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Two major findings this paper offers scholarship 1 - Governance form matters at least as much as capital origin 2 - Durable success for ports that are transshipment hubs depends on anchored hinterland demand & diversified customer portfolios (END)

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To continue competitive neutrality & build on gains while minimizing risks, policy makers should not attempt to reverse integration, instead they should focus on building institutions around Chinese owned ports that fairly distribute gains & maintain system integrity. 11/12

Since the acquisition, Piraeus achieved network improvements & has since experienced increased throughput (especially from larger COSCO ships) and consolidation as one of Europe's premier transshipment hubs. Furthermore, competitive neutrality has been maintained. 10/12

Potential drawbacks from vertically integrated, 🇨🇳 state owned ports include: decreased competitive neutrality (favoring COSCO, OOCL & other Chinese aligned enterprises), less transparency, downgraded labor relations, less local input for safety & environmental standards. 9/12

Benefits that could come with vertically integrated, Chinese state owned ports include: improved port competitiveness, productivity, connectivity, employment opportunities, fewer capacity restraints & other spillovers. 8/12

Control of major shipping hubs allows states to excercise significant control over global trade operations. Challenges to port governance include mechanisms that maintain competitive neutrality, cyber security, harmonizing overlapping jurisdictions & crisis preparedness. 7/12

Through what economists call “patient capital”, state owned enterprises like COSCO are uniquely more capable than their private sector counterparts of withstanding short term financial set backs to achieve strategic control in the long run. 6/12

Via 🇨🇳 SOE COSCO, acquisition of the port progressed from the concessions of Piers II & III in 2009 to majority share ownership in 2016. Through initial engagement, 🇨🇳 port operators acquire knowledge of European port management systems, regulations & logistical operations. 5/12

For the scope of this study, Piraeus is particularly insightful because of its status as a transshipment hub, the magnitude of the change and the full range of possible ownership and governance models. 4/12

Access to the primary Asia-Europe shipping route, proximity to the Suez Canal and connectivity to Balkan & Eastern Mediterranean markets makes Piraeus a highly strategic port for the expansion of Chinas Belt and Road Initiative. 3/12

The European port system is one of the densest in the world with ports that typically follow a standard landlord model. 🇨🇳 investments & operators have embedded themselves in 3 geographic areas: 1 - Eastern Mediterranean 2 - Western Mediterranean 3 - North Sea & Baltic 2/12

Through an examination of the Piraeus Port acquisition from 2009-2016, Stampoliou Marina assesses the benefits & risks of Chinese investments in European ports and considers policies that could optimize those investments while mitigating the risks. dione.lib.unipi.gr/xmlui/bitstrea… 1/12

dione.lib.unipi.gr

- Boost diplomatic capacity by leveraging international partnerships to access frontier technologies, while negotiating knowledge-sharing and co-development. Diplomatic capacity thus becomes part of state capacity. 8/8

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- Create innovation corridors linking SMEs with research hubs - Establish fiscal incentives for firms investing in lagging regions (territorial cohesion, not metropolitan concentration) 7/8

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- Create a Knowledge and Innovation Fund that receives earmarked revenues from extractive industries and deploys them independently of annual budgets. - Decentralize innovation centers to regional universities and technical institutes 6/8

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Novoa concludes the paper by making policy recommendations that shift the framing of industrial policy from infant industry support towards mission informed knowledge policy. - Establishing a National Innovation Council with binding coordination powers 5/8

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2 - Cognitive Capacity (Mokyr & Samuelson): cultural legitimacy & stable R&D investment that sustains knowledge accumulation (partial progress) 3 - Ethical Capacity (Sampedro): derived from policy commitments to justice, inclusiveness & human welfare (limited progress) 4/8

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1 - Strategic Capacity (Mazzucato, Aghion & Howitt): the ability to articulate and coordinate public missions and institutional learning (the most progress has been achieved here) 3/8

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In his paper, he synthesizes the main ideas of their works to develop an evolutionary triangle of development that considers strategic, cognitive & ethical capacities necessary for overcoming the middle innovation trap. 2/8

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State capacity, innovation, and endogenous development in Chile

Rodrigo Barra Novoa applies insights from Mazzucato, Aghion, Howitt, Mokyr, Samuelson & Sampedro to understand Chile’s middle innovation trap and how to better apply industrial strategy to achieve social & economic development. arxiv.org/abs/2510.20863 1/8

arxiv.org

The study explores the evolution of Chile's industrial policy from 1990 to 2022 through the lens of state capacity, innovation and endogenous development. In a global context where governments are rea...

The authors conclude that if managed properly (keep up with public debt & safeguard national sovereignty), Vietnam can reap significant benefits from BRI projects. If this approach is pursued, then Vietnam should be able to leverage BRI opportunities while minimizing risks. 8/8

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These experiences paired with alternatives offered by other powers have caused some countries (especially Myanmar & Vietnam) to more seriously pursue alternatives like India’s “Act East”, Japanese investment or Europe’s Connectivity Strategy. 7/8

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The variety stems from different sources as the survey shows, but negative impressions can often come from failed/cancelled projects, experienced lack of transparency, social responsibility, lack of local sourcing & disregard for the host culture. 6/8

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Albana & Fiori (2021) found that the reception of BRI projects in Southeast Asia varied across three clusters 1) Positive: Cambodia, Laos & Myanmar 2) Cautious: Singapore, Thailand & Vietnam 3) Skeptical: Indonesia, Malaysia & the Philippines tinyurl.com/3f24mwv5 5/8

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Individual level - the BRI is a central part of realizing Xi Jinping’s Chinese dream (a strong military, a powerful nation, development, happiness, harmony, peace, cultural advancement, environmental protection & the rule of law). 4/8

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National level - the BRI channels China’s desire to maintain its export-led growth model, bridge the inland-coastal wealth disparity, integrate peripheral provinces with the rest of the country, enhance energy security & reduce dependence on the high traffic Malacca Strait. 3/8

International level - the backdrop of the BRI in Southeast Asia arrives at a time when strategic competition between major powers in the region is at a high point as Southeast Asia exists as a significant flashpoint in that competition. 2/8

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Tran Xuan Hiep, Nguyen Tang Nghi & Nguyen Cam Tu utilize a foreign policy analysis framework to assess the motivations & driving forces behind how the BRI functions both in SE Asia generally & Vietnam specifically. tinyurl.com/57yrzpha 1/8

tinyurl.com

Karaoğuz, Ayhan & Albasar contend that the developmental state model continues to be valuable (especially in the post-neoliberal era) so long as precise definitions are held, justifications for one definition > another are clarified and rigorous research methods are applied. 7/7

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If a developmental state is a success & what scholars attribute that success to (be it unique cultural-historical conditions, business willingness, US hegemonic interests or other political origins) speaks to the distinctiveness of the developmental state as a concept. 6/7

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Definitional hurdles are often case bound... East Asian focus: emphasis on bureaucratic autonomy, embeddedness, Weberian bureaucracy, coordination & pilot agency 21st Century focus: complications from a newer range of methodologies, globalization & the development-democracy dynamic 5/7

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3 - the limits in scope of their proposed alt concepts fail to capture social, political & economic transformations denoted by the developmental state concept 4 - the analysis ends up proposing three different logics: geo-economical, geo-political & geo-political-economical 4/7

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Their criticism comes with its own baggage… 1 - It hastily dismisses the concept over cases of imprecise definition, poor case selection & methodology 2 - the politicization argument assumes that their own alternative terms wouldn't be subject to the same politicization 3/7

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The debate over the utility of the term is waged from the view that the Asian financial crisis turned the developmental state into a historical artefact at best a politicized buzzword at worst. These critics propose “economic statecraft” or “techno-economic activism” as an alternative. 2/7

Developmental state in the context of globalization: definitional, conceptual, and methodological issues

In their recent paper, Huseyin Emrah Karaoğuz, Berkay Ayhan & İlgi Doğa Albasar use bibliometric techniques to address the conceptual stretching and methodological issues plaguing the debate over the “developmental state” as a term. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.... 1/7

tandfonline.com

Developmental state has offered one of the most widely used analytical toolkits to study political economy of development. One of the intriguing debates in the scholarship is whether ‘conceptual st...

Ian Maclay @ian-maclay.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

Given the highly extractive nature of mining activities, Chang and Özcan advise local policymakers to incorporate thorough environmental assessments & local governance mechanisms into the implementation processes. 3/3

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Ian Maclay @ian-maclay.bsky.social · 15/12/2025

They find that China’s green BRI investments have increased with time and predominantly follow a “resource acquisition and infrastructure building” model with secondary investment in local clean energy, infrastructure, telecom and energy grid infrastructure. 2/3

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Reposted by Ian Maclay

Ian Maclay @ian-maclay.bsky.social · 12/12/2025

Using role theory, David Mitchell examines how China’s BRI engages with & shapes the prospect of regional integration in South Asia. While China isn’t conceived of as South Asian, through the BRI it plays a master role in helping define the region. tinyurl.com/ytmfburk 1/5

tinyurl.com

Role conflict and ‘regionness’: the effects of the belt and road initiative on South Asia

Different studies have examined China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) impact on states in different regions; less attention has been given to the impact on the development of regions or ‘regionnes...

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8 - Adopt a consistent approach to industrial policy evaluation reporting and dissemination 9 - Invest in advanced digital technologies, such as big data analytics, AI and machine learning, to improve the design of industrial policies and lower the cost of evaluations 6/6

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5 - Integrate the evaluation & review schedule into existing budget cycles 6 - Streamline existing evaluation measures 7 - Develop a general logic model to help frame industrial policy evaluations to translate outcomes and impacts into measurable performance indicators 5/6

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Policy Recommendations 1 - Commitment from senior decision-makers to thoroughly evaluate industrial policy 2 - Increase evaluation funding 3 - Create a new centralized industrial policy evaluation unit 4 - Spell out clear guidelines for evaluation of industrial policy 4/6

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Evaluation challenges - IDing control groups & counterfactuals - Time lags to assess outcomes & impacts - Multiple influences on outcomes, (spillover effects from global linkages & non-targeted players) - Interactive effects between policies & instruments within a strategy 3/6

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Ensuring these policies are evidence based & produce the desired impact will be crucial to building upon 🇨🇦 prosperity. Nevison brings together scholarship on industrial policy evaluation, OECD & IMF recommendations to suggest how 🇨🇦 can better utilize industrial policy. 2/6

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Canada has a long history with industrial policy but it is in need of well crafted industrial policy to combat low productivity growth, rising geopolitical tensions, competitive pressures, advances in digital technologies and climate change. tinyurl.com/7m55hz62 1/6

tinyurl.com

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