Evolving Ideas and Norm Contestation: China as a Global Sovereign Debt Manager

How do state actors employ ideas to contest and reshape global norms? Why is the global governance of sovereign debt constantly contested, particularly from the perspective of China, a country that has transitioned from a peripheral debtor to a rising creditor power? Bo’s research delves into these questions by analyzing China's normative engagement with global sovereign debt management since 1949.

Drawing on insights from norm contestation theory, this study argues that China’s stance and behaviour toward global norms can be characterized as part of a constant cycle of norm contestation. The research identifies how evolving normative and cognitive ideas have been developed and employed by China as mechanisms for legitimation, framing, constraint, and policy guidance, leading to different modes of contestation.

This seminar will contribute to the existing literature by shedding light on the ideational foundations of China's engagement with global debt norms and will explore how China’s evolving ideas have enabled or constrained its ability to reshape the global sovereign debt order.

Speaker
Bo Li is a PhD candidate at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, specializing in global development finance and sovereign debt. His PhD thesis examines Chinese ideas of sovereign debt management and how these ideas have shaped China's contestation of global debt norms. This thesis is supervised by Associate Prof. Amy King, Prof. Wesley Widmaier, and Prof. Will Bateman. Bo holds an MSc in International Political Economy (Research) from the London School of Economics and an MSc in Economics with Distinction from the University of London. He has worked as a research assistant at the Institute of World Economics and Politics at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS). Bo currently serves as a research assistant for the project: How China Shapes the International Economic Order.

Chair
Amy King is Associate Professor in the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre at The Australian National University, and Deputy Director (Research) in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. She is the author of China-Japan Relations after World War Two: Empire, Industry and War, 1949-1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2016). The holder of an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship and a Westpac Research Fellowship, she leads a team researching China’s role in shaping the international economic order. 

 

This seminar series is part of a research project on How China Shapes the International Economic Order, generously funded by the Westpac Scholars Trust and the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, and led by A/Professor Amy King from the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs.