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This research explores the intricate dynamics of national interests realised through Japan's official development assistance (ODA) to China. It aims to deepen the understanding of these mechanisms, detailing the extent to which Japan has accomplished its national interests.

The paper applies the role theory and narrative analysis to elucidate Japan's national role conception and its categories of national interests with regards to its ODA policy. It utilises both qualitative and quantitative methods to examine the success rate in achieving Japan's diplomatic objectives and how those interests have manifested over time.

The findings suggest a mixed outcome. Whilst Japan's ODA to China has helped in expanding trade and fostering mutual understanding and cooperation, it has been less successful in promoting democratic governance in China or effectively counterbalancing China's regional power. Hence, the realisation of national interests through ODA is a complex process contingent upon numerous factors.

This study stands out for its multifaceted approach in examining Japan's ODA policy towards China, integrating both quantitative and qualitative methodologies and applying the role theory in the context of international development aid. It fills a significant gap in the literature by analysing the interplay between national interests and foreign aid, providing nuanced insights into the successes and challenges of Japan's pursuit of its diplomatic objectives. The study's findings have important implications for understanding the complexity of international aid dynamics and can inform future policy decisions in the realm of international relations and foreign aid.

This paper aims to examine the extent to which these reforms address the limitations of Saudi Arabia’s previous investment framework. Long viewed as a hostile environment in which to do business, the Saudi Government has enacted a broad sweep of measures aimed at restoring investor confidence in central aspects of the country’s evolving private law framework.

This paper offers a timely assessment of the raft of foreign investment reforms, both legislative and regulatory, that have been introduced in Saudi Arabia over the last decade.

The paper will proceed by outlining the perceived failings of the old investment regime before going on to reforms.

It will consider the remaining obstacles to the flow of foreign investment in Saudi Arabia in the context of the dual forces that have historically defined the Kingdom’s ambivalent investment law regime.

This paper aims to investigate how the Japanese media conveyed the country’s foreign aid policy and analyse how framing biases in the news differ depending on which language (either Japanese or English) was used in the broadcasts.

This study uses a qualitative single case-study design and conducts a content analysis. The study uses news videos about the fifth Tokyo International Conference on African Development aired on YouTube by the Japanese media using Japanese and English.

The findings reveal subtle but notable differences in the patterns of the framing biases in the Japanese media’s news aired in Japanese intended for the domestic audience, and in the news on the same topic broadcast in English to the international audience.

The limitation of the study is the rather small data set used for the single case study of one event.

Framing biases could lead the general public in a monolingual society to a more skewed view of their government’s policy and its activities abroad. This could be an obstacle to developing a common ground for global issues and cross-border policy agendas.

The study explores an under-researched function of language in international affairs. It highlights how the mass media in a non-English-speaking country uses a dual approach to framing news while addressing different audiences. To the best of the author’s knowledge, the context that this paper deals with is novel because there are limited studies on the nexus between the influence of language choices and media logic in the field of international business.

China’s foreign aid efforts in Africa remain contentious. Chinese foreign aid tends to be different from “traditional” development assistance in that it frequently involves firms as the implementing agents of projects. Firms bring unique resources to public–private partnerships (PPPs) formed with government agencies, but their possible self-interested nature also gives rise to concerns over their development impact. Yet, on a larger scale, little is known about the characteristics of Chinese PPPs in foreign aid. Using project-level data available for 1,308 Chinese aid projects in 50 countries across Africa, the author characterizes the projects undertaken by firms and government agencies in a PPP and contrasts them to those executed by Chinese government agencies without firm involvement. This exploratory data analysis suggests that important differences apply, as Chinese PPPs tend to target different sustainable development goals (SDGs), work on the basis of distinct aid conditions, and implement projects that tend to be larger than those that are solely run by government agencies. Such observations raise important questions of an ethical, theoretical, and international nature, and warrant further research. The author develops a research agenda that aims at issues particularly important for business ethics scholars, organization theorists, and international business scholarship.

This paper examines the main drives of encouraging Iranian investors in the Turkish real estate market, focusing on the interface between push factors and pull factors that drive them abroad.

This paper examines the main drives of encouraging Iranian investors in the Turkish real estate market, focusing on the interface between push factors and pull factors that drive them abroad. For this purpose, the trend of housing price growth in Iran and Turkey was compared. The review of the 11-year trend of rates shows that housing prices in both countries have been continuously rising, and these prices have undoubtedly experienced increasing shocks in Iran. For further analysis, 13 main variables leading to the repulsion of investment in Iran's housing market and 15 variables shaping the attractiveness of investment in Turkey were identified in this sector. Thirty experts subsequently ranked the significant variables based on a closed-end questionnaire using quantitative strategic planning matrix. Examining housing investment elasticity in Turkey also shows that “Turkey's economic stability compared to neighboring countries” and “acquiring Turkish citizenship through real estate investment” are among the most important variables. On the other hand, the pressure variables of housing investment in Iran were “decrease in the value of the Iranian currency in recent years,” “currency price fluctuations” and “severe fluctuations and instability in the Iranian housing market.”

Examining housing investment elasticity in Turkey also shows that “Turkey's economic stability compared to neighboring countries” and “acquiring Turkish citizenship through real estate investment” are among the most important variables. On the other hand, the pressure variables of housing investment in Iran were “decrease in the value of the Iranian currency in recent years,” “currency price fluctuations” and “severe fluctuations and instability in the Iranian housing market.”

From a theoretical standpoint, foreign investment is in support of Turkey and harmful to Iran because the Turkish government is bolstering investment attractiveness to bring increased capital inflows into this country. Practically speaking, Turkey has aimed to create a rational framework for investors by strengthening and changing its economic system, as well as amending existing constitutions in this domain. Nevertheless, Iran resists any changes in its economic system and legislation. Therefore, a wide range of attractiveness and repulsion variables has led to the migration of Iranian investors to Turkey. In the present study, such variables are illuminated.

The purpose of this paper is to propose a framework for evaluating the relationship between China and Peru, drawing on dependency theory, against the backdrop of China’s explicit policies towards foreign direct investment. It seeks to transcend traditional interpretations of this relationship in the literature that focuses on China as either hegemon or a South–South partner to Latin American countries to highlight a more nuanced relationship.

The paper adopts a case study approach, focusing on China in Peru. The authors examine three areas of traditional, strategic and emerging industries drawing from Chinese national policies, reviewing these against characteristics of dependency: control of production, heterogeneity of actors, transfer of knowledge and delinking.

The authors find that Chinese foreign direct investment (FDI) in Peru demonstrates mixed motives and collectively operates as an ambiguous player. Chinese firms appear to be willing to work with various actors, but this engagement does not translate into a decolonial development alternative in the absence of a Peruvian political will to delink and Chinese willingness to actively transfer control of production and knowledge.

This paper contributes to existing literature on China in Latin America by evaluating Chinese outward FDI in Peru against China’s strategic aims in terms of a re-evaluation of dependency theory.

This paper aims to examine the impact of six possible foreign direct investment (FDI) spillover channels on the total factor productivity (TFP) of Chinese agricultural enterprises and investigate the moderating role of absorptive capacity (technological acumen) on TFP spillover effects.

Based on data from 118 agricultural and related Chinese industries, the authors employ a multithreshold regression model to empirically analyze the impact of FDI on the TFP of agricultural enterprises and the threshold effect of absorptive capacity. To overcome potential endogeneity problems, the authors select the FDI stock of corresponding USA industries and the industrial access policy index as instrumental variables and re-estimate the model.

The results suggest foreign-invested agricultural enterprises are more likely to benefit from FDI, while the “aggregate” FDI spillover effect is negative for domestic agricultural enterprises. However, once threshold effects are introduced, the authors find firms “close to” (“far from”) the technological frontier experience statistically significant positive (negative) spillover effects. Similar results are obtained for virtually all FDI spillover channels for firms in both upstream and downstream industries. FDI spillovers, when they occur, can be a two-edged sword – benefiting some firms at the expense of others.

The authors introduce six FDI spillover channels to examine the impact of FDI on the productivity of foreign-invested and domestic agricultural enterprises. Moreover, the authors analyze the threshold effect of firms' absorptive capacity. These findings can help formulate foreign investment introduction policies based on the characteristics of agricultural enterprises with different ownership structures. These results are also beneficial for agricultural enterprises to better exploit FDI spillover effects and improve their productivity.

This study aims to define a “technological statecraft” concept to distinguish tech-based measures/sanctions from an array of economic measures ranging from restrictions of rare earth elements and natural gas supplies to asset freezes under the wider portfolio of economic statecraft. This concept is practically intended to reveal the USA’s “logic of choice” in its employment of technology as an efficient instrument to deal with China in the context of the great power rivalry.

This study follows David A. Baldwin’s statecraft definition and conceptualization methodology, which relies on “means” rather than “ends.” In addition to Baldwin and as an incremental contribution to his economic statecraft analysis, this study also combines national political economy with statecraft analysis with a particular focus on the utilization of technological measures against China during the Trump administration.

The US rationale for choosing technology, namely, emerging and foundational technologies, in its rivalry against China is caused at least by two factors: the nature of the external challenge and the characteristics of the US innovation model based largely on radical innovations. To deal with China, the USA practically distinguished the role of advanced technology and followed a grammer of technological statecraft as depicted in the promulgated legal texts during the Trump administration.

Despite a growing volume of literature on economic statecraft and technological competition, studies focusing on countries’ “logic of choice” with regard to why and under what conditions they choose financial, technological or commodity-based sanctions/measures/controls are lacking. Inspired from Baldwin’s account on the “logic of choice” from among alternative statecrafts (i.e. diplomacy, military, economic statecraft, and propaganda). This study will contribute to the literature with a clear lens to demonstrate the “logic of choice” from among a variety of economic statecraft measures in the case of the US technological statecraft toward China.