After $225 Billion in Deals Last Year, China Reins In Overseas Investment -
By KEITH BRADSHERMARCH 12, 2017
BEIJING — China struck $225 billion in deals to acquire companies abroad last year, a record-breaking number
that signaled to the world that Chinese business leaders were hot to haggle.
China’s $225.4 billion in announced deals for overseas properties last year amounted to
more than double 2015’s total, according to Dealogic, a data firm that tracks deals.
“Some even have had a negative impact on our national image.”
Just a day earlier, Zhou Xiaochuan, the country’s top central banker, had also questioned the wisdom of some recent Chinese overseas deals.
On Saturday, in the strongest public signal yet that Beijing is changing course, China’s commerce minister castigated what he called “blind
and irrational investment.” At a news briefing during the annual meeting of China’s congress, the minister, Zhong Shan, said officials planned to intensify supervision of what he called a small number of companies.
Mr. Zhong, the commerce minister, said the country had not changed its long-term policy of encouraging Chinese companies to become more global.
Some of the other deals involved real estate firms or gritty industrial companies
that have tried to buy their way into Hollywood — a trend that has also dismayed some in Washington, who worry that China may be acquiring too much influence over American entertainment.
