Photo-copy. / Cover title.

Pour des raisons historiques, la Chine est dotée d’une culture juridique conservatrice et relativement fermée. Parallèlement, le secteur du vin en France, vu comme un patrimoine national, est également marqué par un fort conservatisme. De plus, la pratique vitivinicole à l’occidentale n’a presque jamais existé avant son introduction récente en Chine. L’investissement chinois en France dans le secteur du vin s’est vu dans l’obligation de percer un tunnel entre deux mondes isolés. Au cours de ce processus particulier, des risques juridiques et des contentieux apparaissent en raison des surprises juridiques pouvant survenir au cours du processus d’investissement. Face à ce problème, le droit écrit semble insuffisant, étant donné les particularités de l’investissement chinois et des spécificités du secteur du vin. Quand ces deux particularités se rencontrent, des nouveaux instruments juridiques voient le jour. Des pratiques particulières à cet effet sont « inventées » par les parties en présence, afin d’écarter les risques ainsi que d’éventuels contentieux causés par les lacunes du droit écrit. / For historical reasons, China has a conservative and relatively closed legal culture. At the same time, the wine sector in France, seen as a national heritage, is also marked by strong conservatism. Moreover, western vitivinicultural practice hardly ever existed before its recent introduction in China. The Chinese investment in France in the wine sector was forced to break through a tunnel between two isolated worlds. During this particular process, legal risks and litigation arise due to legal surprises that may arise during the investment process. Faced with this problem, the written law seems insufficient, given the peculiarities of Chinese investment and the specificities of the wine sector. When these two particularities meet, new legal instruments are created. Specific practices for this purpose are "invented" by the parties involved, in order to eliminate the risks as well as possible litigations caused by the shortcomings of the written law.

M. Comm. / Globalisation in the banking sector is on the rise and South Africa is getting a fair share of the market. There are few studies that provide any guidance to managers faced with this option. The primary objective of this research is to investigate inward FDI from China into the South African banking sector. This objective is based on the ICBC and Standard Bank partnership.

This thesis is devoted to analyzing the impact of Chinese investments in the region of West Africa on relations between ECOWAS and European Union. The first chapter characterizes Community of West African States - geographically, demographically and especially in the area of macroeconomics. Following chapter focuses itself on relations of PRC and ECOWAS. Particular attention is paid to foreign direct investments, which is China realizing in the area. ECOWAS relations with the European Union and the changes that have occurred in recent years are described in the third chapter of the thesis. A separate section describes the Economic Partnership Agreements. The conclusion represents the analysis of changes in trade relations between ECOWAS and the EU.

Thesis (M.B.A.)--University of Hong Kong, 1996. / Includes bibliographical references (leaf 81-82).

Dans un contexte de déploiement des nouvelles routes de la soie, la ville portuaire et balnéaire de Sihanoukville au Cambodge est ciblée par des investissements chinois importants. Ces investissements s’accompagnent par la présence de multiples acteurs chinois – investisseurs, commerçants, ouvriers, touristes – qui produisent un nouvel urbain à Sihanoukville. Ainsi, de nombreux casinos se développent aux côtés de zones économiques spéciales, d’hôtels, de quartiers fermés et de commerces variés. La ville portuaire apparaît comme un front pionnier où les ressources touristiques, commerciales, industrielles et stratégiques doivent être exploitées et où les acteurs chinois jouissent d’une marge de manoeuvre conséquente. Ceci est possible car les élites cambodgiennes, autorités et propriétaires terriens en tête, mettent en place un cadre économique et politique favorable pour attirer les investissements chinois et ainsi profiter du développement de la ville. La nouvelle production urbaine de Sihanoukville limite l’accès aux ressources à certaines populations, ce qui mène à des dynamiques de fragmentation urbaine. Par-delà l’idée d’une opposition entre riches investisseurs chinois et habitants cambodgiens défavorisés, la récente production urbaine de Sihanoukville met plutôt en lumière des clivages entre ceux qui ont accès aux ressources et ceux qui n’y ont pas accès. Loin de l’image officielle mise de l’avant par Pékin concernant les nouvelles routes de la soie, la présence chinoise à Sihanoukville conduit à une production urbaine fragmentée. / In a context of deployment of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the coastal city of Sihanoukville, Cambodia, is targeted by massive Chinese investments. Those investments come with the arrival of many Chinese stakeholders – investors, sellers, workers, tourists – who produce a new urbanization in Sihanoukville. Many casinos are being developed in the city, alongside special economic zones, hotels, gated communities, and various other businesses. The city seems to be a frontier where touristic, commercial, industrial, and strategic resources must be exploited, and where the Chinese stakeholders enjoy a certain autonomy. Based on neoliberal logics, Cambodian elites, authorities, and landowners above all, build a favorable economic and political environment to attract Chinese investments and take advantage of the situation. The new urbanization produced in Sihanoukville limits the access to the resources to certain populations, which leads to urban fragmentation. Beyond the idea of an opposition between rich Chinese investors and disadvantaged Cambodian inhabitants, the new Sihanoukville highlights divisions between those who have access to the resources and those who have not. Far from BRI’s official image putting forward by Beijing, the Chinese presence in Sihanoukville comes with a fragmented urban production.

The aim of this research is to bridge the correlation of peace and foreign investments through the lens of North et al.’s (2013) Limited Access Orders (LAOs). The research seeks to engage in the discussion of LAOs by providing a perspective from analyzing Chinese investments under the context of New Silk Road policy with the case of Tasang Dam. Current discussion of LAOs does not involve how foreign investments affect institutional transition in LAOs. Therefore this research is a humble attempt to engage in the existing literature from a different perspective.         Tasang Dam is designed to be built in southern Shan State, Myanmar, an area that has encountered continuous armed conflicts. The conflicts between the local armed group SSA-S/RCSS and the Tatmadaw continue even after a ceasefire agreement was signed in 2011. Chinese investors acting under the context of New Silk Road project have tried to involve in creating stability in the area to reduce costs.         According to the LAOs logic, if the access to rents is open to armed organizations, there will be motivations for rival parties to avoid violence. In order to redistribute the resources, there should be an institutional transition. In Tasang Dam’s case, the rents created by Chinese investments are not available to SSA-S/RCSS, but with the Chinese investments as the democratization of Myanmar goes on, there are opportunities to alter the story of repeated violence.

The topic of this master thesis are the EU FDI policies and their development specifically in the period 1999 - 2019. The aim of this master thesis is to answer the research question: "Why the European FDI policies have changed during 1999-2019?" In April 2019, a new regulation regarding a framework for screening of foreign direct investment in the European Union has passed. The process of screening should be applied in case a foreign direct investment would pose a threat to security or public order. The EU has been traditionally a promoter of the liberal trade and free movement of capital. Yet, the proposal presents a new tool in the FDI policy that can be seen as restrictive. In this thesis author analyzes what processes led to the introduction of this new framework. Following the theoretical framework regarding security concepts and evolution of new threats, the author elaborates on the first hypothesis that "It is possible to identify strengthening of the concept of security and more restrictive approach in the FDI policies of EU member states during 1999-2019" by analyzing the evolution of EU FDI policy and policies of Germany and France as ones of the biggest recipients of FDI in the EU. Furthermore, the author uses the theoretical framework of realism and international political economy to...

Die weltweit steigende Nachfrage nach land-basierten Rohstoffen erhöht stetig den Druck auf Land und Landnutzung, vor allem in ressourcenreichen Frontierregionen. Eine gegenwärtige Erscheinungsform dessen stellen Transnationale Landnahmen dar, die den Landnutzungswandel vorantreiben und die landbasierte Lebensgrundlage insbesondere der ländlichen Bevölkerung in vielen Teilen der Welt massiv bedroht. Ziel dieser Doktorarbeit ist es, ein besseres Verständnis der komplexen Prozesse zu schaffen, die Landnahmen befördern. Erstens untersucht sie die rezente Konjunktur des Bananenanbaus in der Provinz Luang Namtha, Laos, die von Chinesischen Investoren getrieben wird. Zweitens zieht die Arbeit das telecoupling Konzept heran und unterzieht es einer kritischen Diskussion in Bezug auf seinen Mehrwert für die Analyse räumlich entkoppelter sozioökonomischer und ökologischer Wechselwirkungen. Eine mehrmonatige ethnographische Feldforschung und deren qualitative Analyse stellen die Grundlage dieser Arbeit dar. Ausgehend von zwei Bananenplantagen in einer kleinen ländlichen Gemeinde fokussiert die Arbeit die Mechanismen und Prozesse, die die Bananenexpansion befördern. Das telecoupling Konzept dient als Instrument, um zu analysieren, welchen Einfluss die multiplen und ko-konstitutiven Interaktionen auf den Vorstoß des Bananenanbaus haben. Darüber hinaus verdeutlichen die tiefgehenden lokalitätsbezogenen Analysen die verschiedenen Kontexte auf, die dieses Wechselspiel spezifisch lokal verorten und gestalten. Die Fallstudie zeigt auf, wie die räumlich entkoppelten Beziehungen durch ein grenzüberspannendes Netzwerk chinesischer Investoren mit sozialen Verbindungen in die Provinz hinein, sowie auf den (chinesischen) Obstmarkt vermittelt werden. Außerdem stellt die Studie heraus, dass die Strategien der Investoren zur Landgewinnung und der daraus resultierende verheerende Landnutzungswandel einer Entfremdung der Dorfbewohner_innen ‘vom Boden’ gleichkommen. Durch die empirische, methodologische sowie konzeptuelle Auseinandersetzung mit dem telecoupling Konzept verweist die Arbeit letztlich auf den Wert qualitativer Analysen für die schwer greifbaren, ‚immateriellen’ Interaktionen sowie mögliche Feedbackmechanismen, welche Landnutzungswandel in einer globalisierten Welt bestimmen. / The global demand for land resources has increased the pressures on land, especially in resource-rich frontier regions. Transnational land acquisitions constitute one of these pressures that currently shape land use change and threaten land access and land-based livelihoods in rural areas. This thesis contributes to create a better understanding of the complex processes involved in such land acquisitions in two ways. First, it examines a recent boom in banana cultivation in Luang Namtha Province, Lao PDR driven by Chinese investors leasing land from Lao farmers and exporting the bananas to China. Second, it critically engages with the emerging telecoupling framework proposed in Land System Science as an analytical framework for dealing with distal causal interactions. Based on ethnographic fieldwork and using qualitative analyses, the thesis examines two plantations in a small village and traces the actors, mechanisms and processes driving the banana expansion. Using the telecoupling framework as a heuristic device, the study illuminates how multiple and co-constitutive economic, environmental, political and discursive interactions influence the banana expansion. Furthermore, the in-depth place-based analyses reveal how different contextual factors ground and shape these interactions in this particular location. In this case, the distal interactions are mediated through a cross-border network of Chinese investors with social ties in the local area, as well as in the fruit market in China. The study shows that the investors’ strategies to obtain access to the land combined with the resulting destructive land use conversion amount to an alienation of land from the villagers. By engaging empirically, methodologically and conceptually with the telecoupling framework, the thesis advances the discussion on telecoupling by demonstrating the value of qualitative analysis for capturing some of the more elusive and immaterial interactions, as well as potential feedbacks influencing land use change in a globalised world.