The Offshore City, Chinese Finance, and British Capitalism: Geo-economic rebalancing under the Coalition Government

Abstract

This article examines the embrace of Chinese finance under the UK’s 2010-2015 Coalition government. The article argues that the City of London’s centrality within British capitalism has been reinforced, not displaced, since the Global Financial Crisis. Geo-economic rebalancing towards China, not the Coalition’s professed spatial and sectoral ‘rebalancing’ ambitions, prevailed. To explain the City’s renewed pre-eminence in the wake of the crisis, the article draws upon a modified version of the ‘City-Bank-Treasury nexus’ theory of British capitalism. Breaking from structuralist approaches that underplay the City of London Corporation’s role within economic policy making, the article illuminates the Corporation’s agency as a key para-state institution that reoriented the City-Bank-Treasury nexus towards Chinese finance under the Coalition.