The anatomy of Chinese capitalism: Sectoral variation in party-state permeation and corporate governance

The Chinese party-state, its position in the country’s economy, and the defining characteristics of its politico-economic model, are key subjects of interdisciplinary debate. Our contribution here is the construction of a novel dataset on China’s Top-500 enterprises (SinoTop500), which allows us to conduct an empirically grounded analysis of party-state permeation of China’s economy. We examine two key mechanisms of party-state permeation in corporate governance: state ownership and party institutionalization. Drawing on theoretical concepts from comparative political economy, and employing tools of descriptive statistics and cluster analysis, our inquiry yields the following results: we first identify a dual ownership structure characterized by a nearly equal representation of state-owned and private enterprises. This structure has a high degree of party institutionalization that transcends ownership boundaries. Second, we observe considerable inter-sectoral variation in the extent to which companies are subject to state ownership and party institutionalization, giving rise to a three-layered economic structure.