The 10th annual China Goes Global international conference

In late July 2016, Distinguished Professor Jean-Marc F. Blanchard, Ph.D. presented a paper (co-authored with Dr. Francesca Spigarelli) entitled “Thinking about China and BITs: Details/Developments, Debates, and Research Directions” at the 10^th annual China Goes Global international conference held in Macerata, Italy at the University of Macerata.  In their paper, Dr. Blanchard and Dr. Spigarelli discussed China’s historical use of bilateral investment treaties (BITs), evolving position towards BITs, and its BIT negotiations with the European Union (EU) and the United States (US).  They also reviewed the general history, purposes, and pattern of BITs in terms of geography and treaty terms as well as the literature on the impact of BITs on foreign direct investment.  Their paper offers an innovative scheme for ranking the investor friendliness of BITs, shows that China’s BIT requirements have been in continuous evolution as its political and economic needs have changed, and indicate that China is not averse to using international law to advance its goals.  Finally, they show that China-US and China-EU investment agreement negotiations have a long way to go before they have a chance of being successfully concluded.

2016年7月下旬，华东师大国际关系与地区发展研究院白永辉教授出席了“中国走向全球化”第十届国际学术会议，该年会在意大利马切拉塔大学举行。会议上，白教授提交了一篇论文(与Francesca Spigarelli教授合写)，题为《关于中国与双边投资协定（BITs）的思考：细节/发展、争议与研究方向》。在演讲中，白教授和 Spigarelli教授讨论了中国使用BITs的历史，中国对BITs立场的变化，以及中国与欧盟（EU）和美国（US）的BITs谈判。白教授和Spigarelli教授也从地理和条约条款角度讨论了BITs的历史、目的和模式。此外，他们也回顾了BITs对外国直接投资的影响的文献。他们的论文提供了一个评价BITs的投资者友好程度的有创意的方案，显示了随着中国政治和经济需求的变化，中国对BITs的要求也不断地发生变化，并表明了中国并不反对使用国际法来实现自己的目标。总之，他们的研究表明，中美和中欧成功实现投资协定谈判仍然有很长一段路需要走。