China’s direct investment in the European Union: a new regulatory challenge?

Divide and conquer? China and the cacophony of foreign investment rules in the EU

“…When principals have heterogeneous preferences but negotiate as one whole, they can derive strength from this supposed weakness because having their hands tied internally can lead them to obtain greater concessions externally (Schelling 1960). This particular paradox has been well documented in the case of EU trade policy (Conceição-Heldt 2013;Damro 2007;Duer and Elsig 2011;Meunier 2005).…”

Is the China-effect real? Ideational change and the political contestation of Chinese state-led investment in Europe

“…CSLI is in our conceptualization not restricted to immediately state-owned, but to state-controlled Chinese investment in the broadest sense. We derive this conceptualization from three major insights of the literature on Chinese investment into Europe: first, that China has been growing quickly over the last decade as major investor into Europe; and second that this investment is to a large degree consisting of state-owned or private, but state-directed capital, which is de facto governed in the same manner (Hanemann, 2014;Kratz et al, 2020;Le Corre, 2018;Meunier, 2019;Zhang & Van Den Bulcke, 2014). Third, Chinese outward investment is, on average, controlling investment, which means that CSLI aims in general at acquiring whole firms or at least majority-stakes in its host countries (Babic et al, 2020).…”

“…Logically, we focus on those parts of national investment regimes that govern inward investment. The EU and European countries have been very open to foreign investment in general and CSLI in particular for a longer time period (Zhang & Van Den Bulcke, 2014). We trace the changes of these regimes over time as our dependent variable.…”

FDI policies in Europe in the aftermath of the 2008+ crisis

“…Factors understood as both formal and informal rules of the game in a society structure political, economic and social interaction and set boundaries defining the scope of legitimate and accepted activities. They create the context for economic processes including the venturing abroad by domestic companies and the hosting of foreign investors [Gavin 2012;Zhang, and Van Den Bulcke 2014;Cuervo-Cazurra and Genc 2011;Peng, Wang, and Jiang 2008]. In fact, policies adopted by governments towards foreign investments constitute part of a broader institutional FDI setting.…”