Transnationalizing Intrapreneurs and Entrepreneurial Values: Case Studies of Chinese Companies in Chiang Mai, Thailand

This article explores recent waves of Chinese mobility demonstrated by new Chinese emigrants working for private Chinese companies conducting transnational business in Thailand in general and Chiang Mai Province in particular. We use two case studies of international education centres and real estate for senior care businesses in Chiang Mai to discuss the flexibility of Chinese capitalism and argue that deploying intrapreneurs and cultivating entrepreneurial value for employees, professionals and co-partners in pursuit of transnational business are some of the more flexible strategies that China's private companies have employed in response to their new business lines and emerging market demand from both China and other parts of the globe. However, while the Chinese and Thai states have played an important role in facilitating and regulating business conducted in Thailand, transnational business is in an early stage, as demonstrated by the two case studies explored, and may not always proceed as expected.

Primitive Socialist Accumulation in China: An Alternative View on the Anomalies of Chinese “Capitalism”

China’s economic system has yet to be adequately explained by any models. China’s export-led industries were initially viewed as a source of cheap labor but its economy has now emerged as a serious competitor to advanced capitalism. However, after decades of market reform, China’s state sector, rather than disappearing or being marginalized, has become a leader in strategic sectors and the driver of its investment-led growth. Heterodox political scientists and economists have long argued that China is at best a variant within global capitalism. This paper discusses heterodox theories that position China as part of global capitalism or regard it as a variety of capitalism. It then examines the anomalies of Chinese “capitalism” and suggests that primitive socialist accumulation—operating in conflict with capitalist accumulation—offers a more appropriate theoretical framework for studying China’s development.

The Studies of Chinese Diasporas in Colonial Southeast Asia: Theories, Concepts, and Histories

This article provides a state-of-the-field assessment of a large body of English-language scholarship on Chinese migration to colonial Southeast Asia. It first explores the theoretical literature that grapples with the conceptual utility of “diaspora” as well as the attempted periodization and identities. It then turns the analytical gaze to the paradigm-shifting debates on transnational Chinese capitalism wherein the studies of networks, enterprises, and commerce in the age of empire have questioned the validity of “Chinese-ness” in dominant approaches to Chinese businesses and capital circulations. Finally, it engages with a growing scholarship on the social and cultural histories of Chinese diasporas that captures the diversity of their experiences, family and kinship networks, survival strategies, and Chinese encounters with the colonial powers. Rather than exhaustive, the article selectively focuses on the most productive areas of research that have preoccupied major scholarly debates in the field and hopes to shed light on new research directions.

The Financial Crisis and a Crisis of Expertise: A Chinese Genealogy of Neoliberalism

The paper investigates the distinctly Chinese intertwining of expertise and state & financial capital to enrich the current understanding of neoliberalism as a hegemonic governing rationale. Since the summer of 2015, China has been experiencing one of its most severe financial crises since the adoption of a ‘socialist market economy’ in 1978. However, globally circulating narratives have failed to look beyond a Western-centric corollary, rehashing a critique of the Chinese one-party system and its lack of a ‘genuine’ free market. By exploring the specific genealogy of Chinese capitalism, and the distinctive Chinese financial-market structure, the article will show how the scientific authority of experts formulated amongst neoliberal thinkers never permeated the Chinese idea of knowledge. In the Chinese variety of financial capitalism, expertise is seen to lie not so much in the wisdom of individual experts as in their socio-political support, which legitimises their economic interventions.