This article explores the motivations underlying China's overseas investment by taking the Landbridge Group's takeover of the lease of Darwin Port as a case study. It discusses whether the Landbridge Group's deal was a government‐driven investment for particular strategic purposes. By studying the financing process of the Landbridge Group's deal, this article finds that contrary to the usual assumption that there are some clear political motives underlying the lease, the deal itself did not include a detailed investment plan or specific political goals, and was mainly driven by commercial interests. Additionally, it analyses the role of a local Chinese government in the deal and shows that it acted more like a benefit‐seeker after the deal was completed for its own bureaucratic interests.
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Haoyue Zu (2022) studied this question.