Ranked: Where China Has Invested Most in the Last 20 Years

Where China Has Invested Most in the Last 20 Years

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As China has grown to become the world’s second-largest economy, its role in global markets has also shifted. Whereas once China was primarily seen as a destination for international investment, in recent decades it has become an increasingly large investment source itself.

This graphic maps out China’s overseas investment since 2005, highlighting the distribution of Chinese foreign direct investment in different countries using data from the China Global Investment Tracker (CGIT) co-produced by the American Enterprise Institute and the Heritage Foundation.

Between 2005 and 2025, Chinese companies invested over $1.5 trillion abroad, with over half of this investment ($806.8 billion) heading to just 10 countries. Only transactions valued at $100 million or more were included.

The Reality of Sino-American Investment Ties

No country has received more Chinese investment since the country’s opening than the United States, into which $204.14 billion has been invested by Chinese companies between 2005 and 2025. The largest single reported investment in the U.S. was Shuanghui’s $7.1 billion acquisition of Smithfield Foods, the world’s largest pork producer, in 2013.

The data table below provides an overview of the dozens of Chinese investment destinations worldwide:

Rank	Country	Chinese Investment in $B (2005-2025)
1	United States	204.14
2	Australia	108.12
3	United Kingdom	106.58
4	Brazil	78.88
5	Switzerland	62.87
6	Canada	57.28
7	Germany	56.34
8	Indonesia	49.37
9	Singapore	46.11
10	France	37.07
11	Russia	34.25
12	Peru	29.10
13	Malaysia	27.93
14	Italy	25.75
15	Kazakhstan	25.22
16	Netherlands	21.95
17	Congo, Democratic Republic of the	19.93
18	Finland	18.48
19	Chile	17.55
20	India	17.28
21	Sweden	17.25
22	Laos	16.82
23	Pakistan	16.56
24	Saudi Arabia	15.70
25	Iraq	15.56
26	Cambodia	14.59
27	Korea, South	14.31
28	Vietnam	14.21
29	Guyana	14.04
30	Hungary	13.80
31	Spain	13.54
32	Argentina	13.21
33	Japan	12.78
34	Israel	12.73
35	Guinea	12.11
36	Portugal	11.80
37	Thailand	11.73
38	South Africa	11.73
39	Greece	9.66
40	Egypt	8.75
41	Colombia	8.35
42	Nigeria	8.28
43	United Arab Emirates	8.16
44	Ireland	8.12
45	Norway	7.97
46	Dominica	7.96
47	Ecuador	7.96
48	Bangladesh	7.74
49	Myanmar	7.09
50	Türkiye	6.83
51	Zambia	6.78
52	Mexico	6.50
53	Belgium	5.83
54	Serbia	5.76
55	Niger	5.57
56	Angola	5.50
57	Mozambique	4.92
58	Iran	4.72
59	Mongolia	4.66
60	Ghana	4.65
61	Zimbabwe	4.59
62	Venezuela	4.57
63	Philippines	4.38
64	Uzbekistan	4.38
65	Sri Lanka	4.30
66	Namibia	4.21
67	Sierra Leone	3.85
68	Morocco	3.82
69	New Zealand	3.80
70	Syria	3.76
71	Oman	3.73
72	Brunei	3.59
73	Uganda	3.32
74	Afghanistan	3.07
75	Botswana	2.85
76	Luxembourg	2.79
77	Ethiopia	2.77
78	Congo, Republic of the	2.61
79	Poland	2.61
80	Cameroon	2.58
81	Tanzania	2.58
82	Kenya	2.32
83	Papua New Guinea	2.30
84	Korea, North	2.00
85	Jordan	1.96
86	Slovakia	1.86
87	Turkmenistan	1.79
88	Chad	1.63
89	Kyrgyzstan	1.62
90	Slovenia	1.39
91	Taiwan	1.22
92	Cyprus	1.20
93	Jamaica	1.17
94	Trinidad and Tobago	1.17
95	Nepal	1.12
96	Austria	1.11
97	Eritrea	1.07
98	Qatar	1.05
99	Tajikistan	1.00
100	Algeria	0.96
101	Czechia	0.86
102	Denmark	0.84
103	Côte d’Ivoire	0.79
104	Antigua and Barbuda	0.74
105	Mauritius	0.74
106	Bosnia and Herzegovina	0.73
107	Djibouti	0.70
108	Kuwait	0.65
109	Mali	0.60
110	Liberia	0.52
111	Cuba	0.50
112	Yemen	0.47
113	Bulgaria	0.44
114	Malta	0.44
115	Bolivia	0.40
116	Belarus	0.40
117	Gabon	0.40
118	Georgia	0.37
119	Suriname	0.36
120	Bahamas	0.35
121	Panama	0.31
122	Nicaragua	0.30
123	Azerbaijan	0.27
124	Sao Tome and Principe	0.27
125	Sudan	0.26
126	Croatia	0.22
127	Malawi	0.20
128	Solomon Islands	0.20
129	Togo	0.19
130	Ukraine	0.18
131	Guinea-Bissau	0.17
132	Madagascar	0.15
133	Tunisia	0.13
134	Rwanda	0.12
135	Maldives	0.11
136	Samoa	0.11
137	Montenegro	0.10
138	Honduras	0.00

Major foreign investments and acquisitions are subject to approval by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which in recent years has grown increasingly skeptical of Chinese investment as U.S.-China relations have worsened.

However, 2025 still saw over $3.79 billion in new investments, indicating that even growing bilateral competition does not mean full economic decoupling between the world’s two largest economies.

The Remainder of the Top 10

Following the U.S., a majority of the top 10 Chinese investment destinations since 2005 are large, developed Western economies like Australia ($108.1 billion), Switzerland ($62.9 billion), Canada ($57.3 billion), Germany ($56.3 billion), France ($37.1 billion), and the United Kingdom ($106.6 billion).

There are two major emerging-market exceptions to this, Brazil ($78.9 billion) and Indonesia ($49.4 billion), both of which are BRICS+ partners of China. Brazil was the top investment destination worldwide in 2025, receiving over $7.31 billion in capital from major Chinese firms such as State Grid and China Communications Construction.

Singapore, a city-state of just over 6 million people, has seen over $46 billion in investment since 2005, a figure roughly equivalent to that seen in Indonesia, the world’s fourth most-populous country, reflecting the value of a mature and diversified economy in attracting Chinese investment.

One notable exception from the top 10: India, the world’s fourth-largest economy and a BRICS+ giant, which received only $17.3 billion in Chinese investment over this period, a consequence perhaps of Sino-Indian diplomatic and economic tensions.

The Role of State-Owned Corporations

Unlike other major investor peers like Germany, Japan, or the U.S., China’s outward investment activity is dominated by state-owned enterprises in key sectors such as energy, infrastructure, and logistics.

For example, State Grid, a utility giant and the world’s third-largest company by overall revenue behind only Walmart and Amazon, has invested over $33 billion abroad since 2005, with particularly massive investments in Australia, Brazil, Chile, Italy, Russia, and the Philippines.

Other state-owned energy conglomerates such as China National Petroleum Corporation and China Three Gorges have also invested tens of billions of dollars overseas in recent decades, seeking both to secure resources for China’s growing demand while also addressing infrastructure gaps in emerging markets.

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• Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/china-invested-most-in-last-20-years/