Foreign Direct Investment and Investment Arbitration in China and Hong Kong

Summary

This chapter is the national report on China and Hong Kong in a volume surveying foreign direct investment and investment arbitration across Asian jurisdictions. It reviews the trends in investment flowing into mainland China, sets out the applicable legal framework — including China’s bilateral investment treaties and the investment chapters of its free trade agreements — and analyses the country’s record as a respondent and, increasingly, as a home State in investment treaty disputes. Hong Kong is treated separately in view of its distinct legal and regulatory status: the chapter examines its own investment patterns and the contested question whether, and how, mainland China’s bilateral investment treaties extend to the territory. Read alongside the volume’s other national reports, it offers a comparative reference point for assessing how one of Asia’s largest capital importers and exporters has shaped its investment protection regime.