Speaker: Jean Oi, William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics, Department of Political Science; Senior Fellow, The Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, Stanford University

In the wake of COVID-19 and the property-market collapse, China’s local government financing vehicles (LGFVs)—entities created to borrow and invest on behalf of local governments—had accumulated more than $8 trillion in debt by 2022. This enormous burden has forced some localities to cut back public services and has intensified concerns about fiscal sustainability.

Yet recent research, including fieldwork in China, points to a surprising development: in some places, LGFVs are taking on a new role as venture capital investors. Where is this transformation occurring, and how have heavily indebted LGFVs become vehicles for funding innovative firms? This talk examines what this shift means for local development strategies—and for China’s broader challenge of managing local government debt.

Jean C. OI is the William Haas Professor of Chinese Politics in the Department of Political Science and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies (FSI) at Stanford University.  She directs the China Program at the Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center and is the founding Lee Shau Kee Director of the Stanford Center at Peking University.  She served as the President of the Association for Asian Studies from March 2023 to March 2024. 

A Ph.D. in political science from the University of Michigan, Prof Oi first taught at Lehigh University and later in the Department of Government at Harvard University before joining the Stanford faculty in 1997. 

Prof Oi has published extensively on China’s political economy and institutions in the process of reform. Central-local relations in China are the core of her research, which has “followed the money”—first grain, then taxes, and most recently local government debt as a window into politics.  Recent publications include “China’s Changing Development Model:  Insights from Recent Fieldwork,” The Journal of Asian Studies, Vol. 85, No. 3 (August 2026); and “A Perfect Storm: Fiscal Discipline, COVID, and Local Government Debt in China,” with Jason Luo and XU Yunxiao. The China Journal, Vol. 93 (January 2025).

Currently, she is studying how some local governments are acting like venture capitalists—investing in “new industries” to spur fresh revenue and growth in the wake of the collapse of land-based finance and the heavy burden of local government debt after COVID. Building on her earlier work, Prof. Oi is also pursuing a project that uses an institutional, micro-level lens to identify the key actors—and their interests—as local governments try to expand overseas through the Belt and Road Initiative.