中国对外直接投资特征与若干经济地理研究议题——基于中国对全球与东盟的投资分析

Characteristics of China's OFDI and Related Economic Geography Research Themes: Based on an Analysis of Chinese Investment in the World and ASEAN Countries

中国已经步入以"走出去"为鲜明特征的经济全球化新阶段。针对国内经济地理学对中国对外直接投资研究尚较少或刚起步的现状,从全球和东盟区域尺度分析了中国对外直接投资的企业类型、区位分布、行业领域和投资来源地等特征。据此围绕目前中国对外直接投资区位研究的一个争论,结合地理学关注空间差异、地方、嵌入等因素的视角,探讨了中国对外直接投资的若干研究议题,包括:1)东道国和母国之间的制度距离对中国对外直接投资区位选择的影响机制;2)中国境外企业在东道国的地方嵌入机制——或者说企业克服母国和东道国制度差距的模式;3)不同类型(国有/非国有)、不同投资动机的企业对外直接投资区位决策的差异;4)中国各地区对外直接投资的差异及其形成的原因和产生的影响。简言之,对中国对外直接投资的经济地理研究需要同时关注投资"流入地"和"流出地"的地理分异现象及其形成机制。

China has entered a new stage of economic globalization characterized by ＂going global＂. This means that an increasing number of Chinese firms have extended their investment to foreign countries and that as a result China＇s outward foreign direct investment （OFDI） exceeded its inward FDI for the first time in 2014. However, China＇s OFDI received little attention in domestic economic geography, leaving some important questions under-researched. This paper firstly analyzes the characteristics of China＇s OFDI at the global and regional （the ASEAN region） scales. Five characteristics are found： 1） China has seen a rapid growth of OFDI and entered an accelerated development stage; 2） the distribution of China＇s OFDI is geographically uneven, concentrating in Asia at the regional scale and in the USA and Singapore at the international scale; 3） China＇s OFDI is mainly from her eastern coastal regions, which is associated with the uneven development in eastern, middle and western parts of China; 3） state-owned enterprises are the primary investors of China＇s OFDI, but the investment from private enterprises have increased significantly; and 5） China＇s OFDI mainly concentrates on service industries, but the investment in manufacturing sectors has continued to increase. Secondly, this paper discusses four research themes of China＇s OFDI from the geographical perspective that focuses on the issues of spatial differences, place and local embeddedness. These themes include： 1） the impact of the institutional distance between home and host countries on the local decision of China＇s OFDI; 2） the process of local embeddedness of Chinese firms abroad into host countries, or in other words, the way the Chinese firms adapt to the institutional difference between home and host countries; 3） the location decision difference between state-owned and private enterprises and between the firms with different investment motivations; and 4） the reasons for spatial distribution of China＇s OFDI source in different provinces and its potential impacts on the regional development of China. In a word, it is suggested that the research of China＇s OFDI from an economic geography perspective should pay attention to the geographical differences between the investment destinations and the investment sources, and the formation mechanism of those differences.