Part 1

• China’s Investment to Vietnam Ha, Hong Thi Van Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences

  Recently, the global, regional, and Chinese economic context had noticeable basic characteristics that had an impact on Vietnam-China economic relations.
  The world economy was seriously imbalanced, reflecting the weakening trend of unipolar order. The Asia-Pacific region became the focus of many international economic links. Cooperation initiatives in East Asia, such as between ASEAN countries with China, India, Korea, and Japan, became typical regional cooperation models. The trade war between the United States and China, starting in March 2018, has still complicated and unpredictable. The trade war between the two countries has undergone a complicated process, from outbreaks to negotiations, re-negotiation. These factors have a great effect on the global, regional economy, and Vietnam – China economic relations and China’s investment in Vietnam as well.
  After the 18th Communist Party Congress of China (2012), the Chinese Party and Government are looking for new impetus from abroad to improve the quality, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy, such as accelerating opening up of borders, enabling border to implement policy and inclusive models in economic cooperation, transportation, cross-border payments, infrastructure connection, Belt and Road Initiative, AIIB, RMB internationalization strategy. On the other hand, China has been increased its role to the global economy, efforts to build a new economic order. These strategies created directly impacts to Vietnam-China economic relations in general and China’s direct environment in particular.
  The presentation examines the current situation of China’s direct investment in Vietnam in the new context of global economy and China’s economic development transformation since 2012 to present; assess the opportunities and challenges of this investment flows to Vietnam.

• From Chinese investment to labour standards in Southeast Asia: sharing some empirical overview Elsa Lafaye de Micheaux CNRS Min-Hua Chiang National University of Singapore

  China’s influence in Southeast Asia has been expanding along with its increasing outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) over the last decade. Although China’s OFDI in the region is still relatively small compared to the direct investment from Europe, the United States and Japan, it is catching up quickly. In less than a decade, China’s OFDI in the region increased more than four times to US$13 billion in 2019. Unlike OFDI from other countries, driven by private firms’ business decisions, most of China’s OFDI is directed by the Chinese government. This is evidenced by the large presence of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) in China’s OFDI. As such, China’s OFDI is not simply for Chinese firms’ business interests. Instead, it is used to fulfil China’s foreign policy goal. The development of China’s growing OFDI has thus raised concerns whether China’s growing economic presence will alter the “rule of game” in host countries as well as in the whole region.
  The purpose of this paper is to present an exploratory approach of the China’s specific influence on local labor norms. Especially for developing countries with weak rule-based governance, China could easily adjust local labor regulations and their implementations in favor of Chinese firms and of Chinese migrant workers. For developing countries in Southeast Asia, China’s OFDI is particularly crucial as those dependent countries received insignificant OFDI from industrialized economies. With the development of Belt and Road Initiatives (BRI), many Southeast Asian countries are increasingly involved in several China-backed infrastructure projects. The economic development through the BRI¬¬ will help to enhance governments’ legitimacy in developing countries. However, it is also questionable whether this development will turn into Chinese government’s increasing control over the developing countries’ domestic politics and worsening of the domestic labors’ rights and labor conditions. After having assessed the recent China’s outward foreign direct investment trends in Southeast Asia, the paper will explore China’s potential to change local labor norms by investigating several empirical case studies.

• TBA Mael Raynaud Urbanize

  TBA

Part 2

• Chinese foreign aid, a cornerstone of the CCP’s ties with Cambodia Ana Williamson CNRS

  Foreign aid is historically rooted in the Chinese government’s relations with the Kingdom of Cambodia and is a crucial strategic tool in its economic diplomacy with the Cambodian People’s Party. Chinese economic presence in Cambodia has become a key subject to study in order to understand the latter’s modern political and economic environment. By studying Chinese financial assistance, this analysis supports two main ideas: first, that China uses foreign aid as a tool to secure its strategic investments in Cambodia’s high-risk business environment, and in doing so, it looks to develop an increasingly autonomous production in the country. Second, it analyses how the Chinese government uses economic aid to sway the Cambodian People’s Party’s policies and foreign relations to serve its own interests.

• Spatial visualisation from the Aiddata dataset: further explorations Robin Laillé Université de Montréal

  This presentation aims to show many maps and graphs which use the Aiddata dataset in Southeast Asia. In this presentation there will be an analysis, an interpretation and a discussion about the maps and the graphs. The first maps and graphs are quite simple and are here to give a general idea of the Aiddata dataset in Southeast Asia. They will present the location of the projects, the values, and the temporal changes. Then, the maps and graphs will be more complex and will present the different types and actors of financing, the objectives of the projects, and the sectors.

Abstract