Dr. Jean-Marc F. Blanchard's blog

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, a joint venture (JV) is a sensible strategy as multiple firms working together might, in concept, lower design uncertainties, share development and production costs and risks, and minimize the expenditures associated with branding, marketing, and distribution.

It is widely known that not that long ago China adopted measures to limit capital outflows following several years of massive declines in its foreign currency reserves. One of these was new review processes for deals crossing certain thresholds, which were lower in situations where an overseas deal was unrelated to the investor’s “core” business. Regarding the latter, policymakers opined that numerous deals were “‘irrational and abnormal.’”

There has been growing angst in the United States (US) about China’s designs in the semiconductor sector. What seems to have elevated the level of anxiety is the fact Chinese firms now are throwing around billions of dollars to acquire American and European semiconductor firms like Lattice Semiconductor (US) and Aixtron (Germany). Largely in response to Chinese moves, Barack Obama, at the end of his 2^nd term, launched a study of the state of the US semiconductor sector that devoted substantial attention to China.

As our readership knows, one of China’s signature foreign policy initiatives is the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI), a key part of its larger One Belt, One Road (OBOR) scheme.

Chinese companies like Bright Foods, Dalian Wanda, Fosun Group, Midea, and State Grid have been active buyers of European companies over the past few years. In 2014, they invested USD $18 billion while in 2015 they poured $23 billion into Europe.