We plan to create the foundations for comparative research on how growing investment from mainland China in industrial and agricultural production facilities abroad, particularly in poor regions such as Africa, Southeast Asia and Eastern Europe, affects labour relations, management practices, and ideas of desirable labour standards. The funding would support a threefold aim:

(1) help execute a joint research project on Wanhua-Borsodchem, Hungary's largest chemical company that was taken over by a Chinese investor in 2011 in the fifth-largest Chinese investment in Europe to date;

(2) help the writing of a comparative article that incorporates material from Tanzania, Hungary, and Cambodia;

(3) start a longer-term research network that will facilitate doctoral projects by Chinese students in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and Africa under joint supervision and extend to new forms of Chinese engagement with labour practices abroad (NGOs, volunteers).

The plans are based on previous research by co-applicant Dr Xu Xiuli and collaborators on a Chinese farm in Tanzania; my previous fieldwork at Chinese construction sites in Cambodia; and collaboration we have begun on the Wanhua-Borsodchem project.