In the early 1990s, the arrival of McDonald’s in Moscow and Beijing marked the reopening of these markets to the world and the dawn of a golden age of globalisation.
Over the next decade, multinationals spread across the globe as technology advanced, trade barriers were cut and finance liberalised, making it easier than ever for goods, capital, people and ideas to move across borders.
Transnational firms helped knit the world together with supply chains, bringing investment, jobs, a shared consumer culture and new ways of doing things.
How times change. Anti-globalisation sentiment has been on the rise for some time and recent weeks have seen an exodus of multinationals from Russia, including McDonald’s, Starbucks and Coca-Cola. Mastercard and Visa have suspended operations in Russia, cutting off Russian citizens and companies from large swathes of the global financial system.
This trend goes beyond the Ukraine crisis. Multinational corporations, long the key drivers of globalisation, increasingly find themselves caught in geopolitical crossfire, becoming tools and targets of economic statecraft in the new game of weaponised interdependence.
Yet, for all the talk of doom and decoupling amid a “new Cold War”, the facts on the ground in China tell a very different story as multinationals continue to reap bumper profits and contribute to local development.
Last year, utilised foreign direct investment into the Chinese mainland surged by 20.2 per cent to US$173.48 billion. Foreign investor sentiment remains overwhelmingly positive. The most recent survey by the European Union Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC) found that 59 per cent of members are considering expanding their investment in the country, up 8 percentage points from 2020.
Similarly, the last survey by the US-China Business Council (USCBC) found that 43 per cent of members plan to accelerate resource commitments to China over the next 12 months, up 18 percentage points from the year before.
Read More at https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3171130/why-china-still-solid-growth-engine-and-safe-harbour-multinationals