Globalizing Chinese Energy Finance: The Role of Policy Banks

This article explores the magnitude, motivations, and mechanisms of the globalization of Chinese finance for energy. Like the national development banks and export–import banks of industrialized countries before them, China’s policy banks have provided large amounts of financing to Chinese energy companies to enter global energy markets. What is more, China’s two global policy banks, the China Development Bank and the Export–Import Bank of China, now provide as much energy finance to foreign governments as do all the multilateral development banks combined. This paper outlines the extent to which Chinese energy finance has become globalized and examines the state priorities and institutional pathways that drive the globalization of Chinese energy finance.