State capacity, economic statecraft, and markets: Northeast Asian states’ rise (and fall) as global coal capital powers

Abstract As clean energy policy becomes a pressing need in the wake of the looming climate crisis, the world—especially developing Asia—has witnessed a conflicting trend throughout the 2010s, that is, the boom of coal-fired power development. This article argues that the geoeconomic significance, driven by not only China’s but also Japan and South Korea’s pursuit of national interests, intensified a competition among them in supporting overseas coal fired power financing and has contributed to this phenomenon. Using a mix of qualitative and quantitative data, it illustrates that while coal power financing becomes a conduit for these three ‘developmental states’ to forge comprehensive relations with countries they deem strategically important, the effectiveness of using this conduit is contingent, and constrained by exogenous factors, particularly dynamics of global energy markets.