China’s Global Energy Expansion: A Regulatory Assessment

Should Chinese energy investments be excluded from the liberal economic system based on geopolitical assessments only? This book explores the potential regulatory control by the Chinese government over foreign energy investments to achieve their perceived strategic objectives.

Host states in which Chinese energy companies make investments have increasingly opposed Chinese energy investments in their national security reviews, based on concerns that these investments have strategic objectives. The book analyses China’s investment-related law, regulations, and energy policies to examine how overseas energy investment-making is governed. The book also explores the role of the Chinese government in energy investment promotion and protection.

Uniquely, the examination of China’s potential regulatory control provides an objective criterion, rather than geopolitical considerations, for host states to assess the nature of Chinese energy investments.

The book helps readers to open the ’black box’ of Chinese energy investments from a regulatory perspective. It is a useful resource for researchers as well as practising lawyers assisting their Chinese clients through national security reviews, or when trying to determine whether China’s SOEs can bring cases before investor-state arbitration tribunals.

Xiaohan Gong is Postdoctoral Research Associate at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam, Germany, and Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR.