ABSTRACT
The history of foreign investment into the People’s Republic of China (the “PRC” or “China”) is brief indeed. The PRC’s first three decades witnessed the “self-reliance” policy, a forced choice due to the expedient birth of China and its isolation from both the United States and the Soviet Union. The failure of the “self-reliance” policy in Maoist China, an alternative to the capitalist and Stalinist approaches to economic growth, triggered the dramatic or logical change to the “open door” policy in 1978. Starting from 1978, China began transforming its economic and political structures with the goal of promoting international trade and utilizing foreign investments. Of all the legal institutions that were rebuilt or created in the past four decades, those related to foreign investment have developed the fastest. A unique Chinese characteristic or regulatory ethic of the foreign investment law regime in China is the centrality of the state’s role as the primary agent for economic and social development. The chapter reviews the development of the legal legislation between 1978 to 2018.
