1015722

research-article2021
EJT0010.1177/13540661211015722European Journal of International RelationsGamso

Article
EJIR
European Journal of

Is China exporting media

International Relations
2021, Vol. 27(3) 858­–883
© The Author(s) 2021
censorship? China’s rise, Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
media freedoms, and DOI: 10.1177/13540661211015722
https://doi.org/10.1177/13540661211015722
journals.sagepub.com/home/ejt
democracy

Jonas Gamso
Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, USA

Abstract
This study explores the relationship between China’s rise and media censorship
around the world, in light of recent suggestions in the Western press and among China
experts that Beijing is advancing a global censorship agenda. I argue that the Chinese
government occasionally promotes censorship in foreign countries, because it wishes
to reduce negative media coverage of China or to silence certain groups abroad (e.g.
Falun Gong). More often, China’s relative apathy about speech and press freedoms in
foreign countries facilitates censorship in countries that can rely on trade with Beijing.
Countries that cannot rely on China are less willing to risk alienating Western powers
by violating press freedoms at home. Regime type is an important determinant as to
whether censorship is facilitated through intensive economic integration with China,
as democracies may respond to China’s rise differently than authoritarian countries.
Analysis of country-level panel data shows higher rates of media censorship in
democratic countries that trade intensively with China.

Keywords
China, global trade, censorship, human rights, political economy, democracy

Among scholars of International Relations, few matters demand as much attention as

whether China is using its growing international clout to advance norms, values, and

Corresponding author:
Jonas Gamso, Thunderbird School of Global Management, Arizona State University, 400 E. Van Buren, Ste
900, Phoenix, AZ 85004, USA.
Email: jonas.gamso@thunderbird.asu.edu
Gamso 859

policies that are at odds with those traditionally promoted by Western governments (de
Graaff and von Apeldoorn, 2018; Economy, 2018a, 2018b; Layne, 2018; McNally, 2012;
Schweller and Pu, 2011; Wang, 2017; Weiss, 2019; Yan, 2018). Some scholars believe
that China’s efforts to spread its worldview are well underway. For example, Economy
(2018a: 65) argues that “China now actively seeks to shape international norms and
institutions and forcefully asserts its presence on the global stage.” According to
Economy, the norms and policies being diffused from China are advancing authoritarian-
ism and censorship. This sentiment is echoed in a joint report by Freedom House, Radio
Free Europe, and Radio Free Asia (2009: 11), which laments that “China is now begin-
ning to serve as a model and mentor for other authoritarian governments around the
world,” and in a 2019 report from Reporters Sans Frontiѐres, which declares that “Beijing
is trying to establish a ‘new world media order’ .  .  . in which journalists are shorn of their
watchdog role and serve governments instead” (2019: 9). The analysis that follows
focuses on the latter assertion.
China’s domestic-level censorship efforts are well known and much studied (e.g.
King et al., 2013; Lorentzen, 2014; Roberts, 2018); China’s efforts to pressure media
companies beyond its borders have also received attention (e.g. Mozur, 2018). In recent
years, there have been reports that China’s model of censorship is being diffused to other
states, fueled by China’s growing economic and political influence, as well as the Chinese
government’s concern that foreign news items are increasingly accessible to the Chinese
population (Cook, 2013). For example, Reporters Sans Frontiѐres states in their 2014
annual report that “Chinese big brother is watching, and exporting its methods” to Asian
countries like Vietnam,1 while Freedom House reports that East African states are adopt-
ing China’s censorship methods “often with technical support from China.”2 Likewise,
Rachman (2019) argues in the Financial Times that “China’s efforts to control and censor
speech at home are gradually being internationalised, reaching into foreign corporations,
the international media, the seminar rooms and campuses of western universities, and the
statements and policies of foreign governments.” Claims such as these have become the
norm among Western analysts, as similar assertions have been made in the Washington
Post (Editorial Board, 2020), The Diplomat (Woodhams, 2019), and Brookings
(Polyakova and Meserole, 2019), among others.
While there are anecdotes that support these claims, there has been little systematic
investigation to validate them. In the pages that follow, I conduct empirical analysis to
determine whether China’s rise is encouraging media censorship by foreign leaders, as
well as whether domestic political institutions moderate the diffusion of such
censorship.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has sought to improve China’s image abroad
(Brady, 2015), while using its market power to discourage discourse critical of the
Chinese government (Palmer, 2019). Moreover, the CCP may wish to discourage criti-
cism of, and dissent against, foreign political leaders for various reasons. To advance
these goals, the CCP may encourage or assist foreign governments in restricting the flow
of information within their borders by censoring press outlets or creating a more difficult
environment for reporters to operate in (Cook, 2013; Koesel and Bunce, 2013). To do so,
China shares techniques and technologies, offers economic incentives, and advances
860 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

norms that embolden states to seek control of the media environment, such as internet
sovereignty (Zeng et al., 2017).
China’s censorship norms may spread through its soft power initiatives (Shambaugh,
2015) or through its economic dominance. Governments representing countries for
which China constitutes an important source of economic activity are especially inclined
to censor their local media, either because they wish to appease the Chinese government
or because they are more immune to push-back from Western countries that try to coun-
ter their censorship efforts. In this context, Chinese aid (Reilly, 2012), investment
(Callahan, 2016; Wang, 2016), and trade could be conduits for the diffusion of censor-
ship. Trade is particularly relevant, since China’s trade dominance is so widely felt:
China is the world’s leading exporter and the world’s second largest importer (Simoes
and Hidalgo, 2011). Indeed, evidence suggests that China uses its trade dominance to
weaken the global human rights regime (Flores-Macías and Kreps, 2013; Piccone, 2018)
and to shield allies from pushback against human rights abuses (Gamso, 2019).
Of course, some governments around the world are more willing to engage in censor-
ship than others, with domestic political institutions likely moderating any impacts that
China’s rise may have. There is reason to suspect that either democracies or authoritarian
countries may be more responsive to the allowance of greater censorship. Authoritarian
governments are more likely than democracies to infringe on press freedoms (Corrales
and Westhoff, 2006; Stier, 2015; Whitten-Woodring, 2009), suggesting that the diffusion
of media censorship from China will be more pronounced in authoritarian countries than
in democratic ones. On the other hand, authoritarian countries are already censoring at
high levels, such that influence from, or facilitation by, China may have little added
effect. In contrast, democratic governments that are more permissive of freedom of
speech and the press may react to facilitation by China or an influx of its norms by reduc-
ing press freedoms. In this scenario, economic integration from China will lead to higher
rates of censorship among democratic countries, while having a redundant effect in
authoritarian countries that already censor at high rates.
The study that follows develops these arguments further and then uses statistical
methods to investigate the relationship between trade with China and media censorship,
as well as the moderating role of regime type. To do so, I analyze a sample of 163 coun-
tries to determine whether those that trade more intensively with China also censor the
press at higher rates and whether the relationship between trade with China and media
censorship is conditional on regime type. Findings show that regime type does moderate
the relationship between trade with China and media censorship, such that democratic
governments censor the media at higher levels when they trade intensively with China.
This suggests that media censorship is diffusing from China to partner countries, particu-
larly those that traditionally embraced freedom of the press. However, coefficients show
small effects sizes, such that a country must trade at high rates with China in order for it
to experience meaningful increases in censorship.
Press censorship should be of great concern to citizens around the world, as journal-
ists in a free society hold the powerful accountable and offer outlets to otherwise margin-
alized populations. The findings of this study suggest that China’s rise may be leading to
a worsening of press censorship around the world, which supports the claims of its critics
and offers reason for worry. However, political analysts should be cautious in their
Gamso 861

assessments of China’s rise and its impacts, as results suggest that it is only having large
effects on a subset of countries.

Background and literature review

Hirschman (1945) introduced the argument that trade interdependence can generate pol-
icy convergence, as policymakers wish not to upset relations with countries that they rely
on. In a situation where one country is more reliant on trade than its partner, the depend-
ent state is likely to adopt policies at the behest of their dominant partner so as to main-
tain harmonious bilateral relations (Keohane and Nye, 1977). This introduces the
potential for a dominant state to use its trade power to gain policy concessions from
partners and evidence suggests that dominant states do just that. For example, Haggard
(1995) argues that the US threatened to restrict access to its import market unless devel-
oping countries liberalized their own markets. Likewise, a host of studies find that pow-
erful states use their trade dominance to elicit support in the United Nations (Dixon and
Moon, 1985; Menkhaus and Kegley Jr., 1988; Richardson and Kegley Jr., 1980).
Recently, scholars have explored whether economic relations with China affect
nations’ foreign policy choices (Flores-Macías and Kreps, 2013; Kastner, 2016; Kirshner,
2008; Medeiros et al., 2008; Ross, 2006). While China has long espoused support for the
noninterference principle, whereby states do not meddle in one another’s domestic pol-
icy affairs (Taylor, 1998, 2007), it is nevertheless clear that China has sought to influence
other states’ policy decisions, most notably by encouraging governments around the
world to end recognition of Taiwan as an independent country (Chiang, 2018). The
Chinese government has engaged in trade-based efforts to advance its other policy goals
as well. For example, China reduced imports of salmon from Norway after the Chinese
dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Prize in 2010 (Gong, 2017). In 2012, China
suspended imports from Mongolia for one day in response the Dalai Lama’s visit to that
country. Also in 2012, China briefly cut off banana imports from the Philippines during
a dispute over the Spratly Islands (Carnegie, 2015).
Anecdotes aside, empirical research on China’s international influence have gener-
ated mixed results. For example, studies by Ross (2006), Kirshner (2008), and Kastner
(2016) do not indicate that China is using its economic clout to influence its partners’
policies. In contrast, Flores-Macías and Kreps (2013) show evidence that trading at
higher rates with China leads countries to vote with China on human right resolutions in
the UN General Assembly. The latter finding suggests that China is pressuring countries
that rely on it as a trade partner to support its policy agenda.
Most of the studies discussed so far focus on coercion through trade dominance, and
this is appropriate for policy areas in which a country would be unlikely to pursue the
policies desired by the dominant partner in the absence of coercive pressure. However,
there are instances in which the dominant and dependent states’ interests align. In these
scenarios, being economically tied to a likeminded state makes it easier for the weaker
state to make policies that other powerful states object to. For example, Gamso (2019)
finds that intensive trade with China shields human rights abusing states from scrutiny
by the international human rights regime, in part because these countries can rely on
Chinese trade to support their economies even as they face sanctions from Western
862 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

countries. By the same token, China’s preferred policies are unlikely to take hold when
countries’ domestic political institutions put their national governments at odds with
China’s geopolitical agenda.
Among China’s most widely discussed domestic policy priorities is media censorship
(Roberts, 2018), and recent research and reports indicate that the Chinese government is
spreading its censorship techniques to other countries. For example, Koesel and Bunce
(2013) note that China began sharing censorship technologies with other authoritarian
states after the Color Revolutions in Eastern Europe. Likewise, Weber (2017) reports that
China’s internet censorship techniques have spread to Vietnam and Thailand, and that the
Chinese have provided guidance on internet censorship to authorities in Sri Lanka and
Zambia. Bailey (2017) reports that China’s 2013 deal with Ethiopia’s state-owned inter-
net provider facilitated the government crackdowns that followed and that the Chinese
government offered to assist Uganda in its efforts to monitor and censor social media
networks. Likewise, China worked with Cambodian leadership to undermine the free
press in that country, while Chinese economic support shielded Cambodia from the
effects of economic sanctions (Reporters Sans Frontiѐres, 2019).
Beyond assistance, some evidence suggests that China’s economic clout puts pressure
on foreign governments to engage in censorship. For example, Cook (2013: 8–9) finds
that foreign governments “take action to prevent or punish the publication of content
critical of Beijing. . . either at the behest of Chinese representatives or to preemptively
avoid tensions with a large donor or trading partner.” Cook notes several instances in
which the Chinese government pressured foreign governments to censor media friendly
to Falun Gong. For example, in 2010, police in Vietnam imprisoned two Vietnamese citi-
zens for transmitting content from Falun Gong practitioners to listeners in China. The
indictment referenced a diplomatic memo from the Chinese Embassy, stating that
Chinese authorities had detected the transmission signal and requesting that Falun Gong
activities in Vietnam be prosecuted. A second anecdote references the raid of a Falun
Gong affiliated radio station by Indonesian authorities, which was accompanied by the
arrest and imprisonment of its station manager. This followed a letter from the Chinese
Embassy to the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which suggested that the radio
station was undermining relations between the countries and requested that its license be
terminated. Sun (2005) similarly notes that The Epoch Times, a Falun Gong-affiliated
newspaper, was briefly banned in Malaysia under CCP pressure.
It seems, then, that China has assisted censorship in foreign countries and, in a few
instances, coerced partners into censoring the press. In the section that follows, I theorize
that China’s trade dominance is key to its passive and active support for foreign censor-
ship.3 In the majority of instances where Chinese support for press censorship is passive,
domestic political institutions are likely to moderate the relationship between intensive
trade with China and media censorship.

Theory and hypothesis

The literature provides evidence for three arguments that collectively inform the theory
in this study. First, the CCP has helped to advance media censorship in foreign countries,
both directly, by using its economic dominance as leverage (Cook, 2013), and indirectly
Gamso 863

by facilitating censorship by foreign leaders through sharing technology and offering

economic protection. Second, trade dominance is a mechanism by which China affects
policy changes in foreign countries (Flores-Macías and Kreps, 2013; Paccone, 2018).
Third, regime type is a key determinant of press and speech freedoms (Corrales and
Westhoff, 2006; Stier, 2015; Whitten-Woodring, 2009). Taken together, these pieces of
evidence inform my argument: China’s rise is encouraging governments around the
world to censor their local media outlets; trade dominance is central to this encourage-
ment; regime type moderates the relationship between economic engagement with China
and censorship.
The first component of the argument holds that the CCP has helped to advance media
censorship in foreign countries. This advancement occasionally reflects active support
for censorship, such as when states are encouraged to suppress Falun Gong-affiliated
media outlets and content, but it more commonly reflects passive support. Passive sup-
port occurs when the CCP offers technologies that aid censorship or shields foreign gov-
ernments that censor regularly from scrutiny or consequences.
In terms of active support, the Chinese government is motivated by its efforts to
enhance and protect its image in foreign countries (Hartig, 2016; Yıldırım and Aslan,
2020) as well as to silence critics in those countries (Cook, 2013; Ramzy, 2020). In addi-
tion to China’s interests in protecting and enhancing its image internationally, the CCP
may wish to protect the political survival of foreign leaders in some instances for at least
two reasons. First, China may wish to prevent new governments from replacing leaders
in countries that it is currently aligned with politically, as political transitions are often
accompanied by foreign policy realignment (Ratner, 2009). Second, China likely wishes
to stop anti-regime uprisings in foreign countries from occurring, so as to prevent subse-
quent emulation by Chinese citizens (Dickson, 2011; Koesel and Bunce, 2013; Olimat,
2013; Sarotte, 2010).4 Encouraging press censorship may stop revolts from occurring at
all, to the extent that these events are inspired by press coverage revealing corruption.
Likewise, censorship should limit press reporting on uprisings that do occur, thereby
preventing the Chinese public from seeing them. As noted above, China responded to the
Color Revolutions by sharing censorship technology with foreign governments (Koesel
and Bunce, 2013), suggesting that China sees censorship as a means to prevent uprisings
and accompanying contagions.
The second piece of the argument holds that Chinese trade dominance can affect
policy in foreign countries. Scholarship suggests that trade asymmetry between bilateral
partners creates leverage for the more dominant country. For example, Barbieri (2002:
13) states that “asymmetrical dependence affords the more independent state a position
of power over the dependent state, such that the latter becomes vulnerable to political
and economic manipulation.” Within this context, Polachek et al. (1999: 405) suggest
that those countries that are highly dependent on trade “face the highest costs of poten-
tially lost trade and hence engage in the least conflict and the most cooperation.”
A state that relies on trade with China to generate economic growth5 is disinclined to
implement policies that might disrupt that trade. Such countries will engage in censor-
ship if they sense that doing so will appease Chinese authorities. Indeed, reports suggest
that officials take actions against local reporters and broadcasters in order to prevent
trade tensions with China (Cook, 2013). Additionally, China may see value in protecting
864 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

leaders it is aligned with. The political survival of leaders in countries that trade inten-
sively with China are likely to be of particular strategic importance to the CCP because
these leaders support China’s foreign policy agenda more generally (Flores-Macías and
Kreps, 2013). Thus, China is likely to provide these leaders with tools that they can use
to censor their local media outlets and to protect them from international scrutiny if they
do engage in censorship.
Some governments are more eager to crackdown on their local media outlets than
others. Those governments that wish to censor may, nevertheless, be deterred if they fear
sanctions or other sorts of retaliation from Western governments or from the interna-
tional community more generally.6 However, when these countries trade intensively with
China, their economies are more immune from such retaliation, making them more likely
to censor the local press. Within this context, trade with China can facilitate press censor-
ship that is desired by the government.
Domestic political institutions in a given country will determine whether or not its
government is keen to embrace censorship. In particular, a country’s regime type may
determine whether the government increases censorship in response to higher levels of
trade with China. Authoritarian leaders often use censorship to prevent critics from call-
ing the legitimacy of their rule into question (Dukalskis, 2017), whereas electoral
accountability prevents democratic leaders from violating civil liberties (Ashworth,
2012), leading to freer presses in democratic countries (Corrales and Westhoff, 2006;
Stier, 2015; Whitten-Woodring, 2009). This dynamic could lead to authoritarian govern-
ments responding positively if censorship is facilitated by Beijing, whereas the potential
for electoral consequences prevent democratic governments from doing so.
On the other hand, since authoritarian countries already censor the media to a great
extent, it may be that facilitation from China does little to generate further censorship
(although it may enable ongoing censorship). After all, authoritarian governments typi-
cally decide to reduce censorship strategically for domestic political purposes (Egorov
et al., 2009). For their part, democratic governments censor the media less frequently
than their authoritarian counterparts, but they do nevertheless engage in censorship when
doing so is facilitated by political conditions (Kellam and Stein, 2016). This informs the
hypothesis of this piece: The relationship between trade with China and censorship is
moderated by regime type.
If the hypothesis finds support, it will be indicative that China’s rise is facilitating
media censorship. Whether that facilitation leads to censorship in practice depends on
the domestic political institutions in a given country. This would be consistent with ear-
lier work on physical integrity rights, which finds that China has enabled (or passively
supported) violations of such rights, but that the relationship between trade with China
and physical integrity rights violations is conditional on domestic political institutions
(Gamso, 2019).
Of course, the presence of a correlation between trade with China and media censor-
ship, either in democracies or authoritarian countries, does not necessarily mean that the
theory underlying this analysis is correct. For example, if results show that authoritarian
leaders censor at higher rates when their countries trade intensively with China, this
could be because early developing Western countries have established the most profita-
ble trade relationships, leaving latecomer China to develop relationships with repressive
Gamso 865

governments. Alternatively, it may be that those countries that restrict media freedoms
trade more intensively with China precisely because China does not oppose censorship,
as Western powers traditionally have (Lum et al., 2012). Finally, it could simply be that
the governments that are trading intensively, whether with China or with some other
powers, censor at high rates for reasons unrelated to trade. This third issue is considered
empirically in a robustness test.

Research methods
To test the hypothesis, I conduct statistical analysis on a dataset covering 163 countries
over a time series spanning 2002 to 2014. This limits the analysis to the years after China
joined the World Trade Organization (WTO), as this was a watershed moment for China’s
expansion of trade relations (Drysdale and Hardwick, 2018).7 The independent variable
measures exports to China as a percentage of each sample country’s gross domestic prod-
uct (GDP). The dependent variable, Media Freedom, is measured with data from the
V-Dem Varieties of Democracy dataset (Coppedge et al., 2020a; Pemstein et al., 2020)
that captures censorship carried out by sample countries’ governments. After analyzing
an introductory model exploring the relationship between trade with China and censor-
ship, I investigate whether regime type plays a moderating role. Variables and estimation
techniques are discussed further in the pages that follow.

Dependent variable
I measure Media Freedom using the government censorship variable from V-Dem
(v2mecenefm). The measure captures direct and indirect efforts by governments to cen-
sor print or broadcast media.8 The variable is calculated on a five-point ordinal scale,
where the lowest score corresponds to the highest frequency of censorship and the high-
est score means that censorship is rare and those that engage in it are typically punished.
The five-point scale has been converted into an interval measure, using the V-Dem meth-
odology (Coppedge et al., 2020c). While there are several other available measures of
media freedom, the V-Dem measure has several advantages: It captures a relatively wide
variation in censorship levels compared to, for example, the three-point measures avail-
able from the CIRI human rights project (Cingranelli et al., 2014) and the Global Media
Freedom Dataset (Whitten-Woodring and van Belle, 2017); its method for data collec-
tion does not vary year-to-year, like the Press Freedom Index from Reporters Sans
Frontiѐres; it captures more recent years than, for example, the CIRI data, which ends in
2011.9

Independent and moderator variable

The independent variable is trade with China, which I measure in the main models by
taking the value of each sample country’s exports to China as a percentage of that coun-
try’s GDP. Looking at exports makes particular sense, as access to foreign import mar-
kets is likely to be of importance to sample countries’ policy decisions, whereas access
to imports from foreign markets is likely to be relatively unimportant. Measuring export
866 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

values as a share of GDP captures the degree to which one country relies on another
country’s import market and standardizes trade across sample countries that vary in
terms of market size. In a robustness test, I analyze trade with China (exports to China
plus imports from China) as a percentage of GDP. I calculate trade variables using trade
data from the Correlates of War (Barbieri et al., 2009; Barbieri and Keshk, 2016), which
offers data through 2014, and GDP data from the World Development Indicators.10
In order to determine whether the relationship between press censorship and intensive
trade with China is conditional on democracy, I interact Exports to China with Regime
Type. Regime Type is measured using the Polity2 variable, from Marshall et al. (2016),
which classifies regime type on a scale from –10 (highest degree of authoritarianism) to
10 (highest degree of democracy). A robustness test measures democracy with a dichoto-
mous variable from Boix et al. (2013).

Control variables
Several controls are included to isolate the relationship between key variables. First, I
control for exports to the US (Exports to the US) and exports to all countries aside from
China and the US (Exports not to China or US), each as a percentage of sample coun-
tries’ GDPs. Isolating trade with China from trade more generally is crucial, as trade is
often understood to enhance political freedoms through its effects on incomes (López-
Córdova and Meissner, 2008). Additionally, it is useful to analyze trade with the US
separately, as there is reason to expect that the US is one of the countries that encourages
governments to respect media freedoms. These variables are calculated with data from
the Correlates of War dataset and the World Development Indicators.
Next, I control for foreign direct investment (FDI) and official development assis-
tance (Aid), each as a percentage of GDP, with data from the World Development
Indicators. These variables help to isolate trade from other sorts of international eco-
nomic transfers, while simultaneously accounting and the diffusion of norms through
foreign investment (Lin, 2018) and for policy influence through aid provision (Dreher
et al., 2008). Evidence suggests that both FDI and aid inflows can foster freer media in
recipient countries (Dutta and Williamson, 2016; Kim and Trumbore, 2010).11
I control for Judicial Independence, with data from Linzer and Staton (2015), on the
basis that independent courts can hold leaders accountable and prevent overreach, which
should impede efforts to restrict civil liberties. As Gibler and Randazzo (2011: 698)
explain: “Absent judicial protection, citizens lose their ability to monitor and check the
ruling regime with speech, press, and public demonstration.” Indeed, Crabtree and
Nelson (2017) show evidence of a positive relationship between judicial independence
and free speech.
Evidence also suggests that checks on the executive can prevent governments from
censoring speech and the press (Kellam and Stein, 2016) and from violating human
rights more generally (Gamso, 2019; Lupu, 2015). Like independent courts, checks can
impede overreach efforts by policymakers and hold policymakers that do restrict civil
liberties accountable. I control for Veto Players with data from Beck et al. (2001).
Next, I control for (logged) per capita GDP. Individuals with higher incomes may
demand more freedoms, leading governments to loosen censorship efforts. On the other
Gamso 867

hand, governments may restrict media freedoms where incomes are higher, on the basis
that a wealthier population will demand political change if provoked by press coverage
that is critical of the status quo. In either case, it is appropriate to control for incomes. I
do so with data from the World Development Indicators.
I also control for oil rents (as a percentage of GDP), using data from the World
Development Indicators. Egorov et al. (2019) argue that authoritarian governments cen-
sor the press where natural resource wealth is greater, because dictators in resource rich
countries are less concerned with media-based incentives to govern effectively. Oil
wealth may also encourage the emergence or persistence of authoritarian governance
(Morrison, 2009; Ross, 2001), which may in turn lead to press restrictions.
Finally, I control for whether or not a country is party to the International Covenant
on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). ICCPR commits parties to respect various civil
and political rights, including freedom of speech.12 I coded country-years according to
whether the treaty is in force, such that the variable is coded “0” where the treaty has not
been brought into force and “1” where it has.13

Estimation techniques
I use linear regression models that feature country and year fixed effects to account for
unobserved factors across time and place. Additionally, robust standard errors are clus-
tered by country, to account for heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation. X-variables are
lagged one year to allow them time to affect the dependent variable, and I integrate them
gradually over several models to assess the stability of the results.

Results
Findings suggest that regime type moderates the relationship between trading with China
and media censorship. Specifically, exporting to China is accompanied by higher rates of
censorship in democracies, while rates of censorship are stable in authoritarian countries.
The main results are presented in Table 1.
Model 1 features only trade variables. Interestingly, neither Exports to China nor
Exports to US are significant, and all three trade variables have similar coefficients,
which are also quite small given the mean (0.75) and the standard deviation (1.45) of
Media Freedom. This offers some reason for skepticism that trading with China affects
censorship differently than exporting to other partners.14 Model 2 incorporates the inter-
action term, which is significant and negative, meaning that the relationship between
Exports to China and Media Freedom becomes negative as democracy-level increases.
The coefficient for the interaction term remains negative and significant as more varia-
bles are added in Models 3–6.15
The results from Model 6 are presented visually as a marginal effects plot in Figure 1.
This shows that Exports to China does not have a significant relationship to Media
Freedom in authoritarian settings, but the relationship becomes significant and negative
(meaning that censorship is more common) in highly democratic countries.16
The results suggest that trading intensively with China leads to higher rates of censor-
ship in democracies but has little effect on authoritarian countries. This result likely
868 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

Table 1.  Linear panel data models assessing the relationship between Exports to China and
Media Freedom.
Dependent variable: Media freedom (V-Dem)

Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 4 Model 5 Model 6

Exports to China −0.00360 −0.00123 −0.00124 0.00215 0.00321 0.000457

(0.00472) (0.00520) (0.00518) (0.00573) (0.00598) (0.00616)
Regime type 0.0831*** 0.0852*** 0.0723*** 0.0748*** 0.0644***
(Polity2) (0.0197) (0.0202) (0.0222) (0.0224) (0.0236)
Exports to −0.00166** −0.00172** −0.00233*** −0.00264*** −0.00181**
China*Regime type (0.000713) (0.000706) (0.000751) (0.000788) (0.000787)
Exports to US −0.00786 −0.00640 −0.00580 −0.00592 −0.00659 −0.00635
(0.00844) (0.00792) (0.00793) (0.00810) (0.00893) (0.00953)
Exports not to −0.00401* −0.00436** −0.00382* −0.00435* −0.00436* −0.00393
China or US (0.00208) (0.00189) (0.00197) (0.00224) (0.00229) (0.00252)
FDI 0.00216*** 0.00204*** 0.00224*** −0.00136
(0.000596) (0.000702) (0.000676) (0.00235)
Judicial 2.370*** 2.197*** 2.800***
independence (0.883) (0.825) (1.053)
Veto players 0.00160 0.00505 −0.00929
(0.0120) (0.0116) (0.0143)
Oil rents −0.00111 −0.000845
(0.00387) (0.00423)
GDP per capita 0.239 0.234
(0.224) (0.310)
Party to ICCPR −0.201 −0.135
(0.137) (0.142)
Aid 0.00871
(0.00534)
Observations 1930 1774 1759 1718 1712 1278
R2 0.018 0.141 0.147 0.181 0.187 0.209
Number of 163 154 153 151 150 129
countries
Country & year Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
fixed effects

Note. Country and year fixed effects; robust standard errors in parentheses, clustered by country; independent and control
variables lagged 1 year. FDI: foreign direct investment; GDP: gross domestic product; ICCPR: International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights.
***P < .01, **P < .05, *P < .1.

reflects the high levels of censorship that already characterize authoritarian countries,
such that facilitation by China or a diffusion of its norms or censorship-enabling tech-
nologies have little additional effect. In contrast, democratic countries that tend to censor
less frequently increase their suppression of the media in response to facilitation by
China. This is consistent with earlier research suggesting that democratic leaders censor
the media when doing so is facilitated politically (Kellam and Stein, 2016).
Beyond statistical significance, it is important to discuss the substantive effects of
exporting intensively to China. The main effect for Exports to China does not help here,
because it shows the coefficient for the variable when Regime Type is equal to zero,
Gamso 869

.4 95% Confidence Intervals ----------

Effect of One-Unit Increase in Exports to China (% GDP)

.04
.3

.02
Density
.2

0
-.02
.1

-.04
0

-10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Regime Type (Polity2)

Figure 1.  Marginal effects plot showing the significant relationship between Exports to China
and Media Freedom in democratic countries.

which is the midway point in the range for Regime Type. In order to tease out a more
relevant coefficient for Exports to China, I rescale Regime Type so that zero corresponds
to the highest level of democracy (10 on the original scale, which is the most common
score for country-years in the sample, as can be seen in the marginal effects plot in Figure
1). When I carry out this exercise using the control variables from Model 6, the main
effect for Exports to China shows the relationship between this variable and Media
Freedom in the strongest democracies. This number is −0.018, which means that the
Media Freedom score declines by 0.018 for every one-unit increase in exports to China
as a percentage of GDP.
Substantively speaking, this means that exports to China must increase by a substan-
tial amount in order to have a non-trivial impact on media censorship. Thus, a country
such as Denmark, which has seen its exports to China increase from 0.48% of GDP in
2003, to 1.53% of GDP in 2014, would only see a tiny shift in media censorship level—
and indeed media freedom for that country has only changed from 2.92 to 2.81 over that
period. In contrast, a country like Costa Rica, which has seen its exports to China as a
percentage of GDP grow from 3.32 to 13.34 over the time series should expect a larger
change in media censorship. Consistent with this expectation, Costa Rica’s media free-
dom score has fallen from 2.35 to 1.82 over this period. More generally, for a highly
870 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

democratic country (with a score of 10 on the Polity2 scale), a shift from the 25th to the
90th percentile in terms of trade with China as a percentage of GDP is associated with a
change of −0.0342 in media freedom. This is approximately equal to the difference in
censorship between Japan and Mongolia in 2014, between the Netherlands and New
Zealand in 2014, or between the US and Italy in 2014.

Robustness tests
In this section, I carry out a series of robustness tests: models with an alternative measure
of regime type, models in which total trade with China (imports plus exports as a per-
centage of GDP) serves as the independent variable, models in which exports to the US
and to other partners are interacted with regime type, and models using an alternative
measure of media freedom. These robustness tests offer further support for the relation-
ship identified above, while also suggesting reasons for caution.
First, I analyze models in which the dichotomous measure from Boix et al. (2013)
serves as the moderating variable. This is appropriate, as Polity2 captures state respect
for human rights, such that the possibility of some overlap between it and the dependent
variable exists. As the results in Table 2 show, the interaction term remains significant
and negative across these models, offering additional support for the hypothesis.
Next, I analyze models in which export variables are replaced with measures of total
trade, such that Exports to China is replaced with Trade with China, Exports to US is
replaced with Trade with US, and Exports not to China or US is replaced with Trade not
with China or US. These models are presented in Table 3. The interaction term remains
negative cross models, but the p value only falls below .05 in Model 15. These results
suggest that export is the dimension of trade that is correlated to media censorship, which
is consistent with the assumption that informs the main models.
I next consider models in which the other export variables (Exports to US and Exports
not to China or US) are interacted with regime type. These models are necessary, given
the similarity of coefficients in Model 1 of Table 1, which raises the possibility that the
effects of trade with China on media censorship mirror those of trade with the US and
trade with other countries. If this is the case, then the interaction effects presented above
may be spurious or it may be that exporting intensively leads to censorship, regardless of
partner. Results presented in Table 4 offer some indication that trade with other partners
has a similar relationship to media freedom, although do not entirely confirm that this is
the case. Specifically, the coefficients of interaction terms in both models are negative,
but neither has a p value below .05.
While the interaction terms in Table 4 are not significant at the 5% threshold, Exports
to US * Regime Type does show a p value below .1. To tease out the nature of this interac-
tion effect, I have created another marginal effects plot (Figure 2), which shows the
relationship between exporting to the US and media freedom in countries with different
regime type values. While the trend line is similar to what we see in Figure 1, confidence
intervals reveal key differences: The plot shows a significant and positive relationship
between exporting to the US and the media freedom variable for authoritarian countries,
Gamso 871

Table 2.  Linear panel data models assessing the relationship between Exports to China and
Media Freedom.
Dependent variable: Media freedom (V-Dem) 

Model 7 Model 8 Model 9 Model 10 Model 11

Exports to China 0.00878 0.0107* 0.0161** 0.0161** 0.00933

(0.00652) (0.00613) (0.00743) (0.00790) (0.00793)
Regime type (Boix et al.) 0.286** 0.289** 0.132 0.120 0.0795
(0.133) (0.133) (0.149) (0.148) (0.156)
Exports to China*Regime type −0.0249*** −0.0266*** −0.0307*** −0.0300*** −0.0217**
(0.00929) (0.00909) (0.0101) (0.0100) (0.00949)
Exports to US −0.0122 −0.0126 −0.0124 −0.0130 −0.0133
(0.00779) (0.00781) (0.00804) (0.00902) (0.00947)
Exports not to China or US −0.00407** −0.00407* −0.00370 −0.00379 −0.00184
(0.00206) (0.00211) (0.00247) (0.00251) (0.00266)
FDI 0.000364 0.000111 3.04e−05 −0.00304
(0.000762) (0.000856) (0.000837) (0.00210)
Judicial independence 4.151*** 4.297*** 4.957***
(1.135) (1.228) (1.397)
Veto players 0.00825 0.00849 −0.00597
(0.0150) (0.0158) (0.0175)
Oil rents 0.00166 0.00362
(0.00560) (0.00551)
GDP per capita −0.208 −0.338
(0.330) (0.439)
Party to ICCPR −0.0892 −0.0358
(0.162) (0.166)
Aid 0.00232
(0.00490)
Observations 1909 1893 1819 1813 1358
R2 0.040 0.042 0.131 0.133 0.174
Number of countries 162 161 157 156 134
Country & year fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Note. Country and year fixed effects; robust standard errors in parentheses, clustered by country; independent and control
variables lagged 1 year. FDI: foreign direct investment; GDP: gross domestic product; ICCPR: International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights.
***P < .01, **P < .05, *P < .1.

which turns non-significant as countries move more towards democracy. This suggests
that authoritarian countries see their censorship levels decrease when they trade inten-
sively with the US, while democratic countries are not affected.
Finally, I consider models that use Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press indicator
as the dependent variable, in lieu of the V-Dem measure. As noted above, there are well
documented concerns about bias in Freedom House data, often centering on the meas-
ure’s favorable treatment of US allies (Steiner, 2016). Nevertheless, this measure has
been widely used in the literature (e.g. Bhattacharyya and Hodler, 2015; Leeson, 2008;
Sobel et al., 2010) and so it is appropriate to consider it here as well.
The Freedom House measure is calculated using a series of questions that assess
countries’ legal, political, and economic environments.17 Freedom of the Press scores
872 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

Table 3.  Linear panel data models assessing the relationship between Trade with China and
Media Freedom.
Dependent variable: Media freedom (V-Dem)

Model 12 Model 13 Model 14 Model 15 Model 16

Trade with China 0.00516** 0.00483** 0.00560** 0.00628** 0.00392

(0.00240) (0.00244) (0.00275) (0.00290) (0.00290)
Regime type (Polity2) 0.0822*** 0.0849*** 0.0726*** 0.0748*** 0.0641***
(0.0203) (0.0208) (0.0228) (0.0231) (0.0241)
Trade with China*Regime −0.000492 −0.000563 −0.000938* −0.00105** −0.000720
type (0.000410) (0.000420) (0.000495) (0.000519) (0.000519)
Trade with US −0.00819 −0.00769 −0.00699 −0.00717 −0.00873
(0.00715) (0.00716) (0.00724) (0.00783) (0.00820)
Trade not with China or US −0.00115 −0.00107 −0.00144 −0.00120 −0.00145
(0.00122) (0.00125) (0.00133) (0.00144) (0.00153)
FDI 0.00221*** 0.00237*** 0.00250*** 0.000239
(0.000682) (0.000646) (0.000663) (0.00287)
Judicial independence 2.527*** 2.405*** 2.976***
(0.946) (0.885) (1.130)
Veto players 0.00249 0.00531 −0.00995
(0.0119) (0.0115) (0.0139)
Oil rents −0.000941 −2.58e–05
(0.00359) (0.00407)
GDP per capita 0.181 0.179
(0.219) (0.304)
Party to ICCPR −0.194 −0.129
(0.142) (0.146)
Aid 0.0119*
(0.00672)
Observations 1774 1759 1718 1712 1278
R2 0.133 0.139 0.172 0.176 0.205
Number of countries 154 153 151 150 129
Country & year fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Note. Country and year fixed effects; robust standard errors in parentheses, clustered by country; independent and control
variables lagged 1 year. FDI: foreign direct investment; GDP: gross domestic product; ICCPR: International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights.
***P < .01, **P < .05, *P < .1.

range from 0 to 100, where a higher score corresponds to a lower level of press freedom.
However, I have reversed this scoring in order to make the interpretation of coefficients
uniform with analysis of the V-Dem variable. Results from analyses that use the Freedom
House variable are presented in Table 5. The interaction term is negative across models,
which is consistent with the V-Dem results, but p values for the interaction terms are
above the threshold for statistical significance. This could reflect the abovementioned
biases associated with this measure, if democratic countries that traditionally align with
the US enjoy persistently high scores on the Freedom House measure, but not on the
V-Dem measure.
Most of the robustness tests offer additional support for the hypothesis. In particu-
lar, models presented in Table 2 offer additional evidence that China’s rise is leading
Gamso 873

Table 4.  Linear panel data models assessing the relationship between Exports and Media
Freedom.

Dependent variable: Media freedom (V-Dem)

Model 17 Model 18
Exports to China −0.00561 −0.00458
(0.00507) (0.00489)
Regime type (Polity2) 0.0702*** 0.0686***
(0.0238) (0.0249)
Exports to US −0.000334 −0.00507
(0.00559) (0.00939)
Exports to US * Regime type −0.00273*  
(0.00146)
Exports not to China or US −0.00294 −0.00290
(0.00224) (0.00250)
Exports not to China or US * Regime type −0.000556
(0.000350)
FDI −0.00200 −0.00263
(0.00231) (0.00248)
Judicial independence 2.765** 2.841***
(1.080) (1.082)
Veto players −0.00902 −0.0102
(0.0137) (0.0145)
Oil rents −0.00155 0.000352
(0.00378) (0.00414)
GDP per capita 0.130 0.159
(0.307) (0.311)
Party to ICCPR −0.0966 −0.104
(0.145) (0.147)
Aid 0.00823* 0.00951*
(0.00476) (0.00538)
Observations 1278 1278
R2 0.214 0.205
Number of countries 129 129
Country & year fixed effects Yes Yes

Note. Country and year fixed effects; robust standard errors in parentheses, clustered by country; inde-
pendent and control variables lagged 1 year. FDI: foreign direct investment; GDP: gross domestic product;
ICCPR: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
***P < .01, **P < .05, *P < .1.

to heightened media censorship in democratic countries, while those presented in

Table 3 suggest that exports are the primary driver of this trend. Table 4 offers reason
for caution, as a somewhat similar dynamic may accompany trade with the US, but
the marginal effects plot in Figure 2 shows a distinct sort of impact.
874 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

.4 95% Confidence Intervals ----------

Effect of One-Unit Increase in Exports to US (% GDP)

.04
.02
.3

0
Density
.2

-.02
.1

-.04
-.06
0

-10 -9 -8 -7 -6 -5 -4 -3 -2 -1 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Regime Type (Polity2)

Figure 2.  Marginal effects plot showing the significant relationship between Exports to US and
Media Freedom in authoritarian countries.

Conclusion
Media freedom is the lifeblood of a vibrant civil society. A free press can hold powerful
actors accountable while giving marginalized communities a voice. This paper explores
whether China’s rise is being accompanied by an uptick in censorship around the world,
and the empirical findings suggest that such a trend is occurring in democratic countries.
As press freedoms fade, regimes will more easily shield themselves from scrutiny, likely
leading to weakened accountability and heightened corruption (Brunetti and Weder,
2003). Furthermore, journalists in many parts of the world are already under intense
duress (Simon, 2014), and this is likely to be exacerbated as China continues to grow.
Because democratic countries appear especially susceptible to backslides in media
freedom, it is important that efforts are taken in democracies to strengthen the institu-
tions that protect and promote freedom of the press, such as judicial independence and
(Crabtree and Nelson, 2017) and checks on the executive (Kellam and Stein, 2016). Such
efforts could come from within countries, through the enactment of reforms to enhance
political competition (Leiras et al., 2015) or political fragmentation (Iaryczower et al.,
2002), or from outside, via selective foreign aid provision (Jones and Tarp, 2016), inter-
national agreements (Cameron, 2003), or the establishment of agreed-upon best prac-
tices for states to adopt (Rotberg, 2004).
Gamso 875

Table 5.  Linear panel data models assessing the relationship between Exports to China and
Media Freedom.

Dependent variable: Media freedom (Freedom House)

Model 19 Model 20 Model 21 Model 22 Model 23

Exports to China 0.103* 0.107* 0.117 0.109 0.0965
(0.0615) (0.0614) (0.0787) (0.0859) (0.101)
Regime type (Polity2) 0.845*** 0.876*** 0.737*** 0.755*** 0.688***
(0.173) (0.179) (0.162) (0.161) (0.158)
Exports to China*Regime −0.00360 −0.00387 −0.00712 −0.00738 −0.00896
type (0.00682) (0.00686) (0.00943) (0.0101) (0.0125)
Exports to US 0.0130 0.0206 0.0178 −0.00157 −0.000226
(0.0669) (0.0653) (0.0698) (0.0735) (0.0761)
Exports not to China or US −0.0434** −0.0354* −0.0389* −0.0402* −0.0373
(0.0220) (0.0214) (0.0224) (0.0228) (0.0275)
FDI 0.0171 0.0146 0.0163 0.0540*
(0.0134) (0.0120) (0.0129) (0.0302)
Judicial independence 21.89* 20.58* 28.20*
(11.27) (11.65) (14.49)
Veto players 0.284** 0.300** 0.251*
(0.135) (0.132) (0.149)
Oil rents 0.0432 0.0515
(0.0489) (0.0575)
GDP per capita 1.464 1.994
(2.537) (3.174)
Party to ICCPR −0.544 −0.298
(1.631) (1.858)
Aid 0.0782
(0.0497)
Observations 1774 1759 1718 1712 1278
R2 0.171 0.178 0.199 0.200 0.195
Number of countries 154 153 151 150 129
Country & year fixed effects Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes

Note. Country and year fixed effects; robust standard errors in parentheses, clustered by country; inde-
pendent and control variables lagged 1 year. FDI: foreign direct investment; GDP: gross domestic product;
ICCPR: International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
***P < .01, **P < .05, *P < .1.

This study’s findings also suggest an avenue by which advanced democracies, such
as the US, can support media freedoms abroad. These states should make efforts to
develop their trade relationships with foreign nations, particularly with struggling
democracies, thereby offering alternatives to the Chinese import market. Advanced
democracies can do this by reducing tariffs and non-tariff barriers to trade, by forming
trade agreements, and by providing technical support to foreign exporters, among
other things.
876 European Journal of International Relations 27(3)

While this study offers important insights about China’s rise and the implications for
civil liberties around the world, there are important caveats. First, coefficient sizes are
small, suggesting that the effects of China’s rise on media censorship beyond its borders
are marginal for many countries—although not for those experiencing relatively large
increases in trade with China. Second, China’s support for censorship appears to be
largely passive and this passive support may dissipate in the future. Third, domestic
political institutions are key determinants as to how policymakers react to heightened
economic engagement with China.
Despite these caveats, this study offers an important contribution to our understanding
of China’s growth and the likely impacts on norms and policies beyond its borders. There
is reason to be concerned about media freedoms, as Beijing’s critics contend. Going
forward, it is essential that organizations such as Reporters Sans Frontiѐres and Freedom
House continue their efforts to monitor media freedoms around the world, and that con-
cerned governments, NGOs, and international organizations emphasize the importance
of empowerment rights such as freedom of speech and the press.

Disclosure
The author reports no conflict of interest. The author alone is responsible for the content and writ-
ing of the paper.

Funding
The author received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this
article.

ORCID iD
Jonas Gamso https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3961-1234

Notes
  1. https://rsf.org/en/world-press-freedom-index-2014 (accessed 15 April 2021).
 2. https://freedomhouse.org/blog/east-african-states-adopt-china-s-playbook-internet-censor-
ship (accessed 15 April 2021).
  3. See Sriram and Brown (2008) for an earlier differentiation of passive and active support for
human rights abuses.
  4. Evidence suggests that a contagion effect can follow political uprisings (Bamert et al., 2015).
Indeed, protests emerged in China during the Arab Spring, led by online organizers inspired
by events in Tunisia and Egypt (Parello-Plesner and Pantucci, 2011).
 5. For example, evidence suggests that trading with China is key determinant of economic
growth for African countries (Kummer-Noormamode, 2014).
  6. For example, both the US and the UN have sanctions North Korea over speech and press
censorship (Albert, 2019; United Nations, 2017).
  7. The time series ends at 2014, because this is the final year for which data on key varia-
bles (including trade variables) is available. The analysis only captures a short portion of Xi
Jinping’s leadership and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), during which China’s foreign
policy has been relatively assertive. Future research should analyze data from more recent
years if possible.
Gamso 877

  8. Indirect efforts may include “politically motivated awarding of broadcast frequencies, with-
drawal of financial support, influence over printing facilities and distribution networks,
selected distribution of advertising, onerous registration requirements, prohibitive tariffs, and
bribery” (Coppedge et al., 2020b: 187).
  9. Another potential data source comes from Freedom House. There are well documented con-
cerns about political bias in Freedom House data (Bush, 2017; Steiner, 2016), but I neverthe-
less consider this measure in a robustness test later in the paper.
10. The same data sources were used in similar studies by Flores-Macías and Kreps (2013) and
Gamso (2018, 2019).
11. It would be ideal to disaggregate foreign aid by donor, but doing so is difficult in practice.
The World Bank offers data on official development assistance (ODA) from a few individual
donors, but China is not among them. AidData (Tierney et al., 2011) does offer data on aid
from China, but it is not easily comparable to the aforementioned World Bank data because it
includes both Chinese aid and Chinese non-concessional financing. The role of foreign aid is
a topic that future research should consider.
12. Details on the treaty are available here: https://www.ohchr.org/en/professionalinterest/pages/
ccpr.aspx (accessed 15 April 2021).
13. For descriptive statistics of all variables, see Table A1 in the Appendix.
14. Bader and Daxecker (2015) similarly found that oil export dependence on China does not
create worse physical integrity rights impacts than oil export dependence on the US.
15. Also significant and positive in one or more of the models are FDI, Judicial Independence,
and the main effect for Regime Type (this corresponds to the relationship between Regime
Type and Media Freedom when Exports to China are equal to zero).
16. The negative relationship between Exports to China and Media Freedom in democratic coun-
tries is present in marginal effects plots corresponding to Models 2–5 as well; interestingly,
plots corresponding to Models 4 and 5 also show a positive relationship between Exports to
China and Media Freedom in authoritarian countries. These plots are available on request.
17. The methodology is explained here: https://freedomhouse.org/freedom-press-research-meth-
odology (accessed 15 April 2021).

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Author biography
Jonas Gamso is an assistant professor at Arizona State University’s Thunderbird School of Global
Management, as well as a senior sustainability scholar in the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of
Sustainability. His research focuses on international political economy, with an emphasis on the
political economy of trade. Gamso’s work has been published in International Affairs, International
Studies Quarterly, Journal of World Business, Policy Sciences, Review of International Political
Economy, Review of International Organizations, World Development, and other journals.
Gamso 883

Appendix
Table A1.  Descriptive statistics for all variables used in this study.

Variable Mean Std. dev. Min Max

Media freedom (V-Dem) .7527251 1.454106 −3.025 3.327
Exports to China 2.388052 5.281074 0 43.51565
Regime type (Polity2) 3.822778 6.3973 −10 10
Exports to US 3.697131 5.990538 0 48.52728
Exports not to China or US 21.27873 20.75868 .0002119 402.7675
FDI 6.495856 20.20751 −58.32288 451.6393
Judicial independence .4920764 .2870762 .0017 .9972
Veto players 2.931606 1.635051 1 17
Oil rents 4.83965 11.43383 0 67.52576
GDP per capita (logged) 8.977227 1.241194 6.090903 11.86101
Party to ICCPR .880117 .3249039 0 1
Aid 4.771398 7.42929 −.5104274 70.87637
Regime type (Boix et al.) .5638723 .4960273 0 1
Trade with China 6.680815 16.35418 .0025484 436.0832
Trade with US 6.965246 9.226356 0 54.25481
Trade not with China or US 52.32579 54.20737 .1836454 659.0908
Media freedom (Free. House) 51.54122 23.71615 2 93

Note. FDI: foreign direct investment; GDP: gross domestic product; ICCPR: International Covenant on Civil
and Political Rights.