Abstract

The China-U.S. BIT negotiation signals the consensus and shared understanding on international investment governance among U.S. and China. In light of opportunity cost and transaction cost of international investment governance, the research argues that states will not enter an IIA unless (1) the IIA would efficiently better states off, and (2) powerful states come with great distribution of surplus of the IIA. The China-U.S. BIT would be mutual beneficial and there is no alternative mechanism with high desirability and high feasibility for both contracting states. Power relation between ...