Modes of Chinese engagement
Comparative patterns
Role and presence of China in the energy transition
What significant roles do Chinese actors (public and/or private) currently play in your country?
Multiple-choice question · n = 42 structured interviews · Source: Fundación Andrés Bello, 2025.
According to the interviewees’ perceptions, China’s participation in the energy transition is exercised primarily through capital, technology and infrastructure construction. Interviewees consistently identified Chinese actors, first as investors (88.1%), second as builders (85.7%) and third as financiers (66.7%). Only 16.7% associated China’s involvement with political actors, and none identified them as regulators.
Chinese companies, occupy positions that anchor national energy systems to Chinese supply chains, engineering, and financing. Its visibility is therefore perceived as material rather than political.
This pattern suggests a functional division of labor between the state and companies—both public and private—operating within a strategic framework defined by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). China’s overseas energy engagement is carried out by development banks, embassies and firms that respond to broad state‑driven priorities, but without direct or continuous coordination among them. In this environment, actors may cooperate, compete or act independently, yet still move within the same overarching framework. The result resembles a form of embedded state capitalism,1 in which diplomacy and business intertwine within an architecture of influence that blurs the boundary between commercial competition and strategic positioning.
Notes and sources (1)
- 'Embedded state capitalism' refers to the insertion of Chinese business activity into the state's diplomatic and financial networks, intertwining commercial and strategic interests. For more detail, see Barry Naughton (2018) and Peter Evans (1995).
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