Erica Downs

Erica S. Downs is a Fellow at the John L. Thornton China Center at the Brookings Institution. Previously, she worked as an energy analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, and a lecturer at the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing, China. She holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. from Princeton University and a B.S. from Georgetown University.

Her current research focuses on a complex of issues related to the emergence of Chinese state-owned energy and mining companies as major buyers, owners and operators of natural resources around the globe. These issues include energy decision making and governance in China, the relationship between Chinese state-owned companies and the party-state, the role played by China’s policy banks (China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China) in cross-border energy and mining deals, and the impact of the international expansion of Chinese energy and mining firms on China’s foreign policy.

Additional Information:

• Erica Downs’ homepage

Select Publications:

• Inside China, Inc: China Development Bank’s Cross-Border Energy Deals
• “China’s Energy Rise,” in Brantly Womack, ed., China’s Rise in Historical Perspective (Rowman & Littlefield, 2010)
• “Sino-Russian Energy Relations: An Uncertain Courtship,” in “James A. Bellacqua, ed., The Future of China-Russia Relations (University Press of Kentucky, 2010)
• “Who’s Afraid of China’s National Oil Companies?” in Carlos Pascual and Jonathan Elkind, eds., Energy Security: Economics, Politics, Strategies and Implications (Brookings, 2010)
• “China’s ‘New’ Energy Administration,” China Business Review (November/December 2008)
• “Business Interest Groups in Chinese Politics: The Case of the Oil Companies,” in Cheng Li, ed., China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy (Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2008)
• “The Fact and Fiction of Sino-African Energy Relations,” China Security (Summer 2007)
• Her work on Chinese energy and foreign policy issues has also appeared in The China Quarterly, Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy.com, and International Security.