China's financial spaces in Europe: Bank networks, investments, and currency

Despite the vast research on China’s external economic expansion, little is known about the spatial organisation and operations of Chinese commercial and development banks that enable such expansion. This thesis by publications sheds new light on the physical presence, organisation and agency of Chinese banks in Europe. It analyses the capability of Chinese banks to create new financial spaces. I start with the assumption that socioeconomic interactions, which I ascribe to the combinations of network-place and structure-agency, construct (financial) space. I identify Luxembourg as a key place... Mehr ...

Verfasser: Balmas, Paolo
Dokumenttyp: doctoral thesis
Erscheinungsdatum: 2022
Verlag/Hrsg.: Unilu - University of Luxembourg
Schlagwörter: Chinese banks / Luxembourg financial centre / Bank networks / Global financial networks / Geoeconomics / Renminbi / Chinese investments / China in Europe / Law / criminology & political science / Political science / public administration & international relations / Social & behavioral sciences / psychology / Human geography & demography / Droit / criminologie & sciences politiques / Sciences politiques / administration publique & relations internationales / Sciences sociales & comportementales / psychologie / Geographie humaine & démographie
Sprache: Englisch
Permalink: https://search.fid-benelux.de/Record/base-28698518
Datenquelle: BASE; Originalkatalog
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Link(s) : https://orbilu.uni.lu/handle/10993/53930

Despite the vast research on China’s external economic expansion, little is known about the spatial organisation and operations of Chinese commercial and development banks that enable such expansion. This thesis by publications sheds new light on the physical presence, organisation and agency of Chinese banks in Europe. It analyses the capability of Chinese banks to create new financial spaces. I start with the assumption that socioeconomic interactions, which I ascribe to the combinations of network-place and structure-agency, construct (financial) space. I identify Luxembourg as a key place of the spatial organisation of Chinese banks in Europe and detect Chinese banks as key players in organising the mechanisms that enable China’s economic expansion into Europe. To understand the implications of Chinese banks’ presence and operations in Europe, I address three intertwined overarching questions: what are Chinese banks doing in Europe? How are they spatially organised? Are they reshaping European financial spaces? To answer, I designed interdisciplinary qualitative research based on expert interviews and desk research. I selected three dimensions for Chinese financial activity in Europe: bank networks, currency and investments, which I analyse in four chapters/publications. The first two chapters analyse the geoeconomics of Chinese bank networks’ expansion and its spatial organisation that enables mergers and acquisitions in Europe respectively. Chapter 3 analyses how Chinese development banks make use of Luxembourg’s investment fund industry to invest in (energy) infrastructures and private equity in Central and Eastern European countries. Chapter 4 analyses the investment role of money as a neglected dimension to understand renminbi internationalisation. This chapter highlights the roles of Luxembourg and Western banks as key for investments into China’s domestic financial markets, and the role of China’s state in governing the inflow of such investments. Findings from the four chapters show how Chinese ...