EVERYTHING IS GOING SWIMMINGLY, CHAIRMAN XI: Foreign investment in China turns negative for first time.

FDI came to minus $11.8 billion, with more withdrawals and downsizing than new investments for factory construction and other purposes. This marked the first negative figure in data going back to 1998.

Foreign investment had remained sluggish after falling sharply in the April-June quarter of 2022, when the Chinese economy was in turmoil from the zero-COVID lockdown in Shanghai.

In a September survey of member companies by the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China, nearly half of respondents said they would not invest in China at all in 2023 or invest less than in 2022.

One-party totalitarian dictatorships are poor investment environments.