Article
The Function of the Transnational Chinese Contract
Journal of World Investment and Trade
(2019)
Abstract
This article focusses on Chinese contractual practice in the energy sector and related sectors – principally in China’s inbound and outbound investments in the petroleum sector as well as in other energy-related financing and infrastructure construction contracts.Its concern is with the drafting of Belt and Road contracts, especially where this may lead to contract ‘internationalisation’. In addition, the article will discuss the interplay between Chinese contracts and treaties. It asks where the limits of Chinese receptiveness to international principles lie in seeking to protect the rights of Chinese as well as foreign parties. A principal preliminary finding is that there is a division of labour between what Chinese upstream oil contracts do in protecting foreign ownership interests, even to the point of evincing Chinese acceptance of the ‘internationalisation’ of contracts, and the intergovernmental work done by negotiated treaty terms in protecting Chinese investments abroad. There are signs of receptiveness to a foreign investor’s expectations coupled with delicate direct intergovernmental management of treaty protection for Chinese petroleum ventures abroad. A more nuanced picture emerges once we turn to financing and infrastructure construction. Still, we see the variegated outlines of a shy Chinese creature – the transnational China contract, which may yet have a future significance not only for energy security but more broadly along the Belt and Road.
Publication Date
May, 2019
Publisher Statement
Accepted refereed version, pre-typesetting after a 24 month embargo
Published in (2019) 20(3) Journal of World Investment and Trade 313-334
Citation Information
Chin Leng Lim. "The Function of the Transnational Chinese Contract" Journal of World Investment and Trade Vol. 20 Iss. 3 (2019) p. 313 - 334 Available at: http://works.bepress.com/chin_lim/58/