France maintains a negative trade balance with China and Chinese companies have

159 Business France maintains a negative trade balance with China and Chinese companies have not invested much in France compared to what they’ve poured into Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Chinese investors reduced investments during the 2016-17 presidential campaign and have also met with informal refusals in some cases, such as Areva, the French nuclear company. The Chinese domestic market is set to save France’s dairy industry, even creating a temporary shortage of butter for the first time since 1945. Still, complaints over too many purchases—or too many tourists, for that matter——are drowned out by the profits involved. In mainland France, the Comité France-Chine of MEDEF, the French business union, has always been a prominent link, usually spearheaded by a prominent former French political figure (from Raymond Barre to Valéry Giscard d’Estaing and Jean-Pierre Raffarin). A separate French-Chinese investment fund has also been created, headed by a former senior official in the treasury department. Until very recently, Sino-French activities were largely financed by major French firms operating in China, with EDF, the semipublic electricity company that cooperates on nuclear plants with China, being the most prominent. EDF has been criticized for its transfers of technology to China, which it justifies by its contracts in China and the United Kingdom with Chinese co-funding. This pattern of lobbying by the French themselves may be changing. Huawei now appears as a frequent donor, including for public conferences taking place in such prestigious locales as the French National Assembly or Senate. Quiet Chinese investments with ownership below the 10 percent declaratory level, as well as in real estate, make for more diffuse influence. This is particularly true at the local level, where Chinese investors are eagerly sought and business intermediaries tend to mushroom. Many plans for industrial parks and regional airports have not materialized, however. The partial takeover of the Toulouse airport (home of Airbus and other aerospace firms) has been marred by the temporary arrest in China of the lead Chinese investor and by a search for quick profits. Academia In general, French academic and scientific institutions have welcomed Chinese students and researchers. The Commissariat a l’Energie Atomique (CEA), Ecole Polytechnique, and the Paris Saclay cluster and science park are all active in working with Chinese counterparts. The Paris Saclay cluster and science park has signed agreements with Tsinghua University and its commercial and high-tech spin-offs, Qinghua Holdings and Qinghua Unigroup. The Fondation Franco-Chinoise pour la Appendix 2 HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_020618