A New Chinese Economic Law Order?

Abstract

<table><tr>\n <td><p>China\n is incrementally developing a new, decentralized model of trade governance\n through a web of finance, trade, and investment initiatives involving\n memorandum of understanding, contracts, and trade and investment treaties,\n supported by an indigenous innovation policy that is transnational in its\n reach. In this way, China could create a vast, Sino-centric, legal order in\n which the Chinese state plays the nodal role. It is a hub and spokes model,\n with China at the hub. In this article, we first examine China’s export of an\n infrastructure-based development model, implemented through Chinese\n state-owned and private enterprise investments and commercial contracts (Part\n B), before turning to China’s development of a complementary web of free trade\n and investment agreements (Part C), and an indigenous innovation policy (Part\n D). The paper theorizes and empirically traces how these Chinese initiatives\n shape the evolving ecology of the transnational legal order for trade.<br></p></td></tr></table>