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In recent years, a great number of top conferences and workshops on artificial intelligence (AI) were held in China, showing Chinese AI plays an important role in the world. Meanwhile, Chinese government announced an ambitious scheme, “New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan,” for the country to become a world leader in AI technologies by 2030. The AI research in China has covered various aspects, ranging from chips to algorithms. This chapter attempts to give an overview of the recent advances of AI research and development in China, as well as some perspectives on the future development of AI in China.

In as much as it is contested, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is also unexplored, underdiscussed, and, as a result, misunderstood. Frequently viewed through the lens of international relations and global economy, the diverse dimensions of collaboration, including business and research-industry clusters, that BRI enhances, tend to be excluded from the analysis. In a similar manner, the role of the Arab Peninsula in the grand strategy underpinning BRI and its implementation is rarely discussed. BRI is a forward-oriented initiative, an attempt to reap benefits of developments and circumstances that are only nascent. This bears two potent implications. First, as China attempts to influence the context in which it operates, it is subject to change itself; the Chinese business sector evolution attests to that. Second, some of China’s not so obvious partners of today, including those in the Arab Peninsula, are about to turn into key interlocutors of tomorrow. BRI taps into opportunities thus created. This chapter elaborates on these issues and, against this backdrop, outlines how the remaining chapters included in this volume add to this discussion.

The objective of this chapter is to analyze China’s outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) to the European Union in environmental industries.

We combine a narrative approach with statistical analysis. We first review the policy background concerning China’s OFDI and environmental protection. Then, we provide statistics on China’s OFDI to the EU in environmental industries, using firm-level data from one of China’s major provinces: Jiangsu.

We find that the OFDI to the EU in environmental industries experienced a considerable growth in terms of number of investing firms and investment value. The OFDI in environmental industries to the EU was highly concentrated in a few countries, particularly Germany and Luxemburg, and a few industries, particularly new energy.

Using firm-level data from only one province may limit the generalizability of our findings. However, we believe the case of Jiangsu province sheds much light on the situation of entire China because Jiangsu is one of the most important Chinese provinces in terms of OFDI.

The detailed analysis of our Jiangsu’s OFDI in EU’s environmental industries in this chapter can help to inform the investment cooperation in environmental industries between China and EU in terms of both scope of investment partners and target industries.

This study is one of the first to provide a detailed summary statistics on China’s OFDI to the EU in environmental industries. Given China’s growing concerns regarding environmental protection and OFDI, we believe the question merits further analysis.