Risky rewards for China's overseas investment drive

Beijing

CHINA'S inexorable economic rise is set to see it become a net global investor after decades of Western money flowing into the country, but analysts warn the change offers risks as well as profits.

Chinese oil behemoth CNOOC's US$15 billion acquisition of Canada's Nexen, completed last year, was just a fraction of the US$625 billion the country has invested abroad, much of it resources driven and also taking in other sectors including agriculture, manufacturing and banking.

But the looming changeover may be a sign that China is becoming less attractive as an investment destination itself, while some deals have been less successful than others.

Chinese external acquisitions were strictly controlled until 2000 when the Communist Party listed overseas investment as a new growth strategy, widely described as "going out" to sec…