ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on China’s national-level policy and regulatory frameworks which provide room for subnational approaches in outward investment. Using policy documents, regulations, interviews, and secondary sources, it reconstructs how these frameworks for overseas investment have evolved since the reform and opening period until the recent re-introduction of restrictions and focuses on two parallel developments: the emergence of national-level strategies and initiatives, and the decentralization of the investment approval and registration framework. The analysis looks in particular at the scope provided to provincial actors and makes clear that the central government’s framework is necessary for explaining investment outflows as it enables, guides, and, at times, restricts the country’s overall investment outflows. However, the analysis also shows that the central government’s framework is insufficient in fully explaining a province’s investment outflows. This fact becomes even more evident when inspecting the multiple domestic and external hindrances investors face when investing overseas, which will be the subject of the third part of this chapter, and which the national-level formal investment framework cannot sufficiently compensate for. In sum, China’s central government’s investment framework gives guidance as well as autonomy to provinces to engage in overseas investment.
