Conclusion

This chapter draws together the central findings of this study and highlights their broader theoretical and legal significance. Its core contribution lies in reconceptualising contemporary Chinese State capitalism through the institutional transformation of SOE reforms under Xi Jinping. The chapter demonstrates that the latest round of the reforms has not merely intensified State influence over the economy. It has reconstituted the organisational logic through which Chinese SOEs are structured, governed, and deployed. This transformation has two defining features: the strengthening of State-owned capital through concentration, selective marketisation, and ownership restructuring, and the deeper embedding of political control within corporate governance and delegated shareholder structures. The chapter further shows that this institutional logic extends beyond China’s domestic political economy through SOE outbound FDI, which is increasingly politically structured, strategically directed, and organised through coordinated State-owned capital networks. On that basis, it highlights that Chinese SOE investment is better understood not as ordinary commercial activity by firms that happen to be State-owned, but as a transnational extension of domestic State-owned capital governance. The chapter concludes by drawing out the implications of this reconceptualisation for host-State foreign investment screening and the design of international investment agreements.