The Impact of the Chinese Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) On Sino-EU Relations: The Leverage between Investment and Human Rights

Abstract Sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) have been rapidly redefining the traditional paradigms, providing both much-needed capitals as well as posing particular challenges for policy makers. The role of SWFs, which are becoming increasingly involved in the global financial markets, has often been underestimated in the discourse of the protection of human rights. The tâtonnement processes of bargaining between home and host countries of SWFs indicate that the concern regarding human rights has maintained a sensible balance between protecting the rights of individuals and the benefits that large capital investments offer for both host and home countries. The challenge still remains as to whether the presumption that the promotion of SWFs investment is going to retard the promotion of human rights would not be rebutted even in terms of the new global regulatory framework.