Public works are one of the most international business areas. The largest works have to be done by large companies implying international contracts. Going on with the study of the largest international contractors we try to characterize the situation of the Chinese and U.S. companies in the East Asia, trying to compare their options and strategic profiles. Public works usually have as main customer the State or, sometimes, public institutions, bringing this activity to an important issue relating business and sovereignty. We begin with some literature review about internationalization motivations, traditional and emergent ones, and internationalization models, namely the Uppsala Model and the Networks Model. We present the international situation of the companies from both countries in the biennia of 2005/2006 and 2007/2008, analysing the evolution in a comparative way. Then we have built a Table with the distribution of international contractors by several market segments of East Asia, in order to analyse the options of both countries companies in terms of markets approach. We also analyse the distribution of those enterprises in terms of subsidiaries. Carrying out the study and considering a working line which prevents the dispersion of the analysis, we formulated the following hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1: The internationalization options of U.S.A. contractors in East Asia are different from the ones of Chinese contractors;
Hypothesis 2: The option for international operations, in these markets, is similar between U.S.A. contractors and Chinese contractors.
Our study allowed us to test the hypotheses and reach some significant conclusions conducive to new lines of research.