The Evolution of China's Foreign Investment Policy And
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Penn State Law Penn State Law eLibrary SJD Dissertations 2017 The volutE ion of China's Foreign Investment Policy and Law Shan Gao Follow this and additional works at: https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/sjd Part of the Comparative and Foreign Law Commons Recommended Citation Gao, Shan, "The vE olution of China's Foreign Investment Policy and Law" (2017). SJD Dissertations. 7. https://elibrary.law.psu.edu/sjd/7 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by Penn State Law eLibrary. It has been accepted for inclusion in SJD Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Penn State Law eLibrary. For more information, please contact [email protected]. THE PENNSYLVANIA STATE UNIVERSITY PENN STATE LAW THE EVOLUTION OF CHINA’S FOREIGN INVESTMENT POLICY AND LAW (1978-2016) BY Shan Gao © 2017 Shan Gao A DISSERTATION IN LAW SUBMITTED FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF JURIDICAL SCIENCE ABSTRACT This study explores the evolution of China’s foreign investment policies and laws between 1978- 2016. The main goal of this study is to provide an objective narrative about the past and present development of Chinese foreign investment from a legal perspective. The study includes discussions about the creation, development, and reforms of these policies and laws. In addition, this project considers problems and opportunities of Chinese foreign investment regulatory regime. The first chapter is the introduction, which offers detailed explanations for the main focus, issues, and structure of the thesis, the methodology of the study and the reason for conducting this study, an executive summary for each chapter is provided at the end. Second, the third, and the fourth chapter will respectively focus on China’s foreign investment regulatory framework during 1978-1991, 1992-2005, 2006-2016. A short summary is provided at the end of chapter four to conclude this study. 1 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS It is my great pleasure to have so many people being supportive in the process of this study. I greatly appreciate my supervisor and my mentor, Professor Larry Catá Backer, who provide his guidance, encouragement, wisdom, and humor. It is truly an honor for me to be his student. My appreciation also extended to Staff and faculty members of Penn State Law and Penn State Community for helping me in various ways during the program. Last, My special thanks to my parents and friends, I cannot do this without their unconditional love and supports. 2 TABLE OF CONTENTS Chapter 1 INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 9 1. Concept definition ................................................................................................. 9 2. Structure of the thesis ......................................................................................... 12 3. Data and method ................................................................................................ 15 4. Rationale for topic choice.................................................................................... 15 5. Limitation of the study ......................................................................................... 18 6. Executive summary of each chapter ................................................................... 18 Chapter 2 THE FDI POLICY AND LAW BETWEEN 1978-1991 .................................... 21 1. Introduction ......................................................................................................... 24 2. Ideological and Constitutional Framework .......................................................... 36 a. Ideological Framework .................................................................................... 36 b. Constitutional Framework ................................................................................ 43 3. FDI Legal Framework 1978-1991 ....................................................................... 48 a. EJV Law Framework ....................................................................................... 51 b. WFOE Law framework .................................................................................... 90 c. CJV Law framework ........................................................................................ 94 d. Foreign exchange control framework .............................................................. 95 e. Labor regulation framework ........................................................................... 110 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 120 Chapter 3 THE FDI POLICY AND LAW BETWEEN 1992-2005 .................................. 123 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 123 2. Ideological and Constitutional Framework ........................................................ 142 a. Ideological Framework .................................................................................. 144 b. The Constitutional Framework....................................................................... 152 3. FDI Legal Framework 1992-2005 ..................................................................... 158 a. Development of the framework...................................................................... 160 b. The Catalogue for Guiding Foreign Investment ............................................. 175 c. PRC company law and corporate governance .............................................. 181 d. The rule of law .............................................................................................. 186 Conclusion ............................................................................................................... 196 Chapter 4 THE FDI POLICY AND LAW BETWEEN 2006-2016 .................................. 198 3 1. Introduction ....................................................................................................... 198 2. Ideological Framework ...................................................................................... 209 a. The 17th Party Congress ............................................................................... 211 b. The 18th Party Congress ............................................................................... 214 3. New Development in FDI Legal Framework ...................................................... 225 a. Preferred Stocks ........................................................................................... 225 b. Shanghai Free Trade Zone experiment ......................................................... 228 c. National security review ................................................................................ 234 3. Challenges to FDI framework ........................................................................... 238 a. Outflow of the capital ..................................................................................... 238 b. Corruption ..................................................................................................... 260 5. Opportunity of the FDI framework ..................................................................... 269 a. New international legal framework on public disclosure................................. 270 i. OECD Beneficial Owner ................................................................................ 270 ii. UK Practice and US Practice......................................................................... 273 iii. HK FSTB Proposal ........................................................................................ 277 iv. China Practice ........................................................................................... 279 b. The future: Wechat Economy ........................................................................ 284 c. New approach to Rule of Law under public disclosure scheme and wechat economy .............................................................................................................. 290 Summary: The Evolution of FDI Policy and Law in the Context of China’s Rule of Law Development ............................................................................................................... 294 Appendix ..................................................................................................................... 300 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 318 4 LIST OF TABLES Table 1. Foreign Exchange Control during the early 1980s. ........................................ 105 Table 2. Labor regulations during the 1980s. .............................................................. 115 Table 3. China’s Absorption of Foreign Fund (2001) billion USD. ................................ 131 Table 4. China’s Path to WTO. .................................................................................... 137 Table 5. A brief comparison between the EJV, CJV, and WFOE regulations in the 1980s and 1990s. .................................................................................................................. 169 Table 6. Restrictions on foreign investors in the retail industry (in comparison with the 2004 regulation. .......................................................................................................... 172 Table 7. Restrictive investment industry (1995 and 2004). .......................................... 179 Table 8. FDI data 2006-2016. .....................................................................................