Cover Story: Will Europe Pour More Money Into China?

The visit to China this month by a dozen leaders of blue-chip German companies provided an opportunity to take the pulse of foreign investor confidence in the country amid the war in Eastern Europe, the pandemic, rising inflation and recession fears.

As German Chancellor Olaf Scholz led a delegation including the businesspeople, European Union investment in China had fallen for three consecutive years from $10.4 billion in 2018 to $6.3 billion in 2021. But in the first eight months this year, EU investment more than doubled from a year earlier.