Edmund Downie

Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) are understudied participants in the surge of Chinese outbound investment since the mid-2000s. This essay examines the fortunes of SME participants in the Opium Replacement Planting (ORP) program, a subsidy scheme established in 2006 for agricultural investments by Chinese firms in former opium-growing regions of northern Myanmar and Laos. The struggles of ORP firms in Myanmar highlight the importance of focused risk-assessment training and capacity-building work for Chinese SMEs in their outbound investments, especially where subsidies are involved. There is an extra black line under the heading ‘Background and Early Stages’. A Disappointing Harvest China’s Opium Replacement Investments in Northern Myanmar Since 2009 Rubber tree plantation in Myanmar. PC: Dale Winling (CC).

For more than two decades now, China has been funding various crop-substitution programs to replace the cultivation of opium in northern Myanmar and Laos with licit cash crops. As of the late 2000s, the most recent iteration, the Opium Replacement Program, was among the most significant cross-border alternative development efforts globally sponsored and funded by a Global South state. Research on these efforts has generally focused upon their political and social impacts within Myanmar and Laos, but has paid less attention to the economic performance of these efforts for Chinese investors as well as their host-country partners. This paper fills this gap. It traces, first, how the ORP evolved from its 1990s roots in trade facilitation and seed supply into the direct investments that have attracted such attention. It shows then how these investments struggled to deliver economic and political returns for their Chinese and local sponsors during the 2010s. It concludes with proposals for rethinking the ORP so that the program can better live up to its social mandate.

This paper, published in The Diplomat in February 2015, argues that an effective Act East Policy for India must target an overhaul of the political economy of development in the Indian state of Manipur. It draws upon field research in Imphal conducted in January 2015.

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This essay analyzes competing visions among leftist intellectuals of “the Chongqing model,” an economic and political approach to municipal governance in China associated with the southwestern city of Chongqing and its former leader, Bo Xilai, between 2009 and 2012. Based on this analysis, I posit the existence of a center-left/left split within the Chinese political spectrum distinct from the traditional “new left”/”old left” split described in most English-language literature on the Chinese left. I describe a “core” Chongqing model based upon the features of its development strategy most acclaimed among Chongqing supporters: its economic policies, its “mass line initiative,” and its crackdown on corruption and crime. In contrast, I show how Chongqing’s famous “red culture” campaign, often treated as one of the model’s distinguishing features, met with opposition among Chongqing’s center-left backers. Similarly, I show how the center-left and the left split in relation to two other topics that feature in leftist discussion of Chongqing: first, China-West antagonisms, and second, social stability and Party legitimacy.

This essay uses a mix of secondary literature, primary sources, and quantitative analysis to offer a comprehensive account of the ebbs and flows in women’s representation in Chinese politics during the reform (post-1978) era. The literature to date offers two conflicting accounts of women’s representation during this era. Some scholars present the period as a time of consistent decline; others present gains in representation levels from the 1990s onwards. This essay reconciles these two narratives for a unified account. It does so by updating Jude Howell’s concept of “state feminism” in reform-era China to show how state interests and civil society demands together determined women's participation levels during this period. The concept of "state feminism" treats women's representation in Chinese politics from 1949 to today as a reflection of state needs. Such a state-centric view has fueled many of the "declinist" depictions of female representation in the reform era. This essay affirms state feminism's dominant role in suppressing women's representation through the mid-1990s. But it also shows how the state, by promoting economic development and closing gender gaps in educational attainment, has had a moderately positive impact on women's representation over the past two decades. During the same period, civil society pressures have also emerged as a significant factor behind rising representation levels. For this reason, accounts of women’s representation in Chinese politics today must incorporate both state and non-state actors in their analyses as substantive influences.