英文摘要 |
While foreign direct investment (FDI) flows from China to other countries in the world, some recipients have shown their fear and question toward China's investment. For instance, European countries are afraid of the degradation of labor and environmental standard after embracing investment from China to their industries|, while Australia's public and media blame China's investment on real estate for the rising housing price. However, after carefully reviewing discussions on each case in the literature, it can be seen that China's investment neither brought autocratic propaganda nor a degrading situation to those countries. Put differently, China's investment is more similar as the scapegoat than sources of proclaimed damage to the society. As a result, it is puzzling to observe why countries do not trust China's investment but rather are treating it as the scapegoat? In this paper, I will propose regime differences between China and other invested countries as a hypothesis to explain the observed distrust. Owing to the differences between regimes and the recent development of autocracy promotion, it is more likely for us to observe higher degree of distrust and doubt about investments from China in democratic countries. Following the official direction of the Belt-Road Initiative, I will focus on two countries in Southeast Asia --- Indonesia and Thailand --- and compare their governmental regulation and civil response to China's investment. While holding similar factors, the article provides regime difference to explain why some countries ''distrust China's foreign direct investment but not others.'' |