Chapter 2 traces the contours of China’s SOE reform since 1978. We divided the reform into five phases, where the first two phases focused on ensuring the survival of SOEs by granting them operational autonomies, first at the firm level and then at the managerial level. The third phase saw the adoption of corporatisation strategies for the ones deemed promising and privatisation of the ones deemed unviable. The fourth phase covered the first decade after China’s accession to the WTO, where the earlier trajectories continued, as we can see in the efforts to continue the market-oriented reform for SOEs with plans of commercialisation and modernisation. At the same time, a worrying trend also started to emerge when the government launched various campaigns to create national champions. This trend continued in the fifth phase as we entered the new era of ’Socialism with Chinese Characteristics’, where SOEs, strengthened by the previous rounds of reforms, started to squeeze out private firms in various forms. At the same time, the CPC also stepped up its efforts to enhance its influence in the SOEs by launching aggressive drives to build Party cells in these entities.

Chapter 6 discusses the functioning of a regional system of competition law during a time of populism. This chapter is focused on the EU competition law system. Four topics are addressed. The first is the EU legislative initiative, which is aimed to empower national competition authorities, i.e. the ECN+ Directive.It is argued that this directive is not likely to resolve the problems faced by national competition law regimes subject to populists’ government’s pressure. Second, the chapter analyses what is the reaction of the EU competition law system to developments at the national level brought about by populists’ governments. Both the reactions of the EU institutions (the European Commission and the Court of Justice) and national institutions are analyzed. The insufficiency of these reactions is examined and explained. Third, the chapter outlines and examines the deficit of trust in the decentralized system of enforcement of EU competition law and shows how the rise of populism can have consequences for the EU competition law system, including the functioning of the European Competition Network. Fourth, the functioning of the central level of EU competition law system is examined.

State-owned enterprises account for sizable shares of global supply in many commodities. There is a common belief that these enterprises behave differently from privately owned supply agents. This claim must be investigated, which is the main aim of this chapter. The chapter continues by clarifying a few methodological issues. How precisely is state enterprise defined? We subsequently explore the motivations for establishing public ownership in the mineral and energy sectors, in industrialized as well as developing countries. Then, after pointing to the features that characterize state-owned mineral firms, we analyze the likely impact of state ownership in minerals and energy on the domestic economy, providing in the process the rationales for the wave of privatizations in metals and minerals and the shrinkage of state-owned enterprise in these industries after 1980. The chapter ends by discussing the impact of state ownership on the international markets for minerals and oil.