Öz
This article examines the motivations and determinants of China’s
Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI) within the new lands called
The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) inspired by the ancient Silk Road.
Although China’s OFDI has always been important for academic interest,
OFDI along the BRI is a distinctive economic policy for China at the
global stage. The existing literature demonstrates that China’s OFDI
with its economic policy is based on its national modernization. As
China’s multivariate domestic economy requires different strategies with
diversified outward investments along the BRI and non-BRI countries, it
has positive return to the country. The investigation hereby indicates that
China’s OFDI has different motivations for natural resources, strategic
assets, market and efficiency seeking. Its determinants are cost advantage,
institutions, market size, national agglomeration, cultural proximity, free
trade agreement (FTA) expanding trade relations and qualified labor in
low-income and middle-income countries. The transfer of CO2 emissions
requiring industrial selection is also a driver of China’s OFDI aiming the
reduction of air pollution for climate change. Besides the efforts of China,
the state-owned enterprises need reforms to broaden ownership for further
outward investments as an implication.