Japanese Prime Minister Abe Shinzo’s late October 2018 visit to China and the 10th Mekong Japan summit that preceded this trip focused renewed spotlight on Japan-China cooperation and competition. Cooperation and competition between East Asia’s two heavyweights also has been a salient topic to those attentive to the Belt and...
Archives: Blog entries
October 28, 2018
September 23, 2018
In 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) voted to leave the European Union (EU). “Brexit” fueled considerable anxieties in the Japanese business world, which is the second largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) in the UK. This was hardly shocking given the latter’s extensive involvement in the UK. But Brexit...
August 18, 2018
In the 1970s, Tokyo adopted a conscious strategy to encourage outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) by Japanese firms as a way to mitigate the poisonous pollution flowing from Japan’s economic miracle. This OFDI imposed considerable negative environmental externalities on Southeast Asia and China where Japanese companies shifted their operations. In...
June 25, 2018
To spur economic development, Vietnam has been, among other strategies, moving to establish special economic zones (SEZs). As elsewhere, these SEZs offer special privileges like long-term leases up to 99 years, tax breaks for companies and workers, and discounts on water and other service charges. In Vietnam’s case, SEZs recently...
May 16, 2018
Recently, GAP, an American apparel firm, caught fire in China because one of its t-shirts selling in Canada had a map of China that did not include Taiwan or South Tibet. This incident follows several other ones involving well-known multinational companies (MNCs) such as Germany’s Audi and Daimler Benz, the...
April 24, 2018
Countries around the world are aggressively constructing industrial parks (“Parks”), high-tech zones (HTZs), and special economic zones (SEZs). They hope incentives such as free or discounted land, lower taxes, and lighter regulation coupled with improved infrastructure, better trade opportunities, and high-quality administration will yield multiple benefits. These include increasing the amount...
March 23, 2018
At present, the eyes of the foreign business community in China understandably are fixed on United States (US) President Donald Trump’s levying of tariffs on Chinese strategic goods, China’s retaliation, and the potential for the situation to escalate. While such matters warrant attention, the business community also should be alert...
March 1, 2018
Since 2014, Chinese outward foreign direct investment (COFDI) in the United States (US) has grown dramatically. Of course, there were failed deals, some because of the US Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which vets transactions involving foreign firms for potential adverse national security implications. Of late,...
February 5, 2018
The long-standing debate about Chinese neocolonialism has been reborn as a result of China’s massive Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and Chinese multinational companies (MNCs) taking over Sri Lanka’s Hambantota Port and leasing a huge plot of land in Colombo Port. Adding fuel to the fire, the contemporary features of...
September 28, 2017
According to an article that appeared in Caixin, a well-known Chinese business publication, in mid-September, Great Wall Motor Co. Ltd. and two other unnamed Chinese car makers potentially might set up a joint automobile plant in the United States (US) as a means of reducing investment risk. On the surface,...
