or companies. Case studies are used in this section to illustrate the strategic governance of GLC activities in China. They are meant neither as empirical proofs nor for wider generalizations.
127. See also Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Entrepreneurship...' (2002).
128. Natasha Hamilton-Hart, 'The Singapore state revisited,' The Pacific Review 13:2 (2000), 195-216.
129. Natasha Hamilton-Hart, Asian States, Asian Bankers: Central Banking in Southeast Asia (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2002).
130. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Entrepreneurship...' (2002).
131. See, for example, Redding, The Spirit of Chinese Capitalism (1990).,
132. Whitley, Business System... (1992),
133. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, Chinese Capitalism 2 (2004),
134. Henry Wai-chung Yeung and Kris Olds, eds., Globalization of Chinese Business Finns (New York: Macmillan, 2000).
135. See further case studies in Yeung, 'Entrepreneurship...' (2002)
136. and 'Chinese Capitalism...' (2004).
137. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, ibid., (2004), Table 1.6.
138. My interview in Hong Kong on (II June 1998).
139. Quek's Dao Heng Bank was acquired by another GLC bank from Singapore, the Development Bank of Singapore, in April 2001.
140. See further case studies in Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Entrepreneurship...' (2002),
141. Pereira, 'State Collaboration...' (2003).
142. My interview in China on (30 June 1998).
143. My interview with the Singaporean deputy general manager in China on (12 June 1998).
144. I b i d.
145. I b i d.
146. I b i d.
147. I b i d.
148. Compare this with the Suzhou-Singapore Industrial Park experience described in Yeung, 'Local Politics...' (2000a);
149. 'Entrepreneurship' (2002),
150. and Pereira, 'State Collaboration...' (2003).
151. My interview with the Singaporean deputy general manager in China on (12 June 1998).
152. My interview in China on (30 June 1998).
153. My interview in China on (1 July 1998).
154. My inter-view in China on (28 June 1998).
155. See Colin Crouch and Wolfgang Streeck, eds., Political Economy of Modern Capitalism: Mapping Convergence and Divergence (London: Sage, 1997).
156. Paul N. Doremus, William W. Keller, Louis W. Pauly and Simon Reich, The Myth of the Global Corporation (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998).
157. Mauro F. Guillén, The Limits of Convergence: Globalization and Organizational Change in Argentina, South Korea, and Spain (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2001).
158. Peter A. Hall and David Soskice, eds., Varieties of Capitalism: The Institutional Foundations of Comparative Advantage (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
159. See Peter Dicken, Global Shift: Reshaping the Global Economic Map in the 21st Century, 4th edition (London: Sage, 2003).
160. Jamie Peck and Henry Wai-chung Yeung, eds., Remaking the Global Economy: Economic-Geographical Perspectives (London: Sage, 2003).
161. Henry Wai-chung Yeung, 'Chinese Capitahsm...'(2004).
162. Quoted in The Straits Times, (4 February 1999), 38.