After record deals last year, China reins in overseas investment

China - with a worried eye on money leaving its borders - is telling its companies to cool it down

China struck $225 billion in deals to acquire companies abroad last year, a record-breaking number that signaled to the world that Chinese business leaders were hot to haggle.

Now, China — with a worried eye on the money leaving its borders — is telling some of its companies to cool it down. On Saturday, in the strongest public signal yet that Beijing is changing course, China’s commerce minister castigated what he called “blind and irrational investment.” At a news briefing during the annual meeting of China’s congress, the minister, Zhong Shan, said officials planned to intensify supervision of what he called