ABSTRACT
Although the positive, albeit utilitarian, views of globalizing actor-networks shown above characterize the international business and finance sphere, more critical perspectives of Chinese capitalism as a form of crony capitalism also exist in actor-networks related to international organizations (see Chapter 2). These views, expressed via actor-networks running through multilateral institutions, conceive guanxi networks and more broadly Chinese capitalism as closed, opaque or outright corrupt, leading to irrational decision-making at various levels (see the Weberian view in Chapter 1). Multilateral institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, may be able to reshape Chinese capitalism in a thorough yet diffuse manner by encouraging and/or requiring the restructuring of the institutions and power structures in Asia that large Chinese businesses (especially the conglomerates) engage with in reciprocal relations of interdependence. By enrolling other actors (the nation-state) and the necessary codes, procedural frameworks, regulations, material incentives and so on that are required to effect the activation of power, multilateral institutions transform the nature and operation of Chinese capitalism. This involvement of international organizations does not necessarily mean the replacement of Chinese capitalism by ‘real’ (i.e. Anglo-American) capitalism (Whitley, 1999: 188), but it does facilitate the gradual hybridization of Chinese capitalism, a kind of actor-driven transformation that does not conform to a pre-existing model or system of capitalism (see Chapter 1).
