Beijing Consensus and Development Legitimacy: The Evolution of China’s FDI Regime in Law & Development Perspective

Presentation by Prof. Wenwei Guan
School of Law of City University of Hong Kong

13 March 2017, 6 p.m.
Room 3.07, Institute of East Asian Studies University of Cologne

The evolution of China’s trade and investment regime since the late 1970s has been a process of constant liberalisation of FDI control with special focus on national development and self-determination. This so-called Beijing Consensus presents a sharp contrast with the neo-liberalist Washington Consensus. A theoretical analysis of this contrast from the law and development critique reveals that, while setting itself as the model for the developing and excluding other development alternatives, the legitimacy deficit of the Washington Consensus stems from a self- sufficient ontological myth of legal voluntarism. The Beijing Consensus, with its attention to local conditions and emphasis on self-determination, gains its legitimacy through the dynamic process of selective adaptation of limit-transgression through which it challenges and at the same time enriches international development legitimacy. The paper suggests that the Beijing Consensus’ roots in the African Continent’s Agenda 2063 and its First Ten-year Implementation Plan offer positive future prospects.

Professor Guan is Assistant Professor in the School of Law of City University of Hong Kong. He holds a PhD in Law and a MA in Asia Pacific Policy Studies from the University of British Columbia, a LLM from Beijing University and a LLB from Sun Yat- Sen University. His main areas of research include international trade law and intellectual property law, law and development as well as trade and investment in the PRC.