The Rise of State-Transnational Capitalism in the Xi Jinping Era

Abstract

China's reform period has inaugurated different processes of capital accumulation from which new capitalist classes have emerged. The expansion of these classes in the soybean commodity chain and their relationship with the state have triggered different forms of integration into global supply chains. However, the development trajectory of China's soybean complex has contributed to the rise of a single dominant class faction: the state-transnational capitalist class. This class has been nurtured by the financially-driven, internationalised expansion of the China National Cereals, Oils and Foodstuffs Corporation (COFCO). Its prominence has enabled COFCO to replicate its expansion methods abroad and, consequently, to change China's role in the world soybean commodity chain.