Sayari, a supply chain risk intelligence company, has supported a year-long research effort by the Atlantic Council, which culminated in the recently released report on The Reach and Role of Chinese Corporate Entities. Authored by Dr. William Piekos, nonresident fellow with the Atlantic Council’s Global China Hub, the report underscores the importance of open-source tools such as Sayari Graph to examine methods and channels of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) economic coercion.
“The CCP uses all levers of national power to achieve foreign policy objectives aligned with Xi Jinping’s vision. Chinese foreign corporate activity is an important strategic tool for the CCP, especially in countries that may not have diversified trade, foreign investment or strong political partners,” said James Dempsey, Director of Defense and Intelligence at Sayari. “To successfully implement de-risking strategies and, and ultimately execute the National Security Strategy, it is imperative for government officials and departments to better understand complicated business ownership in order to avoid inadvertently reinvesting in businesses ultimately controlled by Beijing.”
Key findings include:
- Beijing’s decision to use corporate ownership as leverage depends on a variety of economic and political factors in the potential target country.
- Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO’s expanding role in logistics networks in Southeastern Europe makes it a PRC economic statecraft instrument to monitor.
- Trade and investment diversification and targeted economic support offer the best solution for countries at risk of or experiencing PRC coercion attempts.
- Investing in the capacity to conduct long-term, in-depth investigations using varied data sources, while also preparing for evolving Chinese economic statecraft, is key to confronting the challenge of PRC coercion and influence efforts.
“Global public data is critical to these investigations, allowing insight into direct ownership links between entities, and when deployed alongside trade, shipping, and geospatial data, offering further insight into connections between and across jurisdictions,” said Dr. Piekos, “This information can play an important role in identifying emerging trends in China’s economic coercion tactics and targets.”
Through in-depth investigations using robust trade and corporate ownership data within Sayari’s flagship platform, Sayari Graph, researchers can unravel various implied and trackable examples of the CCP’s use of coercion and influence to forward their agenda.
To learn more about the topic and mechanisms of research, register for Sayari’s upcoming webinar Countering Chinese Economic Statecraft: An Exploration with Atlantic Council and Sayari here.
The full report can be found here.