Beyond the narratives of trade and domination: How ecology, connectivity, and history shape Chinese investments in foreign electricity grids

Abstract

China's investments in the 21st century include power grids overseas. These investments made their way into five continents between 2009 and 2021. As of 2021, three China state-owned electric enterprises – State Grid Corporation of China, China Southern Power Grid, and China Three Gorges Corporation – hold significant stakes in the national grids of eleven countries and territories. In this review article, we use the lens of constructivism from the international relations discipline to suggest that China's ecological civilization concept, the Global Energy Interconnection project, and the historical tributary system had rationalized these investments. China's cultural values, norms, and ideas, both historical and socially constructed by these ideational factors, shape its overseas ventures, including overseas grid investments. By doing so, we complement extant discourses on China's expansionism that are often limited to the rationales of liberal trade and world domination. While this review article extends our understanding of Chinese overseas energy investments, many unknowns remain worthy of future investigations, including how Chinese state-owned energy companies advance the three narratives in their invested power grids and how local actors perceive them.