IDIS China Program is pleased to invite you to a lecture titled: Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China, by Ning Leng, Assistant Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy at Georgetown University.
About the speaker:
Dr. Ning Leng is an Assistant Professor at the McCourt School of Public Policy, Georgetown University. Dr. Leng specializes in the political economy of China and Global China, and the institutional effects of authoritarianism.
Her work on domestic China includes publications on the motivations, methods, and outcomes of state control over businesspeople, academics, and government officials. Her work on Global China includes public opinion of China in the Global South, the Chinese government’s view of the Global South, and China’s legal influence in South America. Her work has been published or is forthcoming in journals including Comparative Political Studies, Review of International Organizations, and China Quarterly, among others.
Dr. Leng received her Ph.D. in political science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison and was a postdoc at Harvard University’s Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. She is a Wilson China Fellow for the year of 2025-2026, and a Penn Project Fellow on the Future of U.S.-China Relations for the year of 2026-2027.
About the book Politicizing Business: How Firms Are Made to Serve the Party-State in China:
The Chinese state has never granted businesses full autonomy, even amid efforts to establish market-supporting institutions. Instead, the state and its officials view business as primarily political actors, demanding political services from firms to advance political objectives. Politicizing Business demonstrates that the politicization of firms is rooted in authoritarianism, often harming business interests and undermining China’s efforts to attract and retain investment. Explaining the seemingly arbitrary state takeover of sectors and firms, this book uncovers previously overlooked forms of politicization and demonstrates how politicizing business often creates conflicts between the state and firms, particularly private firms, leading to a state-dominated market in many sectors. Combining academic rigor with exceptionally rich data and analysis, including hundreds of in-depth interviews with government officials and business leaders, original datasets and case studies, Politicizing Business offers fresh insights into China’s political economy model and explores what the Party-state demands from companies, how compliance is enforced, when and where firms are politicized, and its impact on China’s development.