@cornelban.bsky.social
When Adam Smith was first translated in China and why that matters today geoeconomic.substack.com/p/the-long-m...
November 8, 2025 at 1:37 PM
When Adam Smith was first translated in China and why that matters today geoeconomic.substack.com/p/the-long-m...
Theory: Economic decline feeds the far right. Romanians be like
November 5, 2025 at 2:37 PM
Theory: Economic decline feeds the far right. Romanians be like
To survive in the bond market, libertarianism needs subsidies. My latest geoeconomic.substack.com/p/spare-a-st...
Spare a State Subsidy for the Chainsaw Libertarian
How the American State Keeps Milei’s Libertarian Revolution Solvent
geoeconomic.substack.com
November 2, 2025 at 3:56 PM
To survive in the bond market, libertarianism needs subsidies. My latest geoeconomic.substack.com/p/spare-a-st...
Reposted
🚨 Today, Common Wealth launches the Green Planning Commission.
A major new initiative to tackle the twin crises of our era: climate breakdown & the affordability crisis.
To meet these challenges, we need a new era of democratic planning.
🧵
https://www.common-wealth.org/green-planning-commission
A major new initiative to tackle the twin crises of our era: climate breakdown & the affordability crisis.
To meet these challenges, we need a new era of democratic planning.
🧵
https://www.common-wealth.org/green-planning-commission
October 30, 2025 at 9:04 AM
🚨 Today, Common Wealth launches the Green Planning Commission.
A major new initiative to tackle the twin crises of our era: climate breakdown & the affordability crisis.
To meet these challenges, we need a new era of democratic planning.
🧵
https://www.common-wealth.org/green-planning-commission
A major new initiative to tackle the twin crises of our era: climate breakdown & the affordability crisis.
To meet these challenges, we need a new era of democratic planning.
🧵
https://www.common-wealth.org/green-planning-commission
For most of the post-Cold War era, Europe never intended to build autonomy in critical minerals. Why would it?https://geoeconomic.substack.com/p/the-smelter-and-the-sovereign
October 30, 2025 at 3:13 PM
For most of the post-Cold War era, Europe never intended to build autonomy in critical minerals. Why would it?https://geoeconomic.substack.com/p/the-smelter-and-the-sovereign
Reposted
already 10+ years ago wade jacoby said that europe was a trade dependent status quo power in a world in which the status quo was disintegrating and trade was stagnating and this (car industry lobbying) is one big reason why the EU is not up to the challenge
h/t @palmapolyak.bsky.social
h/t @palmapolyak.bsky.social
@lucien-mathieu.bsky.social: "Part 2️⃣ - Analysis of the leaked car industry paper: carmakers’ demands would let EV sales stagnate for the rest of the decade❗
T&E analysed and leaked a paper by the European car industry lobby ACEA and found a Christmas list of loopholes (more than 10!)."
T&E analysed and leaked a paper by the European car industry lobby ACEA and found a Christmas list of loopholes (more than 10!)."
October 15, 2025 at 5:22 PM
already 10+ years ago wade jacoby said that europe was a trade dependent status quo power in a world in which the status quo was disintegrating and trade was stagnating and this (car industry lobbying) is one big reason why the EU is not up to the challenge
h/t @palmapolyak.bsky.social
h/t @palmapolyak.bsky.social
When central banks were asked to "do smth" about climate, the Fed sat it out, the ECB experimented then retreated but the PBOC planned green and brown money at scale. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/central-ba...
Central Banking for the End of Times
Frankfurt measured the risk, Beijing moved the money, and Washington looked away.
geoeconomic.substack.com
October 27, 2025 at 8:58 AM
When central banks were asked to "do smth" about climate, the Fed sat it out, the ECB experimented then retreated but the PBOC planned green and brown money at scale. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/central-ba...
China’s approach to venture capital isn’t Silicon Valley 2.0 — it’s industrial strategy with a term sheet. And it explains better than subsidies or state banks why the country is a technological innovation superpower. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/vc-a-la-ccp
VC à la CCP
How Beijing fused planning and venture capital, outflanking the West’s innovation game
geoeconomic.substack.com
October 21, 2025 at 5:24 AM
China’s approach to venture capital isn’t Silicon Valley 2.0 — it’s industrial strategy with a term sheet. And it explains better than subsidies or state banks why the country is a technological innovation superpower. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/vc-a-la-ccp
Washington thought coercion would keep China down. But as @yelingtan.bsky.social @Mark Dallas @himself.bsky.social & @abenewman.bsky.social show, it did the opposite. Dependence became danger — and China learned to turn US pressure into its own power. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/america-th...
America, the Bumerang Master
How Washington Built Chinese Leverage Over...Washington (on Tan, Dallas, Farrell, Newman)
geoeconomic.substack.com
October 14, 2025 at 5:55 AM
Washington thought coercion would keep China down. But as @yelingtan.bsky.social @Mark Dallas @himself.bsky.social & @abenewman.bsky.social show, it did the opposite. Dependence became danger — and China learned to turn US pressure into its own power. geoeconomic.substack.com/p/america-th...
China is not just building clean energy faster than anyone else. It is trying to become something new.
Call it the electrostate. Still, big caveats loom, says Chris Saltmarsh in a superb @ripejournal.bsky.social article geoeconomic.substack.com/p/party-stat...
Call it the electrostate. Still, big caveats loom, says Chris Saltmarsh in a superb @ripejournal.bsky.social article geoeconomic.substack.com/p/party-stat...
Party-State Decarbonisation
The contradictions of China's decarbonisation
geoeconomic.substack.com
October 6, 2025 at 8:16 AM
China is not just building clean energy faster than anyone else. It is trying to become something new.
Call it the electrostate. Still, big caveats loom, says Chris Saltmarsh in a superb @ripejournal.bsky.social article geoeconomic.substack.com/p/party-stat...
Call it the electrostate. Still, big caveats loom, says Chris Saltmarsh in a superb @ripejournal.bsky.social article geoeconomic.substack.com/p/party-stat...
Friends, I have a substack with my thoughts and others on current events and megatrends from an international political economy perspective. geoeconomic.substack.com
Geoeconomic | Substack
Cornel Ban, associate prof at Copenhagen Business School and fellow at Boston University's China Initiative at the Global Development Program. Click to read Geoeconomic, a Substack publication with hu...
geoeconomic.substack.com
October 6, 2025 at 8:10 AM
Friends, I have a substack with my thoughts and others on current events and megatrends from an international political economy perspective. geoeconomic.substack.com
Thread. China’s GGFs are the quiet giants of industrial policy. While Western debates obsess over subsidies, Beijing has built a massive state–market financial infrastructure to channel capital into strategic tech sectors. Let’s unpack.
Financing technological innovation in China: neo-developmental financial statecraft through government guidance funds by Xuan Li &
@cornelban.bsky.social
@cornelban.bsky.social
Financing technological innovation in China: neo-developmental financial statecraft through government guidance funds
This paper examines China’s distinctive approach to financing innovation, contributing to debates on the derisking state, neo-developmentalist alternatives, and economic statecraft. It focuses on t...
www.tandfonline.com
September 7, 2025 at 11:19 AM
Thread. China’s GGFs are the quiet giants of industrial policy. While Western debates obsess over subsidies, Beijing has built a massive state–market financial infrastructure to channel capital into strategic tech sectors. Let’s unpack.
Reposted
This new paper by Xuan Li and @cornelban.bsky.social is so great I have a nickname for it and it’s VC à la CCP.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
September 3, 2025 at 8:59 PM
This new paper by Xuan Li and @cornelban.bsky.social is so great I have a nickname for it and it’s VC à la CCP.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Just out: How China builds strategic dominance in high-innovation niches fracturing the economic status quo in the world: Government Guidance Funds turn fiscal money + SOE assets into venture capital with planning discipline. A different game than Europe or Korea. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Financing technological innovation in China: neo-developmental financial statecraft through government guidance funds
This paper examines China’s distinctive approach to financing innovation, contributing to debates on the derisking state, neo-developmentalist alternatives, and economic statecraft. It focuses on t...
www.tandfonline.com
August 28, 2025 at 2:51 PM
Just out: How China builds strategic dominance in high-innovation niches fracturing the economic status quo in the world: Government Guidance Funds turn fiscal money + SOE assets into venture capital with planning discipline. A different game than Europe or Korea. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
No one in European automotive will worry about Chinese EVs now
March 6, 2025 at 2:59 PM
No one in European automotive will worry about Chinese EVs now
Must read
to understand the 'green capitalism' part of how the US got here, read our @benbraun.bsky.social account:
colliding macrofinancial regimes - when China's Big Green State meets Biden's Robust Derisking, there is one winner.
New @ripejournal.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
colliding macrofinancial regimes - when China's Big Green State meets Biden's Robust Derisking, there is one winner.
New @ripejournal.bsky.social
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Green macrofinancial regimes
Debates about climate policy have neglected the question of macrofinancial pathways to decarbonisation, not all of which are economically and politically viable. We propose a theory of macrofinanci...
www.tandfonline.com
February 4, 2025 at 2:47 PM
Must read
Weiss and Thurbon’s (2021: 477): economic statecraft is when state actions are designed to fend off, outflank, or move in step with clearly defined rival powers’ in key sectors. US and increasingly Europe acknowledge they lost to China on green tech. www.politico.eu/article/eu-d...
EU decorum cracks over green agenda
Normally taciturn officials spar online over climate policy and reveal a deep split within the EU.
www.politico.eu
January 31, 2025 at 2:29 PM
Weiss and Thurbon’s (2021: 477): economic statecraft is when state actions are designed to fend off, outflank, or move in step with clearly defined rival powers’ in key sectors. US and increasingly Europe acknowledge they lost to China on green tech. www.politico.eu/article/eu-d...
Even the best of European clean tech firms groan and fold under the combined weight of frayed European macro-finance and Trumpian climate nihilism. www.ft.com/content/eb76...
Shares in world’s biggest offshore wind developer tumble as US woes deepen
Ørsted blames interest rates, supply chains and ‘market uncertainties’ for latest writedown of US business
www.ft.com
January 28, 2025 at 4:35 PM
Even the best of European clean tech firms groan and fold under the combined weight of frayed European macro-finance and Trumpian climate nihilism. www.ft.com/content/eb76...
Sandbu: "Maga antipathy for anything green strengthens the case for doubling down on incentives to make more profitable in Europe the decarbonisation investments that have just become less profitable in the US." How to pay, given US-demanded defence spending and more US LNG dependence?
Financial TimesFinancial Times
News, analysis and opinion from the Financial Times on the latest in markets, economics and politics
FT.com
January 27, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Sandbu: "Maga antipathy for anything green strengthens the case for doubling down on incentives to make more profitable in Europe the decarbonisation investments that have just become less profitable in the US." How to pay, given US-demanded defence spending and more US LNG dependence?
Generally import substitution is not a great idea in technology. Unless you are China and weaponized US export controls force you to focus decades of investment in technoscientific capabilities on homegrown innovation. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/t...
How Chinese A.I. Start-Up DeepSeek Is Competing With Silicon Valley Giants
The company built a cheaper, competitive chatbot with fewer high-end computer chips than U.S. behemoths like Google and OpenAI, showing the limits of chip export control.
www.nytimes.com
January 27, 2025 at 1:46 PM
Generally import substitution is not a great idea in technology. Unless you are China and weaponized US export controls force you to focus decades of investment in technoscientific capabilities on homegrown innovation. www.nytimes.com/2025/01/23/t...
The US green coalition and its manufacturing base was too weak for a sustainable green derisking state to survive political cycles even with geoeconomics in place. The IRA was too little to change the balance of power inside US capital. Fossil, finance and tech have green capital for breakfast.
January 22, 2025 at 10:06 AM
The US green coalition and its manufacturing base was too weak for a sustainable green derisking state to survive political cycles even with geoeconomics in place. The IRA was too little to change the balance of power inside US capital. Fossil, finance and tech have green capital for breakfast.
There is probably a Latin expression for this.
January 17, 2025 at 7:03 PM
There is probably a Latin expression for this.
Reposted
My new article on IMF economic ideas and climate advocacy explores how the IMF highlights environmental tipping points and call for deep decarbonization, yet its technocratic, economistic approach neglects fossil-fuelled capitalism‘s political power dynamics.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Global economic governance and environmental crisis: the widening repertoire of IMF economic ideas and limits of its climate policy advocacy
This article analyses the IMF’s economic thinking on climate policy to explore the scope and limits of working towards green transition within global economic governance institutions. It distils th...
www.tandfonline.com
January 10, 2025 at 1:23 PM
My new article on IMF economic ideas and climate advocacy explores how the IMF highlights environmental tipping points and call for deep decarbonization, yet its technocratic, economistic approach neglects fossil-fuelled capitalism‘s political power dynamics.
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted
the British derisking state, promising to partner with AI firms while doling out more austerity for public services and calling it the 'golden age of public service reform'- @cornelban.bsky.social
January 13, 2025 at 8:46 AM
the British derisking state, promising to partner with AI firms while doling out more austerity for public services and calling it the 'golden age of public service reform'- @cornelban.bsky.social