Foreign direct investment (FDI), and bilateral and multilateral engagements have been seen as harbingers of shared growth and mutual prosperity, since the 1970s. What was envisaged and worked in some cases as well, was a classic win-win paradigm, where capital flows from developed to developing countries fostered tech transfers, job creation, infrastructure development, and economic advancement for both the investor and the host countries, underpinned by interdependence as a pacifying force reducing conflict and promoting global welfare. FDIHowever, in the current epoch of international relations, which is dominated by a retreat to realpolitik, even in the economic sphere, geopolitical rivalries,…