From supply chain networks to diplomatic alignment: a dynamic network analysis using temporal ERGMs

Abstract Global supply chains constitute dynamic and interdependent networks that link states through intermediate-goods trade and production. While a growing literature highlights the geopolitical implications of supply-chain dependence, less is known about how a country’s position within such networks is translated into institutionalized cooperation and subsequent changes in diplomatic behavior over time. This article addresses this gap by conceptualizing supply-chain capital as a form of network-based leverage that connects structural positions in supply-chain networks to foreign policy outcomes. Empirically, the study constructs directed and weighted intermediate-goods supply-chain networks using OECD trade in value added (TiVA) data from 1995 to 2020 and combines them with data on Chinese-style strategic partnerships and United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voting. Temporal exponential random graph models (TERGMs) are employed to capture network dependence, tie formation, and temporal dynamics, supplemented by quasi-placebo tests to assess temporal ordering. The analysis shows, first, that China’s upstream position and export connectivity in intermediate-goods supply chains significantly increase the likelihood of forming strategic partnerships with other states. Second, once such partnerships are established, partner states exhibit systematic convergence toward China’s positions in UNGA voting, consistent with a dynamic pathway in which supply-chain linkages, mediated by institutional ties, precede shifts in diplomatic alignment. By integrating dynamic network modeling with international political economy, this article demonstrates how network position within global supply chains can be converted into institutional ties and diplomatic influence. The findings contribute to network science by illustrating how economic networks shape political behavior through endogenous, evolving relational structures. Similar content being viewed by others Introduction Global supply chains constitute dynamic and interdependent networks that connect states through the cross-border flow of intermediate goods, production inputs, and logistics. As these networks evolve, countries occupy heterogeneous structural positions—such as upstream suppliers, downstream assemblers, or intermediating hubs—that shape both their exposure to disruption and their potential leverage over partners. While existing research increasingly recognizes the geopolitical implications of supply-chain dependence, less attention has been paid to how positions within evolving supply-chain networks translate into institutionalized cooperation and subsequent changes in state behavior. While much of the existing literature examines global supply chains at the level of the entire world economy, the empirical analysis in this article focuses on a specific sectoral linkage between upstream chemical inputs (C20) and downstream computer, electronic, and optical manufacturing (C26). By concentrating on this strategically important upstream–downstream production relationship, the study illustrates how structural positions within particular supply chains can translate into institutionalized cooperation and subsequent diplomatic alignment.Footnote 1 In international politics and international political economy, conflict and cooperation have long been central and closely intertwined concerns. Traditionally, states relied on formal military alliances as one institutional mechanism for cooperation, aiming to strengthen deterrence and facilitate policy coordination. A large body of scholarship examines how alliances affect conflict behavior through mechanisms such as commitment entrapment, moral hazard, and chain-ganging (Leeds 2003; Leeds and Johnson 2017; Kenwick and Vasquez 2017). In this article, however, the objective is not to question the importance of alliances in deterring militarized interstate disputes. Rather, the analytical focus shifts from traditional security concerns toward forms of cooperation associated with non-traditional security risks. In particular, the article examines how economic interdependence—especially within global supply chains—shapes institutionalized cooperation and diplomatic behavior. Since the end of the Cold War, the nature of security threats and the structure of interstate cooperation have evolved. Although militarized conflict persists, its overall frequency and scale have declined, while advances in military technology have increased the precision and localized destructiveness of violence. As a result, traditional alliance treaties designed primarily for conventional military threats increasingly face limitations in addressing emerging forms of risk. Reflecting these changes, states have diversified cooperative instruments beyond formal alliances. Post–Cold War systemic change has encouraged the growth of flexible security arrangements such as Defense Cooperation Agreements (DCAs), which emphasize policy coordination, joint exercises, defense industrial cooperation, and information sharing without explicit mutual-defense commitments (Kinne 2018). From a network perspective, such arrangements are often embedded within dense patterns of trade, production, and logistical interdependence. These developments are particularly visible in global supply-chain systems that rely heavily on maritime transport for raw materials, components, and energy. Maintaining open sea lines of communication has become a prerequisite for supply-chain resilience (Jones 2022). Consequently, many bilateral and multilateral arrangements increasingly integrate maritime security, logistics, and economic cooperation. Rather than relying solely on alliance-based collective defense, states increasingly employ strategic partnerships that address non-traditional security concerns, including the governance and resilience of global supply chains. At the same time, the political consequences of economic interdependence remain contested. Liberal perspectives suggest that interdependence promotes cooperation by raising the costs of conflict and encouraging institutional coordination. In contrast, other scholars argue that asymmetric interdependence may generate coercion or conflict when states exploit economic ties for strategic purposes (Barbieri 1996, 2005). These competing expectations raise an important question: under what conditions does economic interdependence generate conflict, and when does it instead encourage states to institutionalize cooperation? This article argues that within global supply-chain networks such cooperation often takes the form of strategic partnerships, which function as institutionalized arrangements linking economic interdependence to diplomatic coordination. In this sense, strategic partnerships serve as mechanisms through which states stabilize supply-chain relations, coordinate policies across economic and political domains, and signal diplomatic support without entering into binding military alliances. From a network-science perspective, however, much existing work operationalizes interdependence primarily in dyadic terms or treats institutional arrangements as exogenous. This leaves the endogenous formation of cooperative ties and their dependence on evolving network positions insufficiently theorized and modeled. Taken together, these developments suggest a shift away from an alliance-centered model of cooperation toward institutional arrangements that manage risk within interconnected economic networks. Understanding this transformation requires examining how states’ positions within global supply-chain networks shape the formation of institutional ties and their political consequences. This article makes three contributions. First, it develops the concept of supply-chain capital, translating recent work on geoeconomic statecraft and weaponized interdependence into a network-based perspective on structural leverage in intermediate-goods trade. Empirically, the analysis focuses on supply-chain linkages between chemical inputs (C20) and downstream computer, electronic, and optical production (C26), illustrating how upstream suppliers of critical intermediate goods can acquire structural leverage within global supply chains. Second, it treats strategic partnerships as the institutional mechanism linking supply-chain capital to foreign-policy outcomes, examining how supply-chain linkages influence the formation of partnerships and how these ties relate to subsequent diplomatic alignment measured through United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) voting behavior. Third, the article combines TiVA-based sectoral intermediate-goods supply-chain networks with data on strategic partnerships and UNGA voting and employs temporal exponential random graph models (TERGMs) together with quasi-placebo estimation strategies to examine how sector-specific supply-chain interdependence shapes patterns of cooperation and diplomatic alignment. The remainder of the article proceeds as follows. The next section explains why states increasingly rely on strategic partnerships as flexible cross-domain cooperation and situates China’s partnerships as an empirically informative case linking supply-chain structures to institutional design. How and why states form strategic partnerships As the international environment evolves, the nature of threats and the demand for cooperation have also changed. In particular, the growing salience of cross-domain risks—including disruptions in global supply chains—has increased demand for cooperative arrangements that can operate across multiple issue areas and over extended periods of time. Under these conditions, traditional alliance treaties increasingly reveal gaps in both their applicability and their substantive coverage. This does not imply that alliances have become irrelevant. Rather, because conventional alliances are primarily designed to address military threats, they are less suited to managing the complex economic and technological interdependencies that characterize contemporary global production systems (Russett 1971; Snyder 1997). Consequently, states have increasingly turned to more flexible institutional arrangements, including strategic partnerships and various framework agreements, to complement the limitations of traditional alliances. These arrangements allow governments to coordinate across economic, political, and selected security domains while maintaining greater flexibility in commitments and policy instruments. Strategic partnerships, in particular, have emerged as a mechanism for institutionalizing long-term cooperation that extends beyond the scope of conventional military alliances. Wilkins (2012) proposes a broader typology that distinguishes coalitions, security communities, and strategic partnerships from traditional alliances. Strategic partnerships, which have attracted growing attention in the post–Cold War era, are not primarily driven by a single, clearly identified threat. Rather, they are oriented toward broad economic and security objectives. Such arrangements tend to be more flexible, impose lower commitment costs, and place greater emphasis on economic interaction (Wilkins 2012: 68). Put differently, if traditional alliances foreground threat-based security commitments, strategic partnerships are better understood as goal-oriented, cross-sectoral cooperation. The emergence of such institutional arrangements is closely connected to long-standing debates about the political consequences of economic interdependence. Liberal perspectives emphasize that dense economic ties can promote cooperation by raising the costs of conflict and encouraging the institutionalization of stable economic relations (Gartzke 2007; Keohane and Nye 2011; Mansfield and Pollins 2003). In contrast, other scholars argue that asymmetric interdependence may generate coercion and conflict when states exploit economic ties for political leverage (Barbieri 1996, 2005; Hirschman 1945). More recent research further highlights how states occupying central positions in global economic networks may convert structural advantages into political influence by controlling key nodes of economic exchange (Farrell and Newman 2019, 2023). Whether economic interdependence leads to conflict or institutionalized cooperation therefore depends not only on the existence of economic ties but also on how those ties are structured and governed. Earlier studies often conceptualized economic interdependence primarily through bilateral trade relationships between states. In practice, however, much of this trade reflected vertically integrated production structures in which different stages of production were distributed across national economies. As globalization deepened, these vertically integrated relationships evolved into complex global supply networks characterized by the exchange of intermediate goods across multiple production stages and across multiple countries (Antràs 2020; Baldwin 2016; Hummels et al. 2001). In such networked production systems, the political and economic consequences of interdependence depend not only on trade volumes but also on the structural positions that states occupy within global supply chains. Countries located in upstream stages of production—particularly those supplying critical intermediate goods—may acquire structural advantages because disruptions at those stages can affect downstream production across multiple economies. Under these conditions, governments have incentives to institutionalize economic relationships in order to stabilize access to key inputs, reduce supply-chain disruption risks, and maintain predictable production linkages. China provides a particularly relevant example of this mechanism. In the supply chains examined in this article, China occupies an important upstream position in chemical intermediate goods (C20), which are widely used in downstream computer, electronic, and semiconductor-related production (C26). Countries embedded in these production networks therefore face incentives to maintain stable economic relations with China in order to secure continued access to these essential inputs. From this perspective, China’s influence derives not simply from trade volume but from its network position within global supply chains. When supply-chain capital—generated by upstream control over critical intermediate goods—is institutionalized through strategic partnerships, the political consequences of interdependence can shift from conflict toward institutionalized cooperation. Strategic partnerships provide a framework through which states can manage supply-chain vulnerabilities, coordinate economic policies, and reduce uncertainty in global production networks. China-style strategic partnerships can therefore be understood as institutional arrangements through which supply-chain interdependence becomes stabilized and politically organized. For partner states, these arrangements help manage the risks associated with supply-chain dependence and reduce the likelihood of disruptive economic conflict. For China, they provide a mechanism through which upstream network advantages can be translated into more durable diplomatic relationships and broader forms of international cooperation. From global supply networks to China’s strategic partnerships Building on the argument that strategic partnerships can institutionalize supply-chain interdependence, this section examines how these mechanisms are reflected in China’s foreign policy. Since the end of the Cold War, China has promoted strategic partnerships that, according to Li and Ye (2019), serve three main purposes: responding to strategic competition with the United States, preserving stability in its surrounding regions, and supporting its long-term modernization agenda. This interpretation is consistent with recent qualitative work emphasizing how China’s strategic partnerships function as flexible diplomatic instruments that embed economic interdependence within broader political frameworks rather than formal alliance commitments (Boni 2023). Importantly, these partnerships also provide an institutional framework through which China embeds its growing role in global supply networks within broader diplomatic relationships. At the same time, avoiding formal alliances reduces the risk of automatic military involvement in other states’ disputes (Zhang and Yang 2020). On the basis of these strategic considerations, Chinese strategic partnerships tend to frame security cooperation in broad, principled terms and institutionalize it through consultation mechanisms, while placing concrete emphasis on cooperation in trade, energy, infrastructure, and investment. This approach not only helps China accumulate supply-chain capital and bolster its economic security, but also embeds its economic network ties within durable institutional partnerships. Simultaneously, it lowers the likelihood of China being drawn into military conflicts initiated by third parties. Building on this line of research, Zhang (2025) examines what he terms “Chinese-style strategic partnerships.” These partnerships exhibit a clear and internally consistent design across political, economic, and military dimensions. Politically, the texts of partnership agreements typically center on the “one China” principle and positions on key issues as the core quid pro quo, with higher levels of partnership associated with more explicit political endorsement. This includes, for example, whether partners adopt positions aligned with China on sensitive questions such as Xinjiang and Taiwan. Recent upgrades in partnership status have often been accompanied by public support for China’s global initiatives, suggesting that political considerations play a pivotal role in the deepening of these relationships. On the economic side, strategic partnership agreements invariably include provisions on economic cooperation. Once upgraded, they tend to spell out these arrangements in greater detail and place stronger emphasis on long-term projects in infrastructure, energy, and the Belt and Road Initiative. In practice, such clauses tie supply chains and investment flows into a relatively durable framework of cooperation. In sectors involving critical intermediate goods—such as chemical inputs (C20) that feed into downstream electronics and semiconductor production (C26)—these institutional arrangements also help stabilize production networks and reduce supply-chain disruption risks. By contrast, the military dimension is framed in more general and selective terms, focusing on areas such as counterterrorism and joint exercises. The level of commitment and obligation is far below that of a defense treaty, and in some upgraded cases existing military language has even been watered down or removed. This pattern underscores that the deepening of these partnerships rests primarily on political and economic linkages rather than on intensified military cooperation. More specifically, China differentiates its partnerships into seven tiers, ranging from the “China–Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination” at the top to lower-level designations. Official documents, together with statements by Chinese officials, delineate a clear hierarchy among these labels. Within this scheme, the “all-weather” category is explicitly ranked above a “comprehensive strategic partnership,” and upgrades are typically driven by stronger political endorsement and expanded economic cooperation rather than by broader security guarantees. Under such an arrangement, Beijing can operate within a U.S.-led regional security architecture without entering formal alliances, instead relying on graduated and issue-specific partnerships to secure political and economic returns while avoiding alliance-like military obligations. In short, China’s strategic partnerships are closely connected to the governance of strategic inputs and critical materials within global supply chains, and their design is explicitly structured along two axes, economic and security. On the economic axis, China uses long-term supply contracts, investment and financing arrangements, and coordinated production capacity to stabilize the supply of raw materials, components, and energy. On the security axis, it relies on counterterrorism cooperation, joint military exercises, and coordination of maritime operations to safeguard key chokepoints, keep sea lines of communication open, and reduce the probability of supply-chain disruption. This “economic–security” dual-track architecture allows China to link the acquisition of critical resources with the management of maritime transportation risks without assuming the binding obligations associated with formal alliances. Building on existing work that distinguishes strategic partnerships from traditional alliance treaties, this paper extends the literature by examining the reasons for the formation of China’s distinctive strategic partnerships and their relationship to the roles that China and its partner countries play in global supply chains. At the same time, this paper pays particular attention to how this process operates in the Asia–Pacific. In this regional context, strategic partnerships institutionalize supply-chain interdependence and help shift the political consequences of asymmetric interdependence from potential conflict toward more stable forms of diplomatic coordination. On the one hand, Asia–Pacific economies are deeply embedded in intermediate-goods supply chains centered on East Asia. On the other hand, China’s strategic partnerships with countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea are a key component of the ongoing reconfiguration of the Indo–Pacific order. By combining global quantitative analysis with dynamic observations from Asia–Pacific cases, this study shows how China deploys supply-chain capital within regional production networks and regional order-building to exert diplomatic influence. Theoretical framework This article examines the relationship between Chinese-style strategic partnerships and the structural locations that China and its partner states occupy in global supply-chain trade networks. Global supply chains are characterized by highly specialized production, in which countries’ upstream and downstream roles in the supply system, as well as their network centrality, are largely shaped by differences in factor endowments, market size, geography, and institutional quality (Antràs 2020; World Bank 2020). From a network-analytic perspective, these structural positions condition not only states’ exposure to supply-chain risk, but also their incentives to institutionalize cooperation through strategic partnership ties. From a network-analytic perspective, upstream and downstream positions can be captured by out-degree and in-degree, respectively: the former reflects the breadth and diversification of a country’s outward supply linkages, whereas the latter indicates the extent of its dependence on external input sources and the scope for substituting among them. States with high out-degree occupy diversified supplier positions and are less vulnerable to the loss of any single trading partner, whereas states with high in-degree tend to face greater dependence on external inputs and stronger incentives to secure stable access to critical supplies through institutionalized cooperation. In network analysis, centrality denotes a set of indices that assess the relative importance of nodes within a network (Wasserman and Faust 1994). Degree centrality is the most basic member of this family. In an undirected network, a node’s degree is simply the number of adjacent ties it maintains. In a directed network, degree can be decomposed into out-degree, which counts the ties originating from the node to others, and in-degree, which counts the ties directed from other nodes toward it. Out-degree and in-degree can thus be regarded as directed variants of degree centrality. In the context of strategic partnerships, higher centrality implies greater embeddedness in global supply-chain networks, increasing both the value of maintaining stable cooperative ties and the leverage a state can exercise in institutional bargaining. In the context of global supply chains—especially networks of trade and production in intermediate goods—out-degree is typically used to capture the breadth and diversification of a state’s role as a supplier, whereas in-degree reflects the range of its input sources and the extent of its substitution possibilities on the demand side. States occupying different upstream and downstream positions therefore face asymmetric incentives to form and deepen strategic partnership ties as a means of managing supply-chain dependence, reducing disruption risk, and stabilizing cross-border production relationships. As Fig. 1 illustrates, the links in the diagram are constructed from the OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) input–output tables and represent intermediate-input flows embodied in downstream production. Specifically, the figure focuses on C20 chemicals and chemical products used as intermediate inputs in the production of C26 computer, electronic, and optical products. Each colored path represents one possible production sequence through which intermediate inputs move across countries before reaching final or downstream markets. The colors do not indicate exclusive bilateral relationships; rather, they are used to visually distinguish alternative supply-chain paths in the network. Taking the blue path as an example, the TiVA data indicate that China exports C20 intermediate inputs to the United States. The United States can then incorporate these inputs into its own production and export related C20 intermediate inputs to Japan. In other words, intermediate goods may pass through multiple production stages and countries before reaching downstream markets. The other colored paths in the figure illustrate analogous multi-stage sequences, highlighting how intermediate inputs circulate through different national production systems within the global supply chain. The purpose of the figure is therefore not to depict a single deterministic trade route, but to illustrate the structural role of countries occupying upstream positions in the supply-chain network. Countries located upstream in these production sequences—such as China in the blue path—can influence multiple downstream production systems because shocks to their intermediate exports may propagate along these interlinked production chains. From a network-analytic perspective, a country may simultaneously act as both an importer and an exporter within the same supply-chain structure. A country can import upstream inputs, process or refine them, and then re-export them as intermediate goods to additional downstream partners. In such multi-stage supply chains, a country’s out-degree captures the breadth and diversification of its spillovers as an upstream supplier and thus reflects its potential bargaining leverage in bilateral or multilateral negotiations. Conversely, its in-degree reflects the intensity of its dependence on upstream inputs and the availability of substitution options on the demand side. This logic is consistent with network-based interpretations of systemic importance. As Page (2018) shows using interbank networks as an example, institutions located closer to the center of a network—such as AIG during the global financial crisis—can become so critical to the functioning of the system that authorities prioritized rescuing AIG before addressing the failure of Lehman Brothers. By the same logic, when the analytical focus shifts to a state’s upstream supply-chain breadth and its capacity to exercise economic leverage, out-degree generally exhibits stronger explanatory power. The broader and more diversified a country’s spillover reach as a supplier, the more attractive it becomes as a cooperation partner. This, in turn, widens its bargaining space, enhances its policy leverage, and raises importers’ incentives to conclude strategic partnership agreements that incorporate provisions on supply security, investment and financing, and technological cooperation. Taken together, this article argues that the supply reach and market connectivity captured by out-degree, combined with the structural leverage implied by centrality, constitute a key structural condition driving the expansion and deepening of strategic partnerships. This mechanism also helps explain why concerns over the security of critical inputs ranging from oil to semiconductors have long pushed states to seek higher levels of institutionalized cooperation within supply systems (Cotet and Tsui 2013; Miller 2022). In other words, when viewed from the perspective of accumulating supply-chain capital and resilience, China’s upstream advantage in natural resources tends to attract other countries to sign strategic partnership agreements with it. For importers, those with especially high demand for strategic resources are more likely to pursue external cooperative arrangements in order to mitigate dependence risks and enlarge their space for substitution. For exporters, in the face of clear and strategically salient demand, the side that controls key resources can rely on its upstream position and chokepoint advantages to shape the importing country’s foreign policy through trade and investment arrangements. Empirically, Zhang (2025) shows that most states entering into partnership agreements with China also endorse Beijing’s One China policy on Taiwan, indicating a close linkage between patterns of supply and the alignment of political positions. Blackwill and Harris (2016) further contend that, in the emerging geoeconomic order, a state’s economic strength, financial reach, and endowment of natural resources can be mobilized as economic levers to achieve political and diplomatic ends. Against this backdrop, this article advances the first hypothesis: H1 Network-based tie formation. Within global supply-chain networks, higher out-degree centrality of China—indicating broader upstream supply outreach—increases the probability of forming Chinese-style strategic partnership ties with other states. Building on H1, a country that exhibits a high degree of dependence on China is typically more deeply embedded in a China-centered web of mutual reliance, both through supply-chain interactions and through sustained political engagement, and is therefore more likely to enter into strategic partnerships with China that are distinct from traditional alliance commitments (Strüver 2017; Li and Ye 2019). In this setting, China can leverage its supply-chain capital by controlling critical strategic resources, logistical routes, and technological nodes, and by embedding these controls within partnership frameworks that intensify economic and political interdependence, thereby converting structural advantages into diplomatic influence and the ability to shape partners’ policy preferences. This article argues that such a mechanism tends to induce partner states to adopt more China-friendly positions, which can be observed in the convergence of their voting behavior and speech positions on China-related issues in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) (Lam and Fung 2025; Turcsányi et al. 2023). The research question developed in this article is grounded in Mitrany’s (1975) functionalism, Haas’s (1964) neofunctionalism, and Moravcsik’s (1998) inter-governmentalism. Taken together, functionalism and neofunctionalism suggest that limited, issue-specific economic and technical cooperation within a region can gradually generate both functional and political spillovers, through which interaction in the economic and technical realm expands into broader forms of political coordination. Placed in the context of global supply chains, Chinese-style strategic partnerships can be understood as cooperative arrangements that revolve around soft, non-traditional security issues such as the security and connectivity of sea lanes and ports, financial linkages, critical infrastructure, and supply chains of strategic minerals. In contrast to traditional alliances, whose core lies in potentially triggerable military obligations, these partnerships manage risk primarily through supply-chain resilience and institutionalized cooperation, whereas alliances rely on military commitments to deter external threats. In short, cooperation in these non-traditional security domains displays the characteristics of what Keohane and Nye (2011) describe as “low politics” and echoes the spillover logic of functionalism and neofunctionalism, in which sustained economic and technical cooperation gradually facilitates political coordination and convergence. Taken together, Chinese-style strategic partnerships can thus be viewed as institutional arrangements that convert economic and technical cooperation into diplomatic cooperation through cumulative spillover effects. However, the contemporary landscape of the international political economy has shifted. As Farrell and Newman (2023) observe, the dense and asymmetric interdependence among states has altered earlier expectations that such interdependence would primarily generate benign spillovers. It increasingly serves instead as diplomatic leverage and enables the “weaponization of interdependence.” Within global supply chains, control over critical nodes and asymmetric dependence can be converted into political influence (Farrell and Newman 2019; Hirschman 1945). In many settings, however, this influence is exercised less through overt coercion than through inducements and exchanges of resources that encourage convergence in states’ foreign policy positions. Recent quantitative work, for example, shows that China has used diplomatic aid and the economic instruments associated with the Belt and Road Initiative to secure diplomatic support (Yan and Zhou 2021; Steinert and Weyrauch 2024). Building on this discussion and extending H1, this article examines how China employs Chinese-style strategic partnerships to project diplomatic influence. This study further emphasizes that, in the accounts of Farrell and Newman and of Hirschman, states can deploy economic pressure to force target governments to make concessions or even capitulate. Drawing on this framework, the argument here is that China’s Chinese-style strategic partnerships generally do not operate by compelling signatory states to yield under duress. Rather, they function as institutionalized arrangements through which partner governments are encouraged to support China diplomatically, especially on salient issues, without primarily relying on explicit economic coercion. In this respect, the mechanism differs from the hard-edged version of weaponized interdependence, even though the underlying logic of leveraging asymmetric dependence remains similar. The second hypothesis is therefore formulated as follows: H2 Institutionalized network mediation. Once a Chinese-style strategic partnership tie is established, the institutionalized relationship mediates the effect of supply-chain network embeddedness, increasing the likelihood of convergence toward China’s diplomatic positions. Taken together, hypotheses H1 and H2 suggest that the formation and political consequences of Chinese-style strategic partnerships cannot be reduced to independent dyadic choices. Instead, partnership formation and its downstream diplomatic effects are embedded in broader patterns of supply-chain interdependence, shaped by the joint embeddedness of China and partner states within dense and evolving supply-chain neighborhoods. This perspective highlights endogenous network dependence, whereby partnership decisions and their political implications are conditioned by the surrounding structure of global production and trade networks rather than solely by bilateral attributes. Building on this network-centered view, H1 and H2 address two analytically distinct but interrelated dimensions. At the macro level, they examine how the structure and evolution of global supply chains shape the likelihood that Chinese-style strategic partnerships emerge and deepen. At the micro level, they assess how such partnerships are translated into concrete diplomatic behavior and political influence once formed. Together, these hypotheses clarify not only when strategic partnerships arise, but also how their political consequences unfold within the global trade and production system. These expectations speak to two competing theoretical logics. On the one hand, following the intuition of structural realism, concerns over relative gains and security competition may intensify trade frictions, constraining the expansion of Chinese-style strategic partnerships and limiting their diplomatic impact. On the other hand, functionalist and neoliberal institutionalist arguments suggest that the accumulation of supply-chain capital and the institutionalization of cooperation reduce transaction costs, enhance the credibility of commitments, and generate spillover effects, thereby facilitating partnership formation and enabling such ties to exert political influence. Research design Empirical methods: econometrics and TERGMs This article examines, in the context of global supply chains, the relationship between states’ varying degrees of dependence on China, the formation of Chinese-style strategic partnerships, and China’s diplomatic influence. The empirical strategy follows a two-pronged approach. First, fixed-effects (FE) models with dyad-specific fixed effects (dyadic FEs) are employed to absorb time-invariant unobserved heterogeneity, such as geographic location, material attributes of power and prestige, and slowly evolving non-material characteristics like reputations for resolve in international politics, while incorporating a set of time-varying control variables (Tomz 2007). Second, temporal exponential random graph models (TERGMs) are estimated to capture network dependence and address endogeneity in the evolution of strategic ties (Cranmer and Desmarais 2011; Hanneke et al. 2010; Leifeld et al. 2018). The TERGM analysis relies on a sequence of yearly networks covering the period 1995–2020, where countries constitute the nodes and ties represent the existence of Chinese-style strategic partnerships. This temporal network structure allows the model to capture how partnership networks evolve over time while accounting for endogenous network dependence. This article also implements quasi-placebo tests to assess whether the observed relationships among the existence of supply-chain linkages with China, the conclusion of Chinese-style strategic partnerships, and the extent to which partner states shift their foreign policy positions toward China remain empirically robust. Data Dependent variable To test the two hypotheses proposed in this study, two dependent variables are employed. For H1, the dependent variable captures whether a country has concluded a Chinese-style strategic partnership with China. Specifically, a binary indicator is constructed for each China–partner dyad–year. Dyad–years in which a strategic partnership agreement is in force are coded as 1; otherwise, they are coded as 0. The data are drawn from the dataset compiled by Zhang (2025), which systematically documents China’s bilateral strategic partnership arrangements from 1995 to 2025 and covers 109 partner states. For each China–partner dyad, the dataset records whether official partnership documents explicitly reaffirm the One-China policy or address issues related to Xinjiang, as well as whether they include provisions on security or military cooperation. These records allow the dataset to capture the institutionalized diplomatic relationships that form the core focus of this study. To evaluate H2, the dependent variable measures the degree of diplomatic alignment between China and other states. This study employs United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) roll-call voting data compiled by Bailey et al. (2017) to construct a continuous indicator of bilateral foreign-policy congruence based on the similarity between each state’s voting record and China’s. The scale is defined such that higher values indicate greater divergence from China’s position, whereas lower values reflect closer alignment. While UNGA voting does not necessarily represent binding foreign-policy commitments and may involve relatively low political costs, it remains a widely used indicator of diplomatic alignment, signaling, and dyadic interest similarity in international relations research (Bailey et al. 2017; Gartzke 2000; Kim and Russett 1996; Sweeney and Keshk 2005). Its primary advantage lies in its broad cross-national coverage and temporal consistency, which allow researchers to systematically observe patterns of diplomatic positioning across countries and over time. In this study, UNGA voting is therefore interpreted as a measure of diplomatic alignment and signaling, rather than formal policy commitments. Independent variable This study’s key independent variable captures the structure of trade linkages between China and other states within global supply chains, with a particular focus on upstream–downstream interdependence in strategically sensitive sectors by C20 to C26. In the network framework used in this study, countries constitute the nodes, and directed links represent intermediate-input supply relationships between exporting and importing countries within the supply chain. The empirical analysis relies primarily on the Trade in Value Added (TiVA) database jointly compiled by the OECD and the WTO (OECD 2023). TiVA covers most OECD economies and major emerging markets and provides harmonized cross-border input–output tables across four broad sectors. The period of analysis spans 1995–2020 and focuses on intermediate inputs from sector C20 (chemicals and chemical products) embodied in exports of sector C26 (computer, electronic, and optical products). Sector C20 constitutes a critical upstream supplier to C26 and includes high-purity wet-process chemicals, photoresists, specialty gases, and advanced solvents, while sector C26 encompasses downstream activities such as semiconductor fabrication and electronic assembly. Given the centrality of these chemical inputs and process materials to advanced manufacturing, especially in the computer and semiconductor industries, their strategic importance has become increasingly salient in an international environment characterized by intensified technological rivalry. To operationalize these trade linkages, this study uses the TiVA indicator of foreign value added in gross exports (FVA). Specifically, for each country, FVA measures the share of foreign C20 intermediate inputs embodied in its exports of C26 products. Building on this indicator, the study constructs a dyadic measure of vertical specialization, denoted as the Vertical Specialization share (VS share). The VS share captures, in year t, the proportion of value added in country i’s exports of C26 that originates from C20 inputs supplied by country j. Formally, Here \(\:{\text{FVA}}_{j\to\:i,t}\) denotes the foreign value added originating in country \(\:j\)’s C20 sector that is used as an intermediate input in country \(\:i\)’s C26 production and subsequently exported in year \(\:t\). \(\:{\text{Gross\:Exports}}_{i,t}\) is the total value of country \(\:i\)’s C26 exports in year \(\:t\). A larger value of \(\:{\text{VS\:share}}_{i,j,t}^{C20\to\:C26}\) indicates that country \(\:i\) relies more heavily on country \(\:j\) for intermediate inputs along this C20–C26 supply chain. This study employs \(\:{\text{VS}\text{}\text{share}}_{i,j,t}^{C20\to\:C26}\) as the main explanatory variable, directly capturing the intermediate-goods supply-chain linkage from “chemical inputs” (C20) to “electronics exports” (C26) between countries \(\:i\) and \(\:j\), and uses it as the basis for defining a directed tie from \(\:j\) to \(\:i\) in the TERGMs. To adapt the measure to the network framework, a binary version is also constructed: when \(\:{\text{VS\:share}}_{i,j,t}^{C20\to\:C26}>0\), the dyad \(\:\left(i,j\right)\) is treated as having a substantive production linkage. In this way, a positive value of \(\:{\text{VS\:share}}_{i,j,t}^{C20\to\:C26}\) is interpreted as evidence of a supply-chain connection between the two countries. Following the logic of H1, when China functions as an exporter of intermediate inputs in chemicals, it occupies a highly intermediating and strategically advantageous position in the supply chain. To capture this, the term \(\:{\text{VS\:share}}_{i,j,t}^{C20\to\:C26}\) is recoded into a binary indicator that focuses on China’s role as the exporting country. If the value of \(\:{\text{VS\:share}}_{i,j,t}^{C20\to\:C26}\) for the dyad \(\:\left(i,j\right)\) in year \(\:t\) is greater than zero, it is coded as \(\:1\); otherwise it is coded as \(\:0\). This dummy variable is denoted \(\:VS\:Out\) and is interpreted as indicating that China occupies a chokepoint position as an upstream supplier of chemical intermediates. Building on \(\:VS\:Out\), the analysis next counts how many out-degree links China, CHN Out-Degree, maintains with other countries in each year from 1995 to 2020. A larger out-degree implies higher export centrality and a more extensive supply network in that year. A data limitation must be acknowledged. Because \(\:VS\hspace{0.25em}Out\) is derived from the OECD TiVA database and thus constrained by its country coverage, the empirical analysis can only examine the relationship between the conclusion of Chinese-style strategic partnerships and the relevant covariates for country pairs that appear in TiVA. The estimates therefore cannot be directly extended to countries that are not covered by the TiVA data. Covariates In addition to the two principal dependent variables and the main independent variable, this study includes a set of covariates to account for exogenous factors that may influence the estimations of H1 and H2. First, to capture differences in material capabilities, the models control for economic development and population size. Economic development is measured using GDP per capita from the Maddison Project database, and a relative economic gap indicator is constructed to reflect differences between each country and China. Population size for both China and its strategic partner countries is also included, drawing on data from the Maddison Project database (Bolt and van Zanden 2025). Together, these controls account for disparities in material capabilities between China and its strategic partners. Second, the degree of democratic development is controlled for using democracy scores from the Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project (Coppedge et al. 2024a, 2024b, 2024c). Third, the models include indicators capturing whether countries that have concluded a “Chinese-style” strategic partnership with China publicly support Beijing’s positions on the one-China policy toward Taiwan, Xinjiang-related issues, the South China Sea, and Hong Kong. These variables account for baseline political alignment that may condition diplomatic behavior independently of economic linkages. Finally, dyadic geographic distance is included to capture structural constraints on interaction and alignment between country pairs. Empirical analysis Table 1 presents the estimates from the TERGM. Because the model is estimated with a logit link, each coefficient reflects the change in the log-odds that China concludes a Chinese-style strategic partnership with another state, conditional on all other terms in the specification. The Edges (baseline tie) parameter plays the role of an intercept. Its estimate, − 128.028, implies that, when all other covariates are set to zero, the formation of a Chinese-style strategic partnership is virtually impossible.Footnote 2 To account for endogenous network dependence, the model includes a geometrically weighted edgewise shared partner term (gwesp) with the decay parameter fixed at 0.5. The gwesp statistic captures transitivity and clustering tendencies in the network, that is, whether two states are more likely to establish a partnership when they share common partners. In other words, if country A and country B both maintain strategic partnerships with country C, transitivity implies that A and B may also be more likely to establish a partnership with each other. The estimated coefficient for gwesp is positive (21.5777), suggesting that Chinese-style strategic partnerships may exhibit some clustering or triadic closure in the network structure. However, the coefficient does not reach conventional levels of statistical significance. This indicates that while some transitive tendencies may exist, the formation of Chinese-style strategic partnerships is not primarily driven by endogenous clustering dynamics once economic and political covariates are taken into account. The Temporal Memory (stability) term captures whether an existing bilateral tie in period \(\:t-1\) increases the likelihood of a strategic partnership in period \(\:t\). Its estimated coefficient is statistically different from zero, indicating that a previously existing relationship, by itself, does not make the conclusion of a Chinese-style partnership more probable. Put differently, when the dyad does not exhibit an intermediate-goods supply-chain link in which China is the exporting state (VS Out) in period \(\:t-1\), the chances of moving to a Chinese-style partnership remain low. Once the VS Out condition is introduced, the results change markedly. From a network perspective, this result indicates that strategic partnership formation is conditional on the existence of an embedded supply-chain tie, rather than being driven by China’s overall popularity or dyadic attributes alone. The estimated coefficient on VS Out is 13.8296, and its confidence interval does not include zero. Because the coefficient on Temporal Memory (stability) is − 11.6881, the combined effect of an upstream intermediate-goods link in which China is the supplier and prior tie stability is \(\:13.8296-11.6881=2.1415\). Exponentiating this sum yields \(\:\text{e}\text{x}\text{p}\left(2.1415\right)\approx\:8.5\). Substantively, the presence of an upstream intermediate-goods link in which China is the supplier is associated with the dyad being approximately 8.5 times more likely to conclude a Chinese-style strategic partnership, holding other factors constant.Footnote 3 Moreover, the estimated coefficient on CHN Out-Degree is 0.1609. Although the sign is positive, its confidence interval includes zero. This pattern indicates that a broader reach of China’s supply-chain links and market connections, as captured by out-degree centrality, does not by itself make other states more likely to conclude a Chinese-style strategic partnership with China. In light of established expectations in the network-analysis literature and the stronger results for VS Out, this finding merits further discussion. As noted earlier, a higher out-degree implies that, within global production networks, China functions as a highly sought-after exporter. This reading is consistent with the idea of preferential attachment in network analysis: nodes with more existing ties have a higher probability of attracting additional ties over time (Barabási and Albert 1999). In social network research, degree centrality is routinely employed as an indicator of popularity: actors named as friends by many others are also more likely to become partners in newly formed relationships (Wasserman and Faust 1994). Kinne (2018) advances a similar logic for security cooperation, showing that states with higher degree centrality are more likely to attract additional defense cooperation agreements. In Table 1, although the estimated coefficient on CHN Out-Degree is not statistically distinguishable from zero, the pattern remains broadly consistent with the earlier argument about preferential linkage. In a global supply-chain setting, the breadth of China’s export network alone is not sufficient to induce states to conclude Chinese-style strategic partnership agreements. What appears to be decisive is whether China and a given country are actually connected through a substantive supply-chain relationship. In this study, that relationship is operationalized as the presence of an intermediate-input flow in chemical raw materials from China to the partner country, and its effect on the likelihood of partnership formation is formally assessed. The significance of VS Out thus indicates that, within the architecture of global supply chains, the existence of an intermediate-goods link between China and another state is what conditions the probability that a Chinese-style strategic partnership will emerge. Taken together, these results underscore endogenous network dependence: partnership formation is shaped by how China and partner states are jointly embedded in concrete supply-chain neighborhoods, rather than by dyadic attributes or aggregate network centrality alone. This does not imply that broader network reach is irrelevant, but rather that its influence operates indirectly through the availability and configuration of concrete supply-chain ties. In multivariate settings, as Chen and Feng (1996) note, the effects of individual covariates may be conveyed through correlations and structural relationships rather than through statistically significant coefficients alone. Accordingly, explaining the emergence of Chinese-style strategic partnerships requires considering multiple, jointly operating conditions. In the present framework, these include whether a country is directly linked to China through intermediate-goods supply chains and the broader structure of China’s position in global supply-chain networks. However, the empirical results indicate that the former constitutes the proximate driver of partnership formation. In short, H1 is not fully confirmed. Yet, when the multivariate results are taken into consideration, both the existence of substantive supply-chain ties between China and its partners and the breadth of China’s global supply-chain network emerge as important conditions shaping the formation of Chinese-style strategic partnerships. Accordingly, H1 still receives partial support: the conclusion of such partnerships is closely related to China’s provision of intermediate goods and to the extent to which partner states are embedded in Chinese-centered supply-chain structures. Drawing on the 2014 and 2025 documents in which Australia and Azerbaijan, respectively, established Chinese-style strategic partnerships with China (Zhang 2025), both sets of texts emphasize that the supply of key energy carriers and raw materials—notably oil, natural gas, and mineral resources—is of structural importance to China. The relevant joint statements not only formally upgrade the bilateral relationships to “comprehensive strategic partnerships,” but also repeatedly call for deepening cooperation in fields such as energy development, transport corridors, infrastructure construction, and green transition initiatives. Taken together, these provisions highlight China’s effort to build an institutionalized framework with major energy suppliers in order to stabilize long-term access and to convert that access into diplomatic leverage. Although these examples do not explicitly address chemical inputs, this article argues that basic chemical feedstocks occupy a similarly pivotal position in the computer industry and other high-technology sectors and should likewise be regarded as strategic resources. From this vantage point, the Australian and Azerbaijani cases not only illustrate China’s strategic collaboration with key energy suppliers, but also point to a broader implication: when China attains a prominent position in the supply chains of critical intermediate goods such as chemical feedstocks, the very structure of these supply-chain linkages can become an important inducement for other states to opt for Chinese-style strategic partnerships with China. Table 2 evaluates H2 by examining whether, once a Chinese-style strategic partnership is in place, China can induce partner states to move closer to its diplomatic positions. The table reports ordinary least squares estimates with both conventional and country-clustered standard errors. Country and year fixed effects are included in all specifications, but the corresponding coefficients are omitted from the table for brevity. The probability of strategic partnership (Prob. of SP) is derived from simulation-based predicted probabilities generated from the TERGM estimates in Table 1. This simulation-based approach is particularly appropriate in a network setting, where tie probabilities are inherently interdependent and cannot be interpreted independently of the surrounding network structure. As shown in Table 2, conditional on the other covariates, a higher predicted probability of concluding such a partnership is associated with a more pro-China diplomatic position on the part of partner states. A one-unit increase in the probability of a Chinese-style strategic partnership is associated with a 1.0254-unit shift toward China on the UNGA alignment scale. A second noteworthy feature of Table 2 concerns the estimates for One-China Policy, Xinjiang, South China Sea, and Hong Kong. One-China Policy indicates whether a state endorses China’s position on the Taiwan issue. The results show that, when a Chinese-style strategic partnership is formed and the partner supports the One-China principle, the partner tends to move even closer to China’s overall diplomatic stance. A similar pattern is observed for Hong Kong. The negative coefficient for Hong Kong suggests that support for China’s position on this issue is itself associated with a more pro-China foreign policy orientation. This tendency is further reinforced by Chinese-style strategic partnerships, which remain linked to a broader diplomatic shift toward China. Finally, the positive coefficients for Xinjiang and the South China Sea suggest that states supporting China’s positions on these issues exhibit, respectively, approximately 0.1433- and 0.123-unit greater diplomatic distance from China. Nevertheless, the effect of Chinese-style strategic partnerships remains negative and considerably larger in magnitude. This indicates that, even among states whose issue-specific support on Xinjiang and the South China Sea is associated with greater diplomatic distance, Chinese-style strategic partnerships are still linked to a pronounced shift toward China in their broader diplomatic alignment. This article argues that the formation of Chinese-style strategic partnerships, together with states’ positions on the One-China policy, Xinjiang, the South China Sea, and Hong Kong, conditions the extent to which China can translate its intermediate-goods supply-chain ties into effective diplomatic leverage. Table 2 shows that even countries that do not initially share Beijing’s stance on these issues tend, after concluding a Chinese-style strategic partnership with China, to move closer to China in their overall diplomatic alignment. These patterns provide empirical support for H2 as reported in Table 2. To address the possibility that diplomatic alignment may also be shaped by competing great-power networks, particularly those centered on the United States (Flores-Macías and Kreps 2013), Table 3 introduces additional control variables capturing institutional ties to the United States.Footnote 4 Specifically, the specification includes Econ. Treaty with USA, which measures whether a country maintains formal economic agreements with the United States. This variable is constructed using the Design of Trade Agreements (DESTA) database (Dür et al. 2014), which systematically records the design and membership of preferential trade agreements. The model also includes USA Defense Ally, which captures whether a country is linked to the United States through a formal defense alliance. Data on alliance commitments are drawn from the Alliance Treaty Obligations and Provisions (ATOP) dataset (Leeds et al. 2002), which provides detailed information on defense, neutrality, and consultation obligations in formal alliance treaties. The results remain broadly consistent with those reported in Table 2. The inclusion of U.S.-related controls does not substantially alter the estimated effects of Chinese-style strategic partnerships and supply-chain linkages on diplomatic alignment. The coefficients associated with the main explanatory variables remain similar in both direction and magnitude, suggesting that the observed relationship is not driven by omitted variables related to U.S.-centered institutional networks. Among the additional controls, USA Defense Ally exhibits a positive and statistically significant coefficient in the baseline specification. This pattern indicates that countries formally allied with the United States tend to maintain greater diplomatic distance from China in UNGA voting behavior. Such a result is consistent with expectations from alliance politics, where security commitments may constrain states’ foreign policy flexibility and limit the extent to which they adjust their diplomatic positions toward competing major powers. By contrast, Econ. Treaty with USA does not reach conventional levels of statistical significance, suggesting that economic institutional ties with the United States alone do not systematically shape states’ UNGA voting alignment with China once other covariates are taken into account. Taken together, the results reported in Tables 2 and 3 reveal a consistent pattern. Even after controlling for competing institutional ties with the United States, China’s intermediate-goods linkages and its extensive supply-chain network continue to increase the probability that other states conclude Chinese-style strategic partnerships. At the same time, these institutionalized relationships enable China to exert greater diplomatic influence, gradually drawing partner countries closer to Beijing in their foreign-policy positions. To probe H2 further, this study incorporates the triple interaction term \(\:\text{Prob.\:of\:SP}\times\:\text{VS\:out}\times\:\text{Num.\:of\:CHN\:out-degree}\) into the specification. The corresponding estimates are reported in the online appendix, and Fig. 2 visualizes the substantive implications of these interaction effects. As Fig. 2 illustrates, when a state concludes a Chinese-style strategic partnership with China under conditions of intermediate-goods supply-chain linkages and China’s extensive production network, the partner tends to bring its foreign-policy positions into closer alignment with those of Beijing. Asia–Pacific illustration: Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea The empirical analysis above has shown that, through intermediate-goods supply-chain linkages and Chinese-style strategic partnership agreements, China is able to project diplomatic influence at the global level, at least within the set of OECD economies. We now turn to the Asia-Pacific and examine whether this relationship continues to hold in a more specific regional context. Because the TiVA data only cover a subset of OECD member states, the Asia-Pacific analysis is limited to four economies: Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand. Among these, Japan has not concluded a Chinese-style strategic partnership agreement with China, so the discussion focuses on South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand as the primary cases. Figure 3, based on the estimates reported in Table 2, plots changes in the three countries’ diplomatic positions vis-à-vis China before and after the conclusion of Chinese-style strategic partnership agreements. Australia and New Zealand both upgraded their relations with China to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership in 2014. The figure shows that, after 2014, their voting behavior in the UNGA gradually converges toward China’s positions. This pattern suggests that higher-level and more institutionalized strategic partnership arrangements are indeed conducive to translating embeddedness in intermediate-goods supply chains into greater diplomatic affinity toward China. By contrast, although South Korea entered into a Strategic Cooperative Partnership with China in 2008, its stance toward China in multilateral arenas such as the UNGA does not exhibit the same clear convergence. A plausible explanation is that a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership, relative to a Strategic Cooperative Partnership, occupies a higher position in the hierarchy of agreements, features a greater degree of institutionalization, and encompasses broader and deeper areas of cooperation (Zhang 2025). As a result, it is better able to induce Australia and New Zealand to move closer to China diplomatically. At the same time, South Korea’s heavy security dependence on the United States constrains its room for adjustment in its foreign policy toward China. Despite limitations in the available data, the preliminary findings for this set of Asia–Pacific countries indicate that China, by leveraging intermediate–goods supply–chain linkages and its distinctive forms of strategic partnership, exercises diplomatic influence not only at the global level but also among key medium and middle powers in the Asia–Pacific. Even against the backdrop of strategic competition in the Indo–Pacific, these mechanisms shape states’ China policies and their position–taking in multilateral arenas. These results further suggest that the ongoing reconfiguration of Asia–Pacific supply chains and regional order must be understood through the dual lenses of “supply–chain capital” and “strategic partnership networks”. Quasi-Placebo test Up to this point, this article has documented a stable relationship between Chinese-style strategic partnerships, China–partner supply-chain linkages, and partners’ foreign-policy positions toward China. To further examine the strength and temporal direction of this relationship, a quasi-placebo test with a one-period lead is implemented. Building on the baseline specification, an additional interaction term is introduced that combines the lead values of Prob. of SP, VS out, and Num. of CHN out-degree; this interaction serves as the quasi-placebo treatment variable. It captures the combined effect of these three covariates in the subsequent period. If the estimated coefficient on this lead interaction is not statistically different from zero, this indicates that the future configuration of strategic partnerships and supply-chain ties does not predict contemporaneous diplomatic alignment with China. Table 4 reports the estimates from ordinary least squares (OLS) with conventional standard errors and with HC1 heteroskedasticity-consistent standard errors. In both cases, the coefficient on the lead interaction term is statistically insignificant. This absence of a significant effect suggests that future values of the strategic-partnership probability and supply-chain position do not drive current UN voting behavior toward China. Instead, the baseline results are best interpreted as reflecting the impact of existing partnership probabilities and supply-chain embedding on pro-China diplomatic behavior, rather than spurious association arising from omitted time-varying factors or anticipatory adjustment. Taken together, the lead quasi-placebo evidence supports the identification strategy adopted in this study. The association between Chinese-style strategic partnerships and the depth of China–partner supply-chain embedding does not merely reproduce pre-existing trends or early shifts in foreign policy that would have occurred regardless of China’s economic ties. Rather, the observed pattern of strategic partnerships and supply-chain connections appears to provide China with leverage to shape partners’ foreign-policy alignment. In this sense, the results are consistent with the view that China uses supply-chain capital and the strategic-partnership framework to gradually draw partner countries closer to its positions in multilateral diplomatic arenas, instead of simply rewarding governments that were already inclined to adopt pro-China stances and thereby attracting deeper supply-chain and partnership ties in advance. Concluding remarks Earlier work has treated strategic partnerships as a form of cooperation distinct from traditional security alliances, differing not only in legal form but also in policy orientation. As military technology has advanced, the likelihood of large-scale, highly destructive interstate war has fallen considerably. Under dense global production networks, patterns of confrontation have shifted toward non-traditional security issues. Terrorism and piracy, the security of sea lines of communication, the accumulation and robustness of what may be called supply-chain capital, semiconductor rivalry, trade disputes, and tariff battles have become central challenges for contemporary states. Resilient supply chains are thus crucial to both economic performance and national security, and reducing the risk of disruption has moved to the top of many governments’ agendas. Earlier studies argue that partnership arrangements can help dampen interstate tensions and facilitate cooperation. Building on this line of inquiry, the present study instead asks how, in a world organized around global supply chains, access to strategic raw materials, energy resources, and key components is intertwined with the formation of strategic partnerships. Rather than focusing only on the formal distinctions between alliances and partnerships, the analysis situates these relationships within the broader landscape of international political economy and links their emergence to the governance of strategic goods. China offers a particularly revealing case. The empirical evidence indicates that China’s position in intermediate-goods supply networks raises the probability that other countries enter into Chinese-style partnership agreements with Beijing. From the perspectives of functionalism, neofunctionalism, and transgovernmentalism, these arrangements do touch on politically sensitive issues such as the One China policy, human rights in Xinjiang, and disputes in the South China Sea. Yet their operative core lies in cooperation over trade, finance, energy, and critical infrastructure. In this sense, Chinese-style partnerships provide institutionalized channels through which Beijing can exercise diplomatic influence, and they are associated with a gradual convergence of partners’ foreign-policy positions toward China. The results, in important respects, speak to core claims of both structural realism and neoliberal institutionalism. Waltz’s structural realism suggests that, under concerns about relative gains and security, interdependence tends to magnify distributional conflict and heighten security dilemmas, thereby increasing the risk of confrontation (Waltz 1979). In a world of highly specialized global supply chains, however, the findings here indicate that even when states engage in sharp rhetorical clashes in diplomatic arenas, they remain dependent on imports of critical strategic inputs if they wish to preserve supply-chain resilience. At the same time, they turn to establishing or deepening partnership ties as a way to manage risk and uncertainty. Security anxieties and economic interdependence thus coexist and jointly push states toward forms of cooperation organized around non-traditional security concerns. The analysis also resonates with the neoliberal institutionalist claim that, under conditions of extensive interdependence, governments have incentives to institutionalize cooperation in order to reduce transaction costs and uncertainty. Although that framework was developed primarily with interactions among democracies in mind, the Chinese case suggests a broader applicability. By shaping supply-chain structures in intermediate goods and other critical inputs, China reinforces patterns of mutual dependence with partner countries and then uses this embeddedness as a basis for advancing partnership agreements. Its influence in international politics derives not only from conventional military or material capabilities, but also from the supply-chain leverage created by its position in global production networks and by the dense web of Chinese-style partnerships, which together enable the continued exercise of geopolitical and economic influence within the contemporary global supply-chain order. Finally, from the perspective of the Asia-Pacific region, this article’s preliminary analysis of Australia, New Zealand, and South Korea suggests that, against the backdrop of Indo-Pacific strategic competition and supply-chain restructuring, China has gradually been shaping a new pattern of “cooperation–dependence–diplomatic alignment” in the region through its deployment of intermediate-goods supply chains and its strategic partnership agreements. For Australia and New Zealand, the combination of comprehensive strategic partnerships and deep embedding in China-centered intermediate-goods supply chains has fostered a gradual convergence of their positions toward China in multilateral fora. For South Korea, by contrast, the evidence reflects a strategic tug-of-war shaped by the interaction between the U.S.-led alliance framework and dense economic interdependence with China. Future research that incorporates a broader set of Indo-Pacific states and additional key production chains would help to provide a more comprehensive understanding of how the “supply-chain capital” accumulated by China in the Asia-Pacific order and global supply-chain governance interacts with the strategies of the United States and other actors, and how this interaction reshapes regional and global political economy in the twenty-first century. Data availability The data used in this study are drawn from publicly available sources and from datasets compiled by the author. OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) data and United Nations General Assembly voting records are publicly accessible from their respective providers. Data on Chinese-style strategic partnerships were compiled by the author from official government documents and secondary sources. Replication materials and processed data can be made available upon reasonable request. Notes C20 denotes chemicals and chemical products used as intermediate inputs embodied in the production of C26 products, namely computer, electronic, and optical products, following the sector classification used in the OECD Trade in Value Added (TiVA) database. We thank an anonymous reviewer for suggesting a test of potential reverse causality. Following this suggestion, we estimate a lead quasi-placebo model in the Appendix Table A6, which shows no evidence that strategic partnerships predict future intermediate-goods trade linkages. We further examine the sample distribution of VS out and Chinese-style strategic partnerships in Appendix Table A2, which motivates a more cautious interpretation of the VS out coefficient. As an additional robustness check, we replace VS out with VS share and re-estimate the model in Appendix Table A8. 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Int Spectator 55(1):62–77. https://doi.org/10.1080/03932729.2020.1712137 Author information Authors and Affiliations Contributions Cheng-Han Tsai conceptualized the study, designed the research, performed data collection and analysis, and wrote the manuscript. Jiun-Da Lin contributed to the methodological refinement, model specification, interpretation of empirical results, revision of the manuscript, and the preparation of responses to the reviewers. Corresponding authors Ethics declarations Competing interests The authors declare no competing interests. Additional information Publisher’s note Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Supplementary Information Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material. 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To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. About this article Cite this article Tsai, CH., Lin, JD. From supply chain networks to diplomatic alignment: a dynamic network analysis using temporal ERGMs. Appl Netw Sci 11, 60 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1007/s41109-026-00797-0 Received: Accepted: Published: Version of record: DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s41109-026-00797-0