Against the backdrop of rising interest in if not alarm about Chinese overseas direct investment (ODI), A Casebook on Chinese Outbound Investment: Law, Policy, and Business (hereinafter, the Casebook) is designed to provide fact-based and neutral case studies to help inform teaching in professional schools, including law, policy, and business schools. Comprised of fifteen cases, based on primary source materials, and written by experts, many of whom are either from or have extensive experience in the host state in question, the Casebook provides teaching material for educators and other concerned parties. The case studies are written with specific overarching objectives in mind: to shed light on the decision-making, policies, and practices of Chinese firms; to understand how Chinese firms adapt to challenging regulatory environments; and to assess what kind of effects Chinese projects have overseas, particularly in developing states where China’s footprint may be most pronounced. This Introduction lays the groundwork to address overarching questions, including, what are Chinese companies, what are China’s international investment strategies, what are the trends in Chinese ODI, what is the relationship between Chinese ODI and the Party-State, and what are the effects of Chinese capital in host states?

We compare China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) and overseas direct investment (ODI) regimes, finding that, at a general level, whereas the former has transitioned from restrictive to lenient, the latter has evolved in the opposite direction, from lenient to restrictive. The different trajectories cannot be explained solely in terms of the time lag in their respective development. While the primary reasons for change are domestic, we argue that the FDI regime is more advanced because of the influence of the WTO accession of 2001. Whereas the FDI regime has become more streamlined, efficient and coordinated, partly as a result of the WTO accession package, the ODI regime, which has not yet benefited from an analogous multilateral framework, remains bureaucratic, suboptimal, and disaggregated. Our analysis is based on a data set of hundreds of normative documents that comprise the FDI and ODI regulatory regimes. We focus on the specific example of the regulation of the environmental impact of FDI and ODI. We find that the environmental and social impact of Chinese ODI is inadequately regulated, resulting in potential harms to Chinese investors and impacted communities in host states alike in the course of Chinese-financed projects overseas.

We compare China’s foreign direct investment (FDI) and overseas direct investment (ODI) regimes, finding that, at a general level, whereas the former has transitioned from restrictive to lenient, the latter has evolved in the opposite direction, from lenient to restrictive. The different trajectories cannot be explained solely in terms of the time lag in their respective development. While the primary reasons for change are domestic, we argue that the FDI regime is more advanced because of the influence of the WTO accession of 2001. Whereas the FDI regime has become more streamlined, efficient and coordinated, partly as a result of the WTO accession package, the ODI regime, which has not yet benefited from an analogous multilateral framework, remains bureaucratic, suboptimal, and disaggregated. Our analysis is based on a data set of hundreds of normative documents that comprise the FDI and ODI regulatory regimes. We focus on the specific example of the regulation of the environmental impact of FDI and ODI. We find that the environmental and social impact of Chinese ODI is inadequately regulated, resulting in potential harms to Chinese investors and impacted communities in host states alike in the course of Chinese-financed projects overseas.