社会变革和制度文化制约下的“多尺度嵌入”——以缅甸莱比塘铜矿项目为例

“一带一路”倡议的深入推进加速了中国企业对外投资的步伐。而对于这些“走出去”的企业而言,往往面临着东道国社会环境及治理结构变革、制度制约、文化冲突等多重挑战。此前经济地理学提出的“主动嵌入”和“被动嵌入”,并不能完全解释“一带一路”倡议背景下中国企业在“走出去”过程中所呈现的“外资”与东道国治理结构、地方制度文化环境之间的复杂相互作用关系。本研究构建了“全球-国家-地方”多尺度嵌入的分析框架,以缅甸莱比塘铜矿为例,阐释企业如何通过多样化制度创新,顺应东道国的社会变革,突破制度和文化的制约,从而取得政府、企业、当地社区“多赢”局面的合作模式,从而从新的视角理解制度的多尺度性和尺度之间的相互作用。研究发现：尺度要素之间存在耦合关联作用,且作用模式有不同的组合,同时多个尺度要素的嵌入和影响过程也存在时序效应。最后,结合莱比塘案例,为中国企业“走出去”提出了政策建议。

Multi-scalar embeddedness under transition: A case study of Chinese investment in Letpadaung,Myanmar

The in-depth promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative has accelerated the pace of outward foreign direct investment of Chinese enterprises. These “going out” enterprises often face multi-scalar challenges such as the reform of the host country's social and political environment, institutional constraints, and cultural conflicts. The “active embeddedness” and “obligated embeddedness” proposed by the early economic geographers cannot fully explain the correlation between the “foreign capital” and the host country's governance structure and the local institutional culture in the process of “going out” of Chinese enterprises under Belt and Road Initiative. This article argues that the process of outward investment is influenced by “multi-scale” factors from the global, national and local levels, and the key to success is for enterprises to make timely adaptive adjustments in dynamic environmental changes to better embedded locally. By constructing an analysis framework of “global-national-local multi-scalar embeddedness”, it explains how Chinese enterprises are embedded in the social reform of the host country and break through the constraints of institutions and culture through social innovations. A cooperative model of the “win-win” situation of the government, enterprises and local communities had been built, so as to understand the multi-scalar and inter-scalar connections from a new perspective. Taking the Letpadaung Copper Mining Project invested by China in Myanmar as an example, the Chinese firm Wanbao has taken multi-scalar actions to embed into the political, economic and social environment of the host country. On a global scale, Wanbao has considered the international relations with major countries such as the United States and Japan and the influence of western non-governmental organizations on the global production network and local areas. On the national scale, the cooperation model between foreign capital and different political parties, economic benefits and employment of host countries, ethnic and religious issues as well have been considered comprehensively. On the regional scale, attention has been paid to the social impact, religious issues, people's livelihood issues and environmental protection issues brought by the entry of foreign-funded projects. The paper finds that multi-scalar factors are highly coupling with each other and act in different models. Meanwhile, the impact process has timing effects. Research is of great significance for revisiting “institutional and cultural turn” and guiding Chinese enterprises to “going out”.