Acknowledgments
This book is the result of a collaborative effort that has spanned several years, including early planning during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the help that persons and institutions provided requires acknowledgment.
First and foremost, I am grateful for the support of the University of Oxford, which has served as institutional host for the “China, Law and Development” (CLD) project from 2019 to 2024. The CLD project, which takes as its aim the study of how Chinese parties engage with questions of international law and the legal and regulatory systems of host states that receive Chinese capital, could not have been possible without institutional support from the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, the Law Faculty, the Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, and the China Centre.
I thank the European Research Council (ERC) for funding the CLD project through a Starting Grant under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (Grant Agreement No. 803763). The ERC grant provided essential funding for research, writing, administrative support, and publication costs.
I am incredibly grateful to the contributors of this book, each of whom is either from the country in question, has worked on some aspect of the transaction or dispute they discuss, or is otherwise deeply enmeshed in the questions they explore. In spite of their busy schedules, contributors have devoted considerable time to writing and revising their case study to make sure it accomplishes the goal of providing detailed and objective accounts of Chinese outbound investment in practice.
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude to Vicky Hayman, the project coordinator of the CLD project, who has provided invaluable organizational, administrative, and editorial assistance over the life of this project.
I am grateful to the scholars, experts, and faculty members I consulted in preparation for organizing and drafting this casebook in terms of their needs and requirements. While these colleagues are too numerous to mention, their input was extremely helpful in structuring and presenting the information in the case studies.
Finally, I thank Joe Ng and Gemma Smith of Cambridge University Press, who have supported this book project and expertly guided it through each stage of the publication process.