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This article offers a detailed analysis of the policy design of the current fourth round of state-owned enterprise (SOE) corporate restructuring in China. This time, the state's efforts to improve SOE performance hinged on attracting private capital to take ownership shares in state firms—or so-called mixed-ownership reforms. The article relies on an analysis of policy documents, interviews with policy experts in China, and a case study of local mixed-ownership reform implementation in the city of Nanjing. It discusses implications of mixed ownership for corporate governance amid changing state–Party–business relations in China. It concludes that the reform agenda consolidates a hybrid political-economic system that organically blends planning and market modes of economic coordination, as well as public and private modes of ownership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China's deepening ties to Iran, evident in the comprehensive strategic partnership (CSP) signed in 2021 after five years of stalled progress, is not an indication of a revisionist Chinese approach to the Gulf region. In fact, its CSPs with Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, already activated and implemented, are at far more mature levels, commensurate with China's deep levels of economic and political engagement with the Arab side of the Gulf. This is consistent with a strategic hedging approach that Beijing has used to build a sustainable presence without disrupting a competitive and fragile regional order. With far larger and more diverse interests in the Gulf Cooperation Council countries, China's partnership with Iran creates leverage due to the asymmetry inherent in the China‐Iran relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]