This article:• Assesses the role of Caribbean offshore financial centres (OFCs) in FDI flows to China. • Argues the OFC provides financial intermediation services beyond simply tax minimisation. • Demonstrates a similar use of the OFC in other developing economies.• Suggests the position of the OFC in global finance continues to evolve.
This article examines the prominent location of offshore financial centres (OFCs) among the leading origin and destination points for foreign direct investment (FDI) to China. The OFC (characterised as a tax haven) frequently has been ignored or assumed out of analyses on Chinese FDI as simply servicing tax minimisation practices. This article challenges that assumption and emphasises the financial intermediation role performed by the Caribbean OFC beyond practices of tax arbitrage. Through the use of an international business company (IBC) registered in an OFC these jurisdictions perform several functions for investors, to include providing access to foreign capital markets, reducing tax obligations across multiple jurisdictions and concealing potential politically-sensitive beneficial ownership of the investment. This assessment for the role of the OFC in circuits of global capital involving FDI to China demonstrates that China's relationship with the OFC is different from that experienced by Europe and North America.
Efforts to prevent and preempt further terrorist attacks in the United States and other developed countries have intruded into many spheres of public and private life. This article provides a short assessment of the redeployment of anti-money laundering regimes to combat the financing of terrorism. This expansion of financial surveillance is directed by international organizations and domestic legislation in the belief that terrorists and their financiers may be found, identified and detained. After providing background to the antimoney laundering regime, the article looks at the domestic and extraterritorial application of the USA PATRIOT Act. One conclusion of this analysis finds that a financial panopticon has coalesced out of the wide range of financial and non-financial businesses now required to report "suspicious financial activity."A variety of actions, initiatives and programs began as a response to the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. These "counter-terror" movements comprise what the U.S. Administration identified as a global war on terror and they operate both in full public knowledge and in secret (until revealed to the public by the media). Many domestic measures introduced to counter terrorism at the same time serve to reduce civil liberties, again both visibly and invisibly. Some of them conduct searches to identify and reveal the Int J Polit Cult Soc (A respectful nod of acknowledgement must be made to an anonymous referee for suggesting that the presence of the Leviathan in this article should start with the title. The revised version of this article benefited greatly from work completed while I was a member of the London School of Economics team in the European Commission-funded project CHALLENGE (The Changing Landscape of European Liberty and Security) and I remain grateful for the financial support received during that time. For more information on the scope and dimensions of the project, see .
This article considers recent developments in the campaign to combat terrorist financing in Europe and the intersection of these measures with the flow of migrant remittances from the European Union (EU) to third countries. Migrants frequently leave behind families that they expect to support from their earnings. Measures to combat the financing of terrorism (CFT) and the related increase in anti-money laundering (AML) regulation make it increasingly expensive for migrants to share their wages with the family left behind. The result is a tension between the desire of migrant labour to send money home and fears of insecurity against the financing of terrorism. This issue is considered in the context of the new Regulation 'On Information on the Payer Accompanying Transfers of Funds ' (Regulation (EC) No. 1781.
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