Cultural and Institutional Distance of China’s Outward Foreign Direct Investment Toward the “Belt and Road” Countries

As China continues to expand its outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) in countries along the “Belt and Road,” Chinese investment enterprises face an increasingly complex external environment, in which the influence of institutional distance and cultural distance has become more prominent. According to China’s OFDI panel data of 94 countries from 2003 to 2017, especially the data of 61 countries along with the “Belt and Road,” this study demonstrates that institutional distance, in general, promotes China’s OFDI to countries along the “Belt and Road,” whereas cultural distance inhibits OFDI. Moreover, the inhibition effect of cultural distance is significantly more substantial than the promotion effect of institutional distance, indicating that cultural distance is more important than institutional distance. Also, the promotion and inhibition effects are generally consistent with each other in different periods, but they are different due to the imbalance of economic development among the countries. In the subdivision dimension, institutional distance like Control of Corruption, Voice, and Accountability, and cultural distance like Masculinity vs. Femininity, Uncertainty Avoidance, and long-term vs. short-term Orientation exert more significant influences on China’s OFDI than the other subdivision dimensions. Therefore, China should pay special attention to the investment effect of specific dimensions of institutional distance and cultural distance in promoting the “Belt and Road,” and continuously optimize the investment layout along the “Belt and Road” in the future.