This article reports on the new and decentralized trade governance model that China is building by exploiting finance, trade, and investment initiatives. Memorandums of understanding, contracts, and trade and investment treaties are creating a hub and spokes legal order with China at the center. The piece initially examines China’s use of state-owned and private enterprise investments and commercial contracts to export its infrastructure-based development model. It then looks at China’s use of free trade and investment agreements as well as domestic innovation policy to complement this.
Brandice Canes-Wrone, Lauren Mattioli, and Sophie Meunier
This article contributes to the literature on the ongoing anti economic globalization backlash by studying the United States (US)’ safeguards relating to foreign direct investment (FDI). Despite the US’s traditional welcoming attitude towards FDI, some deals have garnered negative political attention resulting in readjustments to the institutions that the US uses to manage inward FDI (IFDI) flows. The rise of China as a major source of IFDI has presented new challenges and spurred new limitations.
This chapter serves both as a primer on China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) and the MSRI in Africa as well as the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) and the introduction to the edited volume. It begins with background on the history, features, and goals of China’s MSRI, noting various contemporary issues surrounding China’s ambitious scheme.
Iran is one of China’s most important partners in the Middle East and it hosts extensive Chinese investment and infrastructure projects. Iran is central player in China’s Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI) and given the aforementioned situation many believed Iran would provide fertile soil for the development of the MSRI. An analysis of the scale and implementation of the MSRI in Iran, however, does not track with such expectations.
Ethiopia has very close political, military, and economic relations with China, with some arguing Addis Ababa has become a near client state of China’s as a result of its economic needs, China’s trade, foreign direct investment, loan, and infrastructure offerings, and the allure of the Maritime Silk Road Initiative (MSRI). This chapter offers a discussion of the MSRI in Ethiopia, which demonstrates the MSRI has been progressing relatively smoothly, though it faces genuine challenges. It also shows the perspective that Ethiopia is a client state is overly simplistic.
This chapter explores the treatment of multinational corporations (MNCs) and social issues from 1960 to the present day through a review of the extent scholarly literature. From the 1960s on, economic and international business scholars concentrated on the economic and political impacts of MNCs, while international political economy scholars devoted more research to political and social issues. Since the 2010s, however, scholars of MNCs have been given more attention to the global social responsibility of such actors.
This article contends COVID-19 will spur a new world order with implications for international institutions, the unity of the European Union, multinational corporations (MNCs), foreign direct investment flows, the use of virtual money, and government policy. It argues we will see a rise in nationalism and protectionism, changing attitudes towards information from certain sources, the localization and regionalization of supply chains, the bifurcation of the world, and the securitzation of certain industries.
Tommaso, Marco R. Di, Francesca Spigarelli, Elisa Barbieri, and Lauretta Rubini
This chapter describes how Western and domestic firms are competing in the various sub-segments of the Chinese healthcare market. It begins by looking at China’s “Open Door” policy and the impact of foreign direct investments (FDI) in China by Western multinationals. It then considers recent trends in China’s expansion abroad through FDI. The chapter analyzes various cases to understand the motives behind the growing integration of the Chinese healthcare industry in the global value chain.
In this podcast, Wong MNC Center Senior Research Fellow Peter J. Buckley offers his thoughts about the impact of Covid-19 and other contemporary global developments on China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which he views as a political-economic endeavor. Buckley feels Covid-19 will raise questions about certain BRI projects given all the other budgetary demands that have arisen and will lead to a new focus on other forms of connectivity like the health and digital silk roads.
This article is the final part in a three-part series examining the United States (US) investment war with China and focuses on Washington’s war against US foreign direct investment (FDI) in China. It first details the forms of the US war, which include negative rhetoric about US FDI in China, the US-China trade war, and efforts to encourage companies to return to the US. It then considers the political and economic costs and benefits of these diverse tactics, showing that the calculus rarely is straightforward.
