Erica S. Downs

Erica S. Downs is a fellow in the John L. Thornton China Center. Before joining Brookings, she served as an energy analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency, where she was the lead drafter of an Intelligence Community Assessment of East Asian energy issues. She has also worked as 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 international expansion of Chinese firms, especially in the energy, mining and construction sectors. The issues include the relationship between Chinese state-owned companies and the party-state, the roles played by China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China, the extent to which cross-border deals are driven by the strategic interests of the Chinese party-state versus the commercial objectives of Chinese companies, and the impact of the global activities of Chinese firms on China’s foreign policy.

Her recent publications include Inside China, Inc: China Development Bank’s Cross-Border Energy Deals, John L. Thornton China Center Monograph, No. 3 (Brookings, March 2011); “Getting China to Sanction Iran,” Foreign Affairs, March/April 2011 (coauthored with Suzanne Maloney); “One Step Forward, Two Steps Back? The Realities of a Rising China and Implications for Russia’s Energy Ambitions,” Brookings Foreign Policy Paper, No. 22 (August 2010) (coauthored with Igor Danchenko and Fiona Hill); “China’s Energy Rise,” in Brantly Womack, ed. China’s Rise in Historical Perspective (Roman and 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); and “Business Interest Groups in Chinese Politics: The Case of the Oil Companies,” in Cheng Li, ed., China’s Changing Political Landscape: Prospects for Democracy (Brookings, 2008). Her work on Chinese energy and foreign policy issues has also appeared in China Business Review, The China Quarterly, China Security, Far Eastern Economic Review, Foreign Policy.com, and International Security.