Regulating Enterprise: The Regulatory Impact on Doing Business

This is the introduction to a special volume that examines the regulatory impact of doing business in China. The introduction summarizes the results of conferences sponsored by the Oxford Foundation for Law, Justice and Society, and held in Hong Kong and Beijing. The participants addressed a wide range of subjects, including recently issued and yet to be promulgated draft laws and regulations in the areas of bankruptcy, anti-monopoly, real estate and labor; as well as developments in mergers and acquisitions, telecommunications, corporate social responsibility, dispute resolution, intellectual property, banking and financial governance, and the impact of China's accession to the WTO on legal and economic reforms. Major themes and topics include the methodology of reform and the suitability of different approaches to regulation; the impact of political, social and economic factors on legal reforms and vice versa; the influence of bureaucratic rivalries on implementation; the increasing diversity of economic actors and the rise of interest groups with clearly defined and oftentimes competing agendas; and the impact of economic globalization on the domestic regulatory system and the pushback from domestic actors, including foreign businesses, when it comes to international policies and practices that are not in their interests.