Country still has investment advantages

Some Western media, such as The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times, have been reporting recently that foreign companies are encountering trouble in China.

These reports claim that the demand for some foreign products, such as cosmetics and luxury goods, has largely declined because of the slowdown in Chinese economic growth and rising labor costs in the domestic market. Meanwhile, they also blame China for picking on foreign companies and applying selective absorption toward foreign capital. They say foreign companies have difficulty operating their businesses and some can hardly safeguard their legal rights.

However, such speculation and claims that the investment environment in China worsens for foreign companies are twisting basic facts and ignoring the bigger picture of China's attractiveness. And they could have other motives.

For one thing, such suggestions can influence the flow of international capital, attracting capital back to Western markets. The economic recovery in the West is still built on sand, and there have been repeated reversals. In reality, global capital prefers emerging markets, especially China. By discrediting the investment environment and the prospects of investing in China, some in the West are trying to cultivate new sources of economic growth and so revive the economies of Western countries. Thus the purpose of attacking China's investment environment is to influence and speed up the return of capital to Western countries.

For another, it is aimed at disturbing the Chinese market and setting their own rules. In the past few years, the growth rates of emerging economies have slowed compared to the high-speed development they previously enjoyed, but the Chinese economy is now showing a strong and obvious upswing. Especially as the country's leaders pledged to deepen reform at the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China held in November. This clearly indicates the economy will still enjoy high growth in the future. Some Westerners have complicated feelings about this.

On the one hand, they are eager to share China's economic growth bonus and involve themselves in the planning system; while on the other hand, they are anxious about the coming strategies, being afraid the changes will hurt their interests.