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Paper short abstract:

China’s influence in Africa is growing at an exponential rate ranging from trade, investment to aid. It is argued that, Chinese investment in African countries undermine the rule of laws and business ethics. This paper investigate the impact of Chinese investments on local regulatory institutions

Paper long abstract:

In many African nations, regulatory institutions remain largely weak, with inexistent or ineffective enforcement arsenal, tools, or instruments. As a result, foreign investors seize this as an opportunity to shift the balance of power to their benefit by taking advantage of the free market system, while, at the same time, dominating world institutions make sure their rules prevail leaving local regulators powerless in the face of the protection of national policies and standards. The recent involvement of China in different activities on the continent, specifically, in Cameroon infrastructures building, the need for the Asian giant to seek for new markets to invest its capital surplus and on the other hand, about Cameroon, factors such as: the need of capital investment, the bargaining power, the asymmetrical vision and the global context revealed the limits of domestic enforcement capabilities. And moreover, the performance of home regulatory institutions, the behaviour of local players responsible of the enforcement, the public bureaucracy, the competitive clientelism, the state-businesses collusion, the rents seeking attitude and the power holds by foreign actors have brought to the fore the debate on the extent of investors’ power to control local legislators.

At the centre of this discussion is an understanding of the way the dynamic of the distribution of power mutually compatible with institutions help achieve sustainable outcomes leading to diminishing policies space. In this regard, the role of both foreign and local actors is explicitly considered.