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How are global economic institutions transformed at times of power transition? Why have some international markets for important raw materials undergone fundamental change in the way they operate as a result of China’s emergence, while other such markets have been more resilient to change? The goal of this dissertation is to explain diverging global outcomes from the dramatic and contemporary expansion of China’s economy. By doing so, I shed new light on the political economy of global markets, why they operate the way they do now, and how they have evolved over time. I trace key variances in China’s effect on global markets to the interaction of Chinese domestic industrial structures and the pre-existing structures of global commodity markets. The structure of key industries within China varies: some are concentrated, some fragmented, some very sensitive to price signals, and others less so. Likewise, the structures of various global commodity markets varied significantly before China’s emergence as a dominant global consumer in the twenty-first century. I argue that transformations in market power relations between consumers and suppliers increase the likelihood of institutional change in global markets. Price trends influence market stakeholders’ preferences for global pricing regimes, but they cannot fully explain the direction of change. Market power – including the capacity to coordinate others and the capacity to extract rent – also motivates behaviour. Combining comparative case analysis of the iron ore, potash and uranium markets with careful process-tracing, I unveil the full picture, from domestic variables to international-level outcomes. I show the tremendous concentration of market power in global markets prior to China’s emergence; that China’s market power, despite its economic size, is in many ways weak; that some of the largest systemic changes have been the result of this Chinese position of weakness; and that China’s emergence has led to marketization, despite it being a state-led hybrid economy. This is a study of institutional resonance and complementarity between global markets and their systemically relevant consumers. More broadly, this dissertation seeks to contribute to ongoing debates about the systemic resilience of global market structures, and the domestic determinants of global economic power.

China's recent reemergence has resulted in a significant increase in the global demand of commodities and is already having major impacts on the dynamics of global commodity markets. In the case of the global uranium market, we stand at the very beginning of a period of change. However, interesting trends are already emerging. Whereas China has had many policy reversals, and some difficulties in taking control of its procurement strategy in other commodity markets, it is seemingly more successful in managing its uranium procurement strategy. Why? The argument presented here is that a mixture of domestic and international level variables has allowed China more room for maneuver in fulfilling its uranium procurement strategy. On the domestic level, a centralized industry, and, on the international level, a geographically dispersed and uncoordinated market have allowed China to forge ahead with an ambitious civilian nuclear power plan and triple its total uranium imports, all within the span of a few years. Many challenges remain, not the least that of negative public opinion, which has surged since the Fukushima disaster in 2011. Nevertheless, should uranium demand continue to grow, this paper will consider the potential for continued peaceful coexistence among uranium market participants worldwide.

As surplus economies started to amass foreign exchange reserves in the past decades, sometimes up to staggering levels, they increasingly started to look for ways to diversify and increase their returns. One type of tool that was devised for this purpose was the creation of special state investment mechanisms like Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs). The use of these state tools is intensifying; indeed, most SWFs were created in the past 10 years or so. SWFs offer us a unique opportunity to observe the transforming manifestations of the role of the state in the global economy. This is crucially relevant in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis. One of the most interesting empirical cases in this regard is China. Not only is China at the nexus of fundamental realignments in the global economic balance of power, it is also a strong state which owns and operates multiple SWFs. My research question stems from the observable divergence in SWFs’ behavior, more precisely, I ask: why are Chinese SWFs not behaving in the same way across the board? Through a study of four SWFs, the National Social Security Fund, the State Administration of Foreign Exchange Investment Company, the China Investment Corporation and the China-Africa Development Fund, a foray into the Chinese financial/economic decision-making patterns will be made. It will be shown that the four Chinese SWFs examined here exhibit substantially dissimilar behavior. The emerging causal narrative results from the fragmentation of decision-making structures in China, and from the widening of the policy-relevant pool of actors who have a say in the management of the Chinese foreign investments. This paper argues that specific alignments and realignments of policy coalitions are the main determinants of the funds’ behavior. This conclusion sheds light on decision-making processes and power structures in China, and attempts to provide us with a novel way to understand China’s ever changing governance landscape and relation to the world. It can also suggest some potential avenues for looking at the various incarnations that SWFs can take around the world.