ABSTRACT
When it was reported in 1998 that Britain's annual growth rate of 3.3 percent was among the highest recorded among countries in the European Union (EU), this was attributed primarily to foreign investments that this economy had managed to draw. In that year, Britain had captured 40 percent of all Asian and American investment in the EU, partly because the government had made it easy for foreigners to buy assets in the country (see Far Eastern Economic Review 18/6/98). Among the Asian firms that had invested in the economy, a number had originated from Taiwan, Hong Kong, and China as well as from Southeast Asian countries with a large ethnic Chinese population, that is, Malaysia, Singapore, and Indonesia. Transnational companies (TNCs) owned by ethnic Chinese from East and Southeast Asia, including state-owned enterprises from China, had been acquiring large firms in Britain, making inroads into various economic sectors, and were heavily involved in international trade.
