[Sovereign Funds] takes up a particular aspect of China’s economic statecraft, showing how it employs its financial resources to promote its interests abroad…Give[s] us a much better understanding of what needs to be done to restrain China abroad.
-- Edward Chancellor Wall Street Journal
Revealing…It describes the personalities, facts and figures that undergird the labyrinthine and often secret world of Chinese state money and the strategies that Beijing deploys to secure strategic assets around the world.
-- James Kynge Financial Times
Liu, an expert on international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations, shows how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) uses ‘sovereign leverage funds’ to promote fiscal security at home and geopolitical influence abroad.
-- Francis P. Sempa New York Journal of Books
Sovereign Funds raises broader questions about the presence of such funds in the financial system and the role that can be played by state finance in the global marketplace…It offers an insightful look into the permutations of the Chinese state in response to privatisation.
-- Seth O'Farrell fDi Intelligence
This book is an important contribution as it delivers an urgently needed in-depth analysis of Chinese SLFs. [It] adds an important dimension to the analysis of China’s economic statecraft.…[and] can serve as a playbook for Western political decisionmakers that intend to create their own SLFs.
-- Andreas Fuchs China Quarterly
[Liu] shows that Chinese sovereign funds are so different from better-known sovereign wealth funds, such as those of the governments of Abu Dhabi and Norway, that she prefers to call them ‘sovereign leveraged funds’…These various exotic workarounds, which Liu skillfully traces, produce ‘shadow reserves.’
-- Andrew J. Nathan Foreign Affairs
A fascinating insight into the evolution of China’s financial policy and its strategic investments using leveraged foreign exchange reserves.
-- Diane Coyle Enlightened Economist
A cool-headed scholarly investigation…[and] erudite analysis of China’s major sovereign funds. This is a fascinating account…The book also enriches our appreciation of the strengths and weaknesses of Chinese economic (especially financial) statecraft…It makes a major contribution to our knowledge about how the country uses its wealth to pursue its domestic and foreign policy goals.
-- Hongying Wang International Affairs
Follow the money, find the politics…Liu shows how China pioneered a whole new class of sovereign wealth funds.
-- Times of India
A novel and fascinating history of China’s rich and powerful sovereign wealth funds, which play an outsize role in the country’s strategy for both international development and external influence.
-- Kenneth Rogoff, Maurits C. Boas Chair of International Economics at Harvard University and former Chief Economist of the IMF
Zoe Liu’s pathbreaking book uncovers how and why the Chinese Communist Party employs sovereign leveraged funds to further state interests at home and abroad. This is a must-read for anyone interested in the causes and consequences of China’s rise.
-- Thomas J. Christensen, author of The China Challenge: Shaping the Choices of a Rising Power
Sovereign wealth funds were once considered anomalies but are now becoming the trend. China’s sovereign wealth funds have grown rapidly and become increasingly important in the face of deglobalization; their unique model and widespread impact are worth exploring and assessing. Liu’s book is a fascinating account of and reflection on what she calls ‘sovereign leveraged funds.’ Whether you agree with its conclusions or not, you should read it.
-- Jin Xu, author of Empire of Silver: A New Monetary History of China
Sovereign Funds is a revealing account of the origins and evolution of China’s sovereign leveraged funds. This book is a must-read for any serious observer of China’s global economic and financial strategy.
-- Edwin M. Truman, Senior Fellow, Harvard Kennedy School, and former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury
Zoe Liu provides deep insight into China's sovereign leveraged funds, fascinating institutions that play a crucial role in the often fraught relationship between state and market, with implications and lessons for many other countries. This is essential reading for those interested in China's development and its economic engagement with the world.
-- Martin Chorzempa, author of The Cashless Revolution
Liu provides the definitive account of how wide and how deep China’s sovereign wealth funds have penetrated global capital markets. Her identification of ‘sovereign leveraged funds’ amounts to a major conceptual breakthrough in the study of global financial flows, bringing to light how any state with the political will and financial engineering prowess can launch a fund to further its strategic interests. In a moment of fraught financial tensions between the United States and China, Sovereign Funds will prove an indispensable book for policymakers and academics alike.
-- John Yasuda, author of On Feeding the Masses: An Anatomy of Regulatory Failure in China
