For a brief period, things were looking up for bilateral investment ties between China and the EU. After seven years of difficult negotiations, the two sides finally agreed to a Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI) on December 30, 2020. Designed to improve and codify market access to China for EU businesses and investors across a range of sectors, the agreement offered heightened investment transparency standards and an ostensible “level playing field” for both sides across designated investment domains.
Over the past three months, however, the geopolitical sands have shifted.
