Book Review, Julien Chaisse , China's International Investment Strategy: Bilateral, Regional, and Global Law and Policy, Oxford University Press, 2019, 560 pp, ISBN 9780198827450

Abstract

In this book, Professor Julien Chaisse, a renowned scholar in the field of international economic law and China-expert, focuses on one of the countries which are proactively (re)shaping our understanding of the international order: the People’s Republic of China (PRC or China). This edited book presents, in a comprehensive, accurate and organized manner, the gradual definition of the China’s investment strategy. This book’s scope includes reflections on the international investment regime, taxation, national economic reforms, mediation, competition law and anti-monopoly law, State-Owned Enterprises (SOEs), corruption, and the highly-debated China’s Belt and Road initiative (BRI) (object of another book edited by Professor Chaisse). Most of the leading legal scholars and professionals who contributed to the book are based in Asia and working on a daily basis on issues relating to China. This diverse group succeeded in offering different, relevant and innovative contributions. The question that the book attempts to answer is whether China is aligned with the dogmas of international investment and trade law. China’s involvement in the global context is in partial contradiction with the national situation, which formed the basis for many commentators’ critical views of China’s accession to the WTO as a risk to the multilateral trading system in the long term. Did this accession lead to free trade or the end of market-based reform of the national economy? Environmental protection or market domination of the environmental industry? Aid for development or aid for resources?