China became the largest world automobile market in 2009, following a decade of rapid growth. Foreign carmakers played a central role in bringing in technology, management know-how and marketing capabilities, as well as in building supply chains; while domestic companies, mainly central or local state-owned, established joint ventures with foreign carmakers, which took the lion's share of the Chinese market. However, in the late 1990s, some domestic private companies accessed to this market and experienced rapid growth. In order to discuss the catching up and internationalisation processes of Chinese carmakers, and in particular the crucial relationship between the two processes, this paper focuses on the case study of Geely, which broke both industrial and institutional barriers to access this industry. It experienced various ways of catching up, including technology imitation via reverse engineering, product architecture innovation, and asset seeking acquisitions abroad; as well as various ways of international growth, including export, assembly abroad, market seeking operations, and (again) asset-seeking acquisitions abroad. This case study helps the understanding of catching up of Chinese firms, while offering insights into the competitive strategy of emerging multinationals. This paper explores jointly the trajectories of catching up and of multinational growth.

The comparison of the automobile industry in China and India allows us to shed light on the economic processes of emergence at large. There is a stark contrast in the capacities of autonomisation and endogenisation of the sector in the two countries. This contrast serves as an analyser of the relationships between the modes of sector opening and the paths of technological catching-up that is at the core of the phenomenon of emergence.

Recently, the volume of Chinese FDI made in Europe has reached the level of European FDI in China (now constrained by restrictions and risks). It equaled the level of FDI made by Chinese firms in the United States before they began to decline in the last two years. The Chinese economic presence in Europe is divided into three parts in terms of volume, destination, and type of acquisition: The heart of Europe is made up of the three major destinations (Germany, UK, France), where more capital-intensive investments are made, followed by other Western European countries (EU-15). New member states (NMS) that joined the EU in 2004, 2007, and 2013, and Western Balkan countries, in accession to the EU, are associated with China in the 16+1 Format (with the exception of Kosovo) and are another gateway to Europe. They receive less direct investment because of smaller market opportunities but China is building infrastructure (ports, highways, railways)—segments of the Silk Road that will bring Chinese products to the mature markets of the EU.

International audienceThis paper investigates the peculiar and contradictory nature of the on-going constructionof a system of corporate governance in China. The analysis attempts to overcome the limits oftraditional corporate studies that tend to focus on enterprise management, and puts the issuewithin the framework of the systemic and political relationships that shape economicmanagement and state intervention in large enterprises in transitional socialist systems. Theemergence of a specific managerial culture within the market and of winners among theenterprises is related to the position still held by the state in the enterprise asset, and by the accessto competitive markets available to the enterprises. State owned enterprises, enjoy the protectionof their status but they are more successful and adopt a more profit-oriented management cultureif they operate in the internationalised and competitive markets rather than in the strategical lowprofit,state-dominated sectors. Due to continuous interaction between enterprise managementand external (policy or macro-economic) factors, and to the absence or underdevelopment ofmost of the institutions generally necessary for a sound corporate governance system (financialmarkets, bank independence, free press etc.) the privatisation does not seem sufficient toengender all round market-led governance

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