ChiCom

A corporate capture risk assessment with Chinese characteristics

Beijing does not need to nationalize a foreign firm to make it useful. It only has to condition continued access to its market, manufacturing base, or capital on cooperation, then let ordinary corporate incentives finish the job.

A multinational board need not answer to the Party to act as if it does. It need only conclude, repeatedly and rationally, that principled resistance costs more than accommodation. That calculation, made many small times over a decade or more, is what “capture” usually looks like. It is not one dramatic order, but cumulative drift in which self-censorship, data localization, silence on human rights, and favoritism toward state-linked partners become the path of least resistance.