Mapping China’s foreign direct investment in the global energy sector

As China’s current account surplus has grown, and the nation has liberalized its capital account, Chinese overseas foreign direct investment has increased significantly. In 2016, Chinese overseas foreign investment flows were more than $1.3 trillion, and outward investment from Hong Kong was $1.5 trillion, combining to $2.8 trillion in total—up a factor of 10 since 2005 and second only second to the United States in total outbound foreign direct investment. This paper examines the extent to which Chinese overseas foreign investment is significantly different from the United States and other OECD foreign investors in general, and with a specific focus on the electricity energy sector. After creating a unique spatial database that allows us to analyze both greenfield and merger & acquisition flows into the electricity generation sector, we examine the extent to which Chinese foreign investment differs from the other major players in electricity by energy source, level of technology, and level of pollution. We examine the geographical concentration of China’s FDI investment in Asia and Europe. We present initial results of our origin and destination analysis. China’s FDI trends have tremendous policy implications, both in geopolitical terms and for international trade and investment promotion policies.Othe