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Management of Chinese Foreign Direct Investment: “One Belt, One Road” Across Eurasia to Africa and Europe Amidst Maritime Tensions in the South China Sea Region



Author(s)

David A. Jones, Hanzhen Liu

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DOI:10.17265/2328-2134/2017.08.003

Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) from the People’s Republic of China (“China”) has been expanding worldwide, much as Inward Foreign Direct Investment (IFDI) from the world into China has burgeoned, at least until very recently. Global FDI declined worldwide in 2014, with China’s IFDI declining less than many places elsewhere, resulting in China overtaking the United States as the world’s most attractive location for FDI for the first time since 2003, before India overtook China in 2015 (Iyengar, 2015). In 2014, meanwhile, for the first time, China’s OFDI exceeded its IFDI, rendering it a net exporter of FDI, signaling the end of the approach to the end of China as a developing nation (Yao & Wang, 2014). What does this mean? More than anything else, one must consider two factors in assessing China’s 21st century foreign ambitions: Is its One Belt, One Road (OBOR) a geopolitical tetrahedron as some allege, if so, economically or militarily? Is its maritime policy across the Western Pacific Rim of Asia aimed at constructing a fleet of surface cruisers and submarines to wage a guerre de course (war of the chase), much as German vice admiral Wolfgang Wegener urged Imperial Germany to do in world War I then Nazi Germany to do in World War II, in an effort to dominate merchant sea routes thereby disrupting supplies without recourse to a “balanced fleet” such as Britain possessed in World Wars I and II and the United States operates currently? Both China’s “New Silk Road” and the “New Maritime Silk Route” are at the root of a geopolitical tetrahedron. Chinese domination of the South China Sea and to a lesser extent of the East China Sea regions signals its potential guerre de course strategy. Is there an antidote to conflict in Asia, if so, what is it?

China, guerre de course strategy, New Silk Road, New Maritime Silk Route