China Needs Urgent Oversight of Investments

With the advent of the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s ever-increasing overseas investments have been attracting more attention. In Latin America alone, China has direct investments worth over US$110 billion, and in countries such as Brazil, China’s investments rank alongside those of the US and Spain. Accompanying this, and due to weak environmental and social awareness, there have been frequent failures in how Chinese companies deal with communities in the host countries. Recent years have seen various government bodies publish guidance on environmental and social performance in overseas investment, but the international image of Chinese companies has not improved. Zhang Jingjing, an environmental lawyer and visiting scholar at the Environmental Law Institute in Washington DC, has been studying the environmental and social risks associated with China’s overseas investments since 2010. . . .