Alibaba's Expansion in Southeast Asia: On China's Outbound Capital [ECR]

The Manchester China Institute (MCI)promotes excellence in China studies at the University of Manchester. MCI hosts in-person talks, workshops, and roundtables, and well as webinars with a global reach. Our public events are free and open to all. The University of Manchester is committed to academic independence and thefreedom of speech. The views speakers present are entirely their own, and do not represent those of the University of Manchester or the Manchester China Institute and its directors.

Manchester China Institute

In this Early Career Researcher Workshop, Feiyang Xu explores Alibaba's expansion in Southeast Asia to understand China's outbound capital.

What drives China's outbound capital in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)? Some argue it stems from a top-down grand strategy of a rising power with hegemonic aspirations, while others see it as market-driven commercial behavior by economic actors. Using Alibaba in Southeast Asia as a case study, this presentation explores how China's outbound capital, especially that of non-state internet capitalist conglomerates, engages with a multitude of social forces to integrate fragmented interests from both the "top" and "bottom" in building the BRI.

Drawing from official documents and interviews, this presentation embeds Alibaba's business development trajectory within the broader context of Chinese political economy and the evolution of global capitalism. This research demonstrates that Alibaba's growth is jointly nurtured by state support and its engagement with different units of transnational capital. While the state - under the territorial logic - has imposed crackdowns on Alibaba to limit its borderless expansion in China, Alibaba's global expansion, marking its transition from a domestically governed internet giant to a transnational capitalist, has been tacitly accepted by the state. This acceptance enables Alibaba’s global expansion driven by capitalist logic.

About the SpeakerFeiyang Xu is a PhD candidate in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester, with research interests in China's political economy, global capitalism, emerging markets, and globalization. Her PhD primarily examines the significance of Chinese outbound capital in addressing domestic contradictions of capitalism, promoting China's global integration, and reshaping the capitalist world system.

N﻿otesMCI’s ECR Workshops are lunchtime seminars held in person at the <a href="https://www.mci.manchester.ac.uk/" target="_blank" data-msys-clicktrack="0" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer">Manchester China Institute</a>. They seek to bring together students, faculty, and staff who can best provide feedback as Early Career Researchers develop their ideas. Free lunch will be provided.

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Alibaba's Expansion in Southeast Asia: On China's Outbound Capital [ECR]

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Alibaba's Expansion in Southeast Asia: On China's Outbound Capital [ECR]

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