Ye Quoted on China’s Global Economic Strategy in The Wire China

Min Ye, Associate Professor of International Relations at the Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University, was quoted in The Wire China discussing China, global industry, and the environment. 

The article, titled “The Cobalt Empire,” discusses the electric vehicle industry’s reliance on cobalt to produce lithium ion batteries and China’s dominant control of it’s refinement, which is necessary for large electric vehicle batteries. China leading position in the electric vehicle supply chain is the result of decades of planning, and now the country accounts for nearly 80% of the world’s battery manufacturing capacity.

This is the latest effort by China to “go global” and, according to Ye, find markets for china’s capacity and employment. China’s leaders hoped the “go global” policy would bring life to its stagnant companies and, as Ye said that “incentivize these state-owned enterprises to accept reform.”

The full article can be read on The Wire China‘s website.

Min Ye is the author of Diasporas and Foreign Direct Investment in China and India (Cambridge University Press, 2014), and The Making of Northeast Asia (with Kent Calder, Stanford University Press, 2010). Her most recent book, titled The Belt Road and Beyond: State-Mobilized Globalization in China: 1998–2018 (Cambridge University Press 2020), explores the motivations and strategies behind China’s global economic expansion and considers the implications of the country’s status as a global power on both China and the world. Read more about her here