China's Overseas Resource Extraction

SEMINAR: China’s growing demand for resources has led to large-scale investments in oil, gas, and mining industries across the world. But what are the social, political, and environmental challenges of these activities, and how are they being addressed?

Main speaker: Dr. Jill Shankleman 
- with case presentation by Mikkel Bunkenborg

Extraction of oil, gas, metals and minerals has not only profound environmental consequences, but vast social and political impacts on the countries that produce. 

At the same time, as China’s demand for energy and resources grows, Chinese companies are increasingly investing overseas – from Angola to Mongolia. So how are China’s State-Owned Enterprises handling the challenges that emerge in their international operations?

This seminar explores these issues with presentations by Dr. Jill Shankleman, Wilson Center, and Mikkel Bunkenborg, University of Copenhagen, with a following questions-and-answers session.

About the speakers
Dr. Jill Shankleman is a UK-based sociologist with over 25 years of experience consulting and researching on extractive industries. In 2009, she published the report Going Global: Chinese Oil and Mining Companies and Governance of Resource Wealth for the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

Mikkel Bunkenborg is an assistant professor at the University of Copenhagen who has conducted fieldwork on Chinese mining projects in Mongolia and Mozambique. 

The chair is Jørgen Delman, professor of China studies at the University of Copenhagen and co-coordinator of the university’s think tank on China, ThinkChina.dk.