Superpower Legal Rivalry and the Global Compliance Dilemma

Authors

Ji Li, University of California, Irvine School of LawFollow

Publication Date

Summer 2024

First Page

891

Document Type

Article

Abstract

The intensifying rivalry between the United States and the People’s Republic of China has spawned a proliferation of contradictory laws and regulations, plunging transnational actors into a vexing compliance dilemma—conformity with U.S. law and its necessitation of contravening Chinese law, and vice versa. This Article illuminates this superpower legal rivalry and how multinational corporations (“MNCs”), as prime beneficiaries of post-Cold War economic globalization, navigate this fractured, intricate legal terrain when compelled to take sides amid the great power competition. It begins by providing the first comprehensive exposition of the major competing legal mandates imposed by the U.S. and Chinese governments across a diverse array of regulatory domains. This Article then triangulates this comparative analysis with empirical evidence, leveraging two sets of survey data to investigate Chinese MNCs’ varying exposure to the compliance dilemma. It finds that state ownership, intensive regulation, and the engagement of greenfield investment correspond to heightened vulnerabilities. Next, this Article formulates a theoretical framework modeling the superpower legal rivalry and corporate reactions as parts of a dynamic, strategic, multi-actor process. Applying insights from neo-institutionalism, this account integrates the analyses of corporate internal and external responses to the fractured, intricate global compliance environment. The legal rivalry and the responses of transnational actors will profoundly reshape the existing international legal, economic, and political orders.

Repository Citation

Ji Li, Superpower Legal Rivalry and the Global Compliance Dilemma, 45 U. Pa. J. Int’l L. 891 (2024).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/jil/vol45/iss4/2