China is telling anyone who'll listen it's open for business again – but its economy has a Xi Jinping problem

• China is signaling to the rest of the world that it's open for business again.
• Both Elon Musk and Janet Yellen have made trips to Beijing recently.
• But less money is flowing into the country – with foreign investors likely alienated by Xi Jinping's authoritarianism.

China wants the world to know that it's open for business again.

With a growing number of warning signs suggesting the country's post-COVID economic recovery is already stalling, Beijing has sent out an obvious "come and invest here" plea to the West.

"I want to take this opportunity to affirm China's commitment to opening up," premier Li Qiang said at a World Economic Forum event in the eastern port of Tianjin last month, in a not-at-all obvious attempt to drum up some enthusiasm.

In recent months, Beijing has also welcomed high-profile US-based guests including climate envoy John Kerry, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk – although the latter's claim that the ruling Communist Party could one day be replaced by an AI-powered "digital superintelligence" probably wasn't the sort of reassurance leaders were seeking.

There's a simple reason that China's doing all this talking: foreign investment has dried up.

International investors, companies, and governments spent just $20 billion in China in the first quarter, according to the research firm Rhodium Group – down from $100 billion in the first three months of 2022.

Xi Jinping's iron fist is likely to blame for the massive decline.

At the Communist Party conference late last year, the Chinese president made an obvious power grab, unveiling a new leadership team stacked with political allies and publicly disrespecting his business-friendly predecessor.

Spooked investors responded by dumping Chinese stocks in a $6 trillion blowout, while the onshore Chinese yuan dropped against the US dollar. (The tightly-managed currency has carried on losing ground against the greenback since then).

This year alone, Beijing has banned US semiconductor maker Micron's chips, sent state police to the Shanghai offices of US consulting giant Bain & Co., and pressed ahead with a crackdown that's wiped an estimated $1.1 trillion off the total market cap of local Big Tech firms.

The government has also carried on imposing harsh capital controls that make it tough for foreigners to get their money out of the country – with emerging markets guru Mark Mobius saying earlier this year that he'd be "very, very careful investing in China" due to the restrictions.

None of Xi's authoritarian, hardline rule speaks to a "commitment to opening up" – so despite its renewed efforts to woo the West, China probably shouldn't count on foreign investment bouncing back anytime soon.