Chinese Overseas Investment & itsEnvironmental and Social Impacts

April 4, 2015

Yale University ∙ Kroon Hall ∙ 195 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT

WELCOMESince 2005 China has invested nearly $900 billion overseas, the majority of it is in the developing world. The recent years have witnessed a shift from developing to developed regions including North America and Europe. These financial flows have far-reaching impacts, including legal, political, economic, environmental, and social implications. The Yale Symposium on Chinese Overseas Investment and its Environmental and Social Impacts explores the relationship between China’s overseas investment and the impacts - both negative and positive - on natural resources, particularly in the forestry, minerals, water, and energy sectors. By convening key actors from academia, public and private sectors, we aim to facilitate knowledge sharing that can steer Chinese overseas investment toward stronger environmental and social governance.

For more information, please visit:

http://china-symposium.yale.edu/

SCHEDULEAT-A-GLANCE8:30 am Registration and Breakfast 3rd Floor, Kroon Hall

9:00 am Welcome Burke Auditorium

Dean Peter Crane, Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (Yale F&ES)

Rodney Irwin, World Business Council for Sustainable Development

9:20 am Overview: Chinese Overseas Investment -- Trend and Impacts Burke Auditorium

Moderator: Deborah S. Davis, Professor, Sociology, Yale University

Xiaoyang Tang, Associate Professor, International Relations, Tsinghua University

Ambassador David H. Shinn, Adjunct Professor, George Washington University

Tao Hu, China Program Director, World Wide Fund for Nature U.S. (WWF U.S.)

10:30 am Panel I: Business Perspective on Environmental and Social Impacts of Chinese Overseas Investment

Burke Auditorium

Moderator: Marian Chertow, Associate Professor, Yale F&ES

Weijun Xie, General Manager of Resource Development, China Minmetals Corporation

Katie Schindall, Consultant Program Manager, Sustainability at EMC

Rebecca Ray, Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Global Economic Governance Initiative, Boston University

11:50 am Panel II: Chinese Regulatory Governance on its Overseas Investment Burke Auditorium

Moderator: Daniel C. Esty, Professor, Yale F&ES and Yale Law School (YLS)

Larry Jiang, Principal Environmental Specialist, International Finance Corporation (IFC)

Denise Leung, Associate, World Resource Institute

Jingjing Zhang, Environmental Public Interest Lawyer, Yale World Fellow

1:00 pm Lunch 3rd Floor, Kroon Hall

2:00 pm Panel III: Chinese Funding in Multilateral Development Institutions Burke Auditorium

Moderator: Bradford S. Gentry, Professor, Yale F&ES, Yale School of Management (SOM)

Zhihong Zhang, Senior Program Coordinator, Climate Investment Funds, World Bank

Graham Webster, Research Scholar in Law and Senior Fellow, China Center, YLS

Tao Hu, Director, China Program, WWF U.S.

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3:20 pm Case Study Sessions

Session A: Canada: China’s Overseas Investment in Energy Infrastructure Kroon 321

Wenran Jiang, Director, Canada-China Energy and Environment Forum

Session B: Africa: Wanbao Farm in Mozambique: Land grab or Development? Sage 24

Xiaoyang Tang, Associate Professor, International Relations, Tsinghua University

Session C: Latin America: Brazil-China Soybean Trade and Rainforest Conversation Kroon G01

Charles Tang, Chairman, Brazil-China Chamber of Industry & Commerce

Session D: Asia: Hydro Development in the Amur-Heilong River Basin Kroon 319

Eugene Simonov, Coordinator, Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition

5:00 pm Takeaways and Closing Remarks Burke Auditorium

5:30 pm Network and Reception 3rd Floor, Kroon Hall

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PA N E LDESCRIPTIONS

Overview: Chinese Overseas Investment: Trends and Impacts

9:20 am

The goal of this panel is to provide a broad overview of the trends and environmental, social and economic impacts of Chinese overseas investment. Our panelists will focus on China’s second wave of Outward Foreign Direct Investment (OFDI), highlight the environmental and social aspects of investment, and discuss how Chinese investment can play a significant role in promoting sustainable development worldwide. These issues will also be discussed with examples of investment practice in Africa.

Moderator: Deborah S. Davis, Professor, Sociology, Yale UniversityXiaoyang Tang, Associate Professor, International Relations, Tsinghua UniversityAmbassador David H. Shinn, Adjunct Professor, George Washington University

Tao Hu, China Program Director, World Wide Fund for Nature U.S. (WWF U.S.)

Panel I: Business Perspective on Environmental and Social Impacts of Chinese Overseas Investment

10:30 am

This panel explores how the business world incorporates environmental and social impacts into the operations. Panelists will give an overview of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) peformance from the perspectives of both a leading Chinese metal and mineral trading company and an established U.S. multinational corporation. Field research and findings about Chinese investment in several Latin American countries will be presented.

Moderator: Marian Chertow, Associate Professor, Yale F&ESWeijun Xie, General Manager of Resource Development, China Minmetals Corporation

Katie Schindall, Consultant Program Manager, Sustainability at EMCRebecca Ray, Pre-Doctoral Fellow, Global Economic Governance Initiative, Boston University

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Panel II: Chinese Regulatory Governance on its Overseas Investment

11:50 am

This panel will discuss the regulatory framework governing Chinese overseas investment and explore ways to strengthen the integration of environmental and social concerns into business investment projects through government regulation and effective enforcement. The panelists will present the environmental and social performance of Bank or IFC-funded projects in China vis-a-vis other developing countries. Issues related to institutional capacity, political willingness, and public awareness for effective enforcement will also be discussed.

Moderator: Daniel C. Esty, Professor, Yale F&ES and YLSLarry Jiang, Principal Environmental Specialist, International Finance Corporation (IFC)

Denise Leung, Associate, World Resource Institute Jingjing Zhang, Environmental Public Interest Lawyer, Yale World Fellow

Panel III: Chinese Funding in Multilateral Development Institutions

2:00 pm

This panel will present the trends of Chinese government involvement in multilateral institutions- from a major recipient of international development grants and loans to an important donor in promoting South-South development. China recently established a national strategy to fund BRICS Bank, AIIB (Asian Infrastructure Development Bank), and Silk Road Fund. Why does China decide to invest billions of dollars in building new financial institutions? How does the U.S. perceive such change of landscape in development field? What are the long-term political, social, economical and environmental impacts of China’s advancement in multilateral institutions?

Moderator: Bradford S. Gentry, Professor, Yale F&ES and SOMZhihong Zhang, Senior Program Coordinator, Climate Investment Funds, World Bank

Graham Webster, Research Scholar in Law and Senior Fellow, China Center, YLSTao Hu, Director, China Program, WWF U.S.

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Canada: China’s Overseas Investment in Energy Infrastructure

Kroon 321

Since 2005 there have been several Chinese state-owned enterprises, including PetroChina Co. Ltd., Sinopec, CNOOC Ltd. and China Investment Corp., that have invested in Canadian energy projects, mostly oil sands and shale projects. Indeed, one of the biggest acquisition headlines of 2013 was CNOOC’s acquisition of Nexen Inc. Recently, however, many have questioned the benefit China is receiving from these investments as a suspicious political climate hinders quick development. Will China continue to see energy investments into politically stable but reluctant developed countries as viable? How has China’s strategy of approaching deals in Canada benefited or hindered development?

Jiang Wenran, Director, Canada-China Energy and Environment Forum

Africa: Wanbao Farm in Mozambique: Land Grab or Development?

Sage 24

Wanbao Xaixai Farm is one of the largest Chinese agricultural investments in Africa. It has an ambitious plan to grow rice in an area of 20,000 hectares in Xai-Xai province of Mozambique and comprehensively improve Mozambique’s food supply system. The Mozambican government views the project as having strategic importance and has provided much support for it. However, there are NGOs accusing this project of land grabbing. A report of National Geographic 2014 seemed to confirm this accusation. Mainly based on first-hand findings from field research, this case study will demonstrate the multiple facets of the Wanbao Farm project. By examining perspectives and arguments of Chinese investors, Mozambican government and local communities, we will show the diverging understandings on agricultural development, environmental protection and social responsibility among the stakeholders. We will also compare the gap between plans and implementation to illustrate the challenges facing Chinese investors in Africa.

Xiaoyang Tang, Associate Professor, International Relations, Tsinghua University

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Latin America: Brazil-China Soybean Trade and Rainforest Conversation

Kroon G01

Over the past decade, China has developed a powerful investment and trade presence in Latin America and the Caribbean. As part of this presence, China has replaced the European Union as the main destination of Brazilian soybean exports, with its market share rising from 15% in 2000 to 53% in 2009. This is likely to rise to 70-90% of soybean exports by 2020. In Charles Tang’s words, “America’s backyard is growing a Chinese garden.” With increasing demand exerting pressure on Brazilian land, a key question is how to incentivize local producers and Chinese investors toward better risk management and social responsibility. We will discuss this issue within the context of the soy moratorium, Forest Code, and other tools Brazil has at its disposal.

Charles Tang, Chairman, Brazil-China Chamber of Industry & Commerce

Asia: Hydro Development in the Amur-Heilong River Basin

Kroon 319

The transboundary Amur-Heilong River is the last remaining great free-flowing river in China without dams in the main stem. Today, as a result of uncoordinated use of the river’s resources the productivity and resilience of the Amur-Heilong ecosystem is gradually declining. While damming the main stem of the Amur River would have hydropower benefits, it would destroy remaining fisheries, including salmon and the endemic Kaluga sturgeon, and would have many other negative consequences on sediment transport, aquatic and floodplain habitat, fisheries and wetland birds, water quality, and nutrient transport into the Pacific Ocean. This case study summarizes history of Sino-Russian cooperation in hydropower development with specific emphasis on interaction among NGOs, investors, and government agencies from China.

Eugene Simonov, Coordinator, Rivers without Boundaries International Coalition

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S P E A K E RBIOGRAPHIES

Marian Chertow

Marian Chertow is Associate Professor of Industrial Environmental Management and has been Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies since 1991. Her research and teaching focus on industrial ecology, business/environment issues, waste management, and environmental technology innovation. Primary research interests are 1) The study of industrial symbiosis including geographically-based exchanges of wastes, materials, energy, and water within networks of businesses. 2) The potential of industrial ecology to underpin ideas of the proposed Circular Economy law in China. 3) The application of innovation theory to the development of environmental and energy technology.

Peter Crane

Peter Crane is the Dean of Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. Dean Crane’s work focuses on the diversity of plant life: its origin and fossil history, current status, and conservation and use. From 1992 to 1999 he was director of the Field Museum in Chicago with overall responsibility for the museum’s scientific programs. During this time he established the Office of Environmental and Conservation Programs and the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change, which today make up the Division of Environment, Culture, and Conservation (ECCo). From 1999 to 2006 he was director of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, one of the largest and most influential botanical

gardens in the world. His tenure at Kew saw strengthening and expansion of the gardens’ scientific, conservation, and public programs. Dean Crane was elected to the Royal Society (the U.K. academy of sciences) in 1998.

Deborah S. Davis

Deborah S. Davis is Professor of Sociology at Yale University. Her primary teaching interests are inequality and stratification, contemporary Chinese society, and methods of fieldwork. In addition to teaching at Yale, she runs a summer fieldwork seminar where Yale students work collaboratively with students from Hong Kong and China. Davis is currently a member of the National Committee on US China Relations, Associate Editor of The Journal of Asian Studies, and on the editorial board of The China Quarterly. At Yale she has served as Director of Academic Programs at the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization, Chair of the Department of Sociology, Chair of the Council of East Asian Studies, Director of Graduate Studies in both East Asian Studies and Sociology.

Daniel Esty

Professor Esty is the author or editor of ten books and numerous articles on sustainability and environmental issues and the relationships between environmental protection and corporate strategy, competitiveness, trade, globalization, metrics, governance, and development. His prize-winning book (with Andrew Winston), Green to Gold: How Smart

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Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, argues that pollution control and natural resource management have become critical elements of marketplace success and explains how leading-edge companies have folded environmental thinking into their core business strategies. Professor Esty has advised companies of all sizes and in a wide range of industries on corporate environmental or sustainability strategy including Ikea, Coca-Cola, Unilever, Alcoa, Hanes, Hannaford, Boeing, and IBM.

Bradford S. Gentry

Mr. Gentry’s work explores the opportunities for using private investment to improve environmental performance. He works both across and within particular sectors/problems. The cross-sectoral work focuses on the steps policy makers can take to help develop opportunities for sustainable investments, including market frameworks, information systems, and shared investments/ partnerships. The sectoral work is concentrated in three major areas: increasing private investment in the delivery of urban environmental services (particularly drinking water and sanitation), sustainable forest management, and cleaner energy. Projects in all these areas are undertaken across a range of contexts from New Haven, to developing country megacities and to wilderness forest systems.

Tao Hu

Dr. Hu Tao is China Program Director of WWF US. He was a Senior Fellow and Senior Associate at World Resources Institute (WRI) - a Washington DC based think tank. Prior joining WRI, he was the Senior Environmental Economist of Policy Research Center of Ministry of Environmental

Protection (MEP), China. He also served as the Senior Program Coordinator of UN-China Climate Change Partnership Framework Program (CCPF) during 2009-2010 and served as a member of Lead Expert Group China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED) during 2001-2007. He was also the Chief Expert of WTO, Trade and Environment Expert Group of Ministry of Environmental Protection (MEP), China.

Rodney Irwin

Dr. Rodney Irwin is responsible for a portfolio of projects designed to advance corporate reporting taking sustainable development into the mainstream reporting of an organization. He is the link between WBCSD members and standard / regulation setters and he is leading projects in risk management, taxation, mandatory reporting and is developing education programs designed for senior finance staff. Prior to this role, he was the Group Director of Risk Management, Control and non-Financial Reporting at TNT NV. He has also held senior positions in Motorola, Abbey National and started his career at Ernst & Young.He holds a degree in Economics, a master’s degree in management and a Doctorate where he researched comparative corporate governance and its interrelationship with ethical decision making and reporting.

Wenran Jiang

Dr. Wenran Jiang is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Alberta. He is also Director of Canada-China Energy and Environment Forum and its annual conference since 2004. Currently, Dr. Jiang is a Wilson Centre Global Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Centre for Scholars in Washington DC, and Special Advisor on China to the US and

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Canada based Energy Council. Dr. Jiang has just returned from being partially seconded to Alberta Department of Energy as a special advisor on Asian market diversification (2012-14). Before taking a partial leave from his tenure at the University of Alberta, Dr. Jiang was the Founding Director (2005-08) and Inaugural Mactaggart Research Chair (2008-11) of the University’s China Institute.

Larry Jiang

Larry Jiang is the Principal Environmental Specialist at the International Finance Corporation (IFC), the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. Mr. Jiang leads the environmental management of IFC’s global investments in the chemical, petrochemical, pharmaceutical, and biotech industry sectors. He is in charge of the preparation and review of World Bank Group’s environmental, health & safety guidelines for these sectors, and he has worked on more than 100 projects in 30 different countries. He is also involved in drafting and revising the IFC Performance Standards on Environmental and Social Sustainability, which is the basis for the Equator Principles. Prior to the World Bank Group/IFC, Mr. Jiang worked as an environmental engineer for the US Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA) and US Agency for International Development (USAID).

Denise Leung

Denise Leung is an Associate in the Sustainable Finance Program at the World Resources Institute (WRI). Her work focuses on improving the environmental and social performance of both overseas and domestic investments from emerging economies such as China. She also works on governance and sustainability issues in the host countries that receive investments

from these countries, including analyzing Chinese investments in Africa. Prior to joining WRI, Denise worked as a researcher at the Centre for Law and Environment at University College London (UCL), where she focused on governance, sustainability and regulation, especially in relation to the EU and China. Her work on China centered on compliance and enforcement with environmental regulations.

Rebecca Ray

Rebecca Ray is a Research Fellow at the Boston University Global Economic Governance Initiative, where she coordinates the Working Group on Development and the Environment in the Americas’ China in Latin America project. She is a PhD student in economics at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, with an MA in International Development Studies from George Washington University. Her fieldwork has included research on Chinese oil development in Ecuador, as well as consulting for the Institute for Sustainability, Education, and Action in Salt Spring Island, Canada and the Partnership for Food Industry Development in Managua, Nicaragua. Prior to joining BU GEGI, she was a research associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.

Katie Schindall

Katie Schindall leads EMC’s Supply Chain Social & Environmental Responsibility and eWaste programs, developing and implementing strategies for sustainable sourcing and recycling of EMC’s hardware products. Her past experience includes developing corporate engagement strategy at The Nature Conservancy; a Climate Corps Fellowship at Sodexo; research analysis and consulting with McKinsey’s Social Sector Practice; and on-the-ground work for TechnoServe Ghana and for a collaborative

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Australian land conservation project called Gondwana Link. She has an MBA and a Master of Environmental Management from Yale University.

David H. Shinn

David Shinn has taught at the Elliott School of International Affairs at George Washington University since 2001. He previously served for 37 years in the U.S. Foreign Service with assignments at embassies in Lebanon, Kenya, Tanzania, Mauritania, Cameroon, Sudan and as ambassador to Burkina Faso and Ethiopia. He is the co-author of China and Africa: A Century of Engagement and Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. He has published numerous articles in academic and policy journals and is a frequent guest on the BBC, Voice of America, China Central Television, Al-Jazeera, and Radio France Internationale. He has a PhD in political science from George Washington University.

Eugene Simonov

Eugene Simonov has been bridging gaps in conservation work between Russia and the US, Europe, China, Mongolia and East Asia in general for the past 20 years. He has a degree in biology from Moscow State University, a master degree in environmental studies from Yale F&ES, and a doctorate in nature conservation from China’s Northeast Forestry University. He has a long history of cooperation with the Biodiversity Conservation Center, Socio-ecological Union, World Bank, Global Environmental Facility, World Wildlife Fund, Pacific Environment, UNECE, Russian, Mongolian and Chinese bureaucracies and local communities. Since 2004, he has focused on trans boundary issues with a special focus on the Amur River Basin, a highly complex watershed of northeastern China, the Russian Far East, and eastern Mongolia.

Charles Tang

Charles Tang is Chairman of the Brazil-China Chamber of Commerce & Industry. He is also a member of the World Policy Institute in New York and the Fernand Braudel Institute of World Economics in Sao Paulo. Charles is also Honorary president of the Beijing International Chamber of Commerce; member of the International Advisory Council in Wuhan; economic advisor to Jilin City and Huainan; advisor to Jiangxi Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, Councilor of the Foreign Trade Council of the Federation of Commerce of São Paulo and Director of the Federation of International Chambers of Commerce. He has a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University and completed law school at the Estácio de Sá University in Brazil.

Xiaoyang Tang

Xiaoyang Tang is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at Tsinghua University and a resident scholar at the Carnegie-Tsinghua Center for Global Policy. His research interests include political philosophy, China’s engagement in Africa and modernization process of the developing countries. He is the author of China-Africa Economic Diplomacy (2014) and has published extensively on Asia-Africa relations. He completed his Ph.D. in the philosophy department at the New School for Social Research in New York. He earned his M.A in philosophy from Freiburg University in Germany and his B.A in business management from Fudan University in Shanghai. He also worked as a consultant for the World Bank, USAID and various research institutes and consulting companies. Before coming to Tsinghua, he worked at International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC.

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Graham Webster

Graham Webster is a Research Scholar in Law and a Senior Fellow, The China Center, at Yale Law School. He researches U.S.–China relations, East Asian politics and international relations, and technology and society. Webster is also an Adjunct Instructor in East Asian politics at NYU’s Center for Global Affairs. In the past, he worked at the Center for American Progress and consulted for the Natural Resources Defense Council China Program, the National Bureau of Asian Research, and the Clinton Global Initiative. Webster holds an A.M. in East Asian Studies from Harvard University and a B.S. from Northwestern University. His website is gwbstr.com.

Weijun Xie

Weijun Xie is the General Manager of Resource Development Department in China Minmetals Corporation，where he leads the global mergers and acquisitions of mineral resources and sustainable development issues. He guided China Minmetals to become an internationally leading company in Corporate Social Responsibility and sustainability performance, and he frequently speaks in major international CSR and sustainability conferences, including the Rio+20 UN Sustainable Conference. He served as an expert member of the United Nations Global Compact (UNGC) Environment Stewardship Project and successfully organized China Minmetals to attend the UNGC Leaders Summit 2010, where the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highly recognized the company’s philosophy and performance of sustainable development.

Zhihong Zhang

Zhihong Zhang is Senior Program Coordinator at the Climate Investment Funds Administrative Unit, overseeing the Clean Technology Fund and

the Program for Scaling up Renewable Energy in Low Income Countries. From 2004 to 2011, he was Senior Climate Change Specialist and Coordinator for Climate Change Mitigation at the Global Environment Facility. In this capacity, he led the development and implementation of the GEF climate change focal area strategy and was extensively engaged in the UN climate change negotiations on mitigation, finance, and technology transfer. Prior to joining the GEF, Zhihong served as Chief Technical Advisor on behalf of the UN Industrial Development Organization to manage energy efficiency projects in China. Zhihong holds a Ph.D. in Energy Management and Policy from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jingjing Zhang

Committed to justice and strengthening the rule of law, Zhang Jingjing represents pollution victims in lawsuits and promotes public participation by helping communities organize public hearings on environmental rights. Through her work with the Center for Legal Assistance to Pollution Victims (CLAPV), she has won milestone cases in Chinese courts, including a successful environmental class action suit against a chemical company that discharged toxic substances in Fujian Province, and has been called China’s Erin Brockovich. She was selected as a Yale World Fellow in 2008, and won the SEE-TNC (The Nature Conservancy) Eco-award in May 2011. She has been working with local environmental lawyers from the Mekong River region and Mexico on their legal cases against Chinese companies since 2010.

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NOTES

THANKOUR SPONSORS

Dean Peter Crane, Yale F&ES

Associate Dean Gordon Geballe, Yale F&ES

Yale F&ES Class of 80’ Student Project Fund, Yale F&ES

Yale Graduate and Professonal Student Senate

Yale Center for Business and the Environment

PLANNING COMMITTEEYALE FORESTRY & ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES

Yaping Cheng (MEM ‘15)

Boming Cui (MEM ‘16)

Anna Finke (MF ‘16)

Tianjun Hou (MESc ‘15)

Andrew Moffat (MEM ‘16)

Jie Pan (MEM ‘15)

Yiyuan Jasmine Qin (MEM ‘15)

Yinong Sun (MESc ‘16)

Wan-Yu Sung (MEM ‘16)

Kaiyang Xu (MF ‘16)

Jiani Yang (MESc ‘16)

Daphne Yin (MEM ‘15)

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