| With the increasingly accelerated globalization and the implement of Chinese “Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Centurty Maritime Silk Road” Strategy(“One Belt and One Road” Policy), a growing number of Chinese firms have been spurred to “go out” to participate into the competition in the global marketplace. As China has become the largest manufacturer, the largest exporter, and the second largest economy in the world, more and more Chinese firms which have been competing globally have become the vital forces need to be reckoned with.Since technology-based economy has dominated the 21 st century, technology development and creation of knowledge have become the impetus for the development of enterprises and their country, which could have a great influence on the core competitiveness of a country. However, for most developing countries, technology is not one of their advantages. Besides self-creation of technology, absorbing foreign advanced technology and management experience by Outward Foreign Direct Investment(OFDI) is a vital step to stimulate technology development and creation of knowledge within a country.As a new phenomenon in the FDI field, Technology Sourcing OFDI has been developing in a rapid speed, which has raised broad attention from international society. Technology Sourcing OFDI is to utilize technological workforce, advanced experience and equipment to research and development their own technology by building new enterprises, R&D institutes or practice Mergers and Acquisitions(M&A) in developed countries.According to the research, Technology Sourcing OFDI from China, on the one hand, can accelerate the speed of Chinese enterprises entering into the mature markets in the developed countries and absorb advanced technologies and management experience. On the other hand, the investment activities of Chinese High-Tech enterprises in the developed countries will not only be beneficial to their own development in the terms of technology development and creation of knowledge, but also have a great positive influence on the domestic industries in China and its creation capability.Together with the “go out” strategy which is intend to stimulate Chinese firms to join the worldwide competition, the new policy will further boost the Chinese Foreign Direct Investment(FDI). For the past century, FDI has flowed almost exclusively from developed countries to developing countries. The influx of Chinese FDI to the Western world represents the first reversal of such a trend, a new phenomenon that neither the Western public nor regulators are familiar with. Unfamiliarity also entails much uncertainty as to the nature of the potential harm of Chinese investment and the likelihood of such harm occurring. Yet one of the biggest fears about China that has emerged in recent years is one of being "owned by China." Since the financial crisis in 2008, the growing prowess of Chinese firms and their rapid expansion in mature markets has inflamed global fears that China is "taking over" the world. Such fear is even amplified by the rise of some competitive Technology Sourcing FDI from China which used to gain global market share by participating in processing trade but now occupy the market through innovation. With the astonishment and simultaneously fear of the world, some measures have been taken by governments mainly in developed countries and have been directed toward Chinese firms’ M&A activities in the global marketplace.Indeed, together with the opportunities brought by the new Policy, Technology Sourcing FDI from China which has participated in the global competition have also been confronted with significant legal challenges. In terms of the newly growing disputes between host countries and Chinese firms in the United States(U.S.), the competition pattern seems to focus on national security review. The technology-related field in developed countries has now become the new battleground for Technology Sourcing FDI from China for international competition. More and more actions have been brought by the competent authorities of U.S. against Chinese firms for their M&A activities. Once the inappropriate countermeasures to these actions are adopted, these Chinese firms will be caught into passive situations.Therefore, given the remarkable achievement of Technology Sourcing FDI from China in global market in the past decades as well as the challenges of their M&A activities, this dissertation will discuss the current developing situation of the Technology Sourcing FDI from China, focusing on analyzing an amount of cases of both successful and failed M&A, trying to find the characteristics of Technology Sourcing FDI from China and thus conclude the legal risks Chinese firms are facing in U.S., and at last putting forward some valuable countermeasures for Chinese government and firms. The research could be contributed not only to academic researchers but also to practitioners and policy makers.In this paper, I briefly focus on some recent and typical disputes or cases Technology Sourcing FDI from China have been involved with during their expansion in oversea market, especially in U.S., trying to analyze the global challenges Chinese technology-sourcing firms have faced and thus expecting to put forward corresponding solutions. Part I describes the recent developing situation of OFDI from China, concluding the characteristics of the OFDI from China; Part II reviews some typical disputes Chinese firms faced when competing in the U.S. market and thus summarize the characteristics of these cases. In Part III, I focus on the national security review of U.S. and explain the causes of these disputes and thus their legal risks. Finally, Part IV aims at proposing some primary solutions, focusing on the countermeasures to national responses. The countermeasures contain measures at firms’ level and at government’s level including the top-down and bottom-up economic strategies aligned with new policies in China. |
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