Abstract

Based on the background of Chinese oil politics under Xi Jinping, this article studies the “structural power of business” to test the concept within the economic system of state capitalism. Many elements of structural power discourse are valid, such as the political influence of business, the role of information ‐expertise, the role of business competitiveness and fluidity, and the effect of external factors. However, the dominance and mechanism of the structural power of Chinese national oil companies presents differently because of the unique state ‐business relations in the Chinese oil sector.