What are the Chinese government’s motivations behind promoting overseas ?nancing, trade, and investment? To what extent are these motivations geopolitical, geoeconomic, domestically driven, or purely commercial? Compared to private creditors, how does the "visible hand" of the Chinese government affect China’s policy bank lending terms? What are the strengths and weaknesses of state-led capital, and how persistent might this creditor approach be over the long run? Understanding China’s goals as an international creditor helps us evaluate the sustainability of these investment ?ows over time, and ultimately the potential costs and bene?ts for Latin American debtors. Given that ?ve of the top ten international borrowers from China are in Latin America we can simultaneously evaluate China’s global banking strategy and examine questions about its policy banks’ lending behavior outside of the Asian region. For example, are their operations more commercially oriented outside of East Asia, or equally geopolitical beyond regional borders? To what extent is a state-led approach to global capital formation, focusing on market rather than profit maxmization, sustainable outside of China?

Chapter 4 explores the role of government involvement as a driver for innovation and highlights the variety of approaches followed in EMs. The chapter examines this issue through two very distinct case studies. One is the case of State Grid Corporation of China (SGCC), a state-owned company operating in the electricity sector and the fifth-largest firm in the world by revenues. SGCC has rapidly expanded globally, partly thanks to a technology it developed that reduces energy losses during electricity transmission. Its case illustrates the determined and proactive role played by the state to make China an innovation leader in a number of areas. The other is the case of INVAP, an innovation-based state-owned Argentine company that specializes in the production of nuclear reactors and satellites. INVAP and SGCC are just two samples of a greater universe of highly competitive SOEs, that have the capabilities to innovate and grow. Both cases illustrate case how the collaboration of the state and the firm has encouraged internationalization and innovation.

This chapter develops definitions of the main concepts in this research monograph by drawing on extant literature and distinguishing corporate environmental sustainability as the strategies, actions and practices undertaken by a firm with regard to its interace with the natural environment from related concepts such as corporate philanthropy, impact investing, corporate social responsibility, corporate citizenship and corporate greening. Definitions of patient capital, corporate governance, family firms, family versus non-family control and proactive environmental strrategy (PES) that constitute the core concepts in this monograph are developed.