CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2023
| Author | Olesya Dovgalyuk |
|---|---|
| Title | Stuck between Beijing and Brussels? Tracing the patterns of Chinese multinationals lobbying strategies vis-a-vis the EU institutions |
| Summary | Over the past several decades, the extent of Chinese foreign direct investment and the physical presence of Chinese multinational companies in the EU markets have increased exponentially. These private stakeholders play an important role both in the cross-border trade and in domestic economies of the EU member-states through job creation, fulfilment of critical infrastructure projects, and tax contributions, among others. Few academic studies, however, pay attention to how Chinese multinational companies participate in the interest representation facing the EU institutions in Brussels. This study takes it as a research question and carries out an initial descriptive assessment of some lobbying activities conducted between 2014 and 2022 by nine EU-based Chinese companies and their subsidiaries: Alibaba, Ant Group, DJI Europe, Hikvision, Huawei, Lenovo, Tencent, TikTok, and ZTE. It uses three clusters of lobbying indicators sourced from the EU Transparency Register, complemented by interviews and further desktop research, to analyze the trends and patterns in the resources Chinese firms spend on lobbying, frequency of their engagement in direct meetings with the European Commission, and preferences for indirect representation modalities. The analysis conducted shows that, generally, larger budgets and in-house lobbying teams, policy issue relevance to business operations, and a company’s physical presence in Brussels are associated with more active lobbying behavior, which partially validates Hypotheses 1 and 2. Furthermore, available evidence and interviews support Hypothesis 3 that geopolitical tensions around specific sectors and worsening China-EU relations are important factors affecting decreases in direct lobbying activities, although further research is required to trace the exact relationship between the two. |
| Supervisor | Bruszt, Laszlo |
| Department | Political Science MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2023/dovgalyuk_olesya.pdf |
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