China-African Investment Treaties: Old Rules, New Challenges

Abstract

This paper analyzes the existing China-African BITs and puts forward some suggestions for its improvement.

The extraordinary rise in the last decade of Chinese investment in Africa continues to be a subject of profound curiosity. That is largely because it defies the centuries-old norm on who invests where. Traditionally, the bulk of foreign investment had flowed North-South but rarely South-South. Whenever and wherever it occurred, the means of its protection ranged from direct military intervention to a bona fide and equitable legal framework. China had experienced the full range of treatments in its long history of dealings with the West, as had Africa. Although they went through the spectrum of experiences independently, they seem to have been exposed to the same set of evolving principles at about the same time in varying degrees.