Commentary Foreign direct investment (FDI) into China has picked up markedly in this post-pandemic environment. It has even surpassed foreign investment into the United States, a fact over which the American media has made much. Because most media coverage has used this information to continue its silly practice of turning everything about economics—about everything—into something resembling an athletic competition, the reporting generally has missed the important insights that these recent figures offer about the nature of China’s economy and its future—that the economy has developed enough so that China can no longer rely for long on export-driven growth and that its rate of expansion will slow. Last year’s pandemic understandably retarded investment the world over. In China’s case, the FDI impact was delayed considerably. Largely because these sorts of investment decisions are made well in advance, much of the money that flowed in 2020 was allocated in 2019 if not …