Foreign direct investment in China

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has been an important part of the Chinese economy since the 1980s. During the Mao period, most foreign companies halted their operations in China, though China remained connected to the world economy through a limited scale of international trade. Since 1978, China was again open to foreign investment and within two decades it became the largest recipient of foreign direct investment among developing countries.^[1] While China's acceptance of foreign investment is commonly associated with Deng Xiaoping’s policies, Chinese leaders including Mao Zedong and Hua Guofeng already acknowledged the need to import foreign capital and technology in the early 1970s. The investments from the 1970s up till the 2000s mainly focused on the manufacturing sector, earning China the label “world’s factory”. However, female migrant workers who contributed to the growth through participation in the foreign-owned manufacturing sector had to work in poor conditions, with insufficient labor protection, and under restricted migration opportunities due to the hukou system.^[2]