This report describes how Chinese business elites are connected to each other and to Dutch and other international business elites. Subsequently, it looks at how Chinese and Dutch business elite networks and interactions influence the management, operations and corporate strategies of Chinese-invested firms in the Netherlands. Finally, it analyses to what extent Chinese businesses in the Netherlands are connected to or influenced by the CCP. It then turns to the role of the CCP’s organizational structure plays abroad, as well as what purposes this serves.
The report sketches the development of Chinese firms and investments in the Netherlands, and highlights some of the main features, driving forces and support structures in shaping these investment patterns. It also investigates the ownership structures of the main Chinese-invested firms in the Netherlands. Subsequently, it analyses the business elite and political networks at the headquarters back in China of the main Chinese firms in the Netherlands, as well as the directors and management of the overseas subsidiaries in the Netherlands. The researchers triangulated their findings through a series of interviews which allowed them to study how Sino-Dutch business relations and interactions influence the management, operations and corporate strategies of Chinese-invested firms in the Netherlands, and discussed their interactions with the headquarters back in China.
The final part of this study focuses more explicitly on the connections and influence of the CCP. The researchers started with an analysis of CCP activities and party building more generally – within China and abroad. Subsequently, they moved to an overview on CCP party work at the level of the parent companies of Chinese-invested firms in the Netherlands. Finally, the researchers zoomed in on party building in the Netherlands itself. The report concludes with a reflection on wider implications in the context of growing geopolitical rivalry between the West and China and the politicization of Sino-European relations in the public debate in the Netherlands.
