From The Wall Street Journal:
China’s government has been throwing up some new hurdles for foreign investors in recent months, including increased scrutiny of foreign-backed mergers and proposed restrictions in areas from banking to retailing to manufacturing.
It’s not a wave of popular anti-foreign sentiment, of the kind that was on display, for example, after the U.S. bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999, that is motivating Beijing. Rather, it is the government’s growing preoccupation with helping China’s expanding universe of domestic companies and pressing social issues such as poverty and wealth disparities.
Top leaders insist that fast-growing China, the developing world’s biggest recipient of foreign investment for many years running, isn’t closing off its economy. But the new restrictions are particularly alarming for foreign companies because they stem not from some temporary interest in penalizing foreign businesses but from a broader shift in China’s priorities.[Full Text and Subscribors Only]
Also see CDT previous post China drafting rules to curb foreign investment
