While downplaying the ministry’s own data, Shen blamed the dwindling investment inflows on “the United States’ strategy of bringing manufacturing back home,” in addition to “the euro zone's ongoing debt crisis, China's strained land supplies and rising labor costs.”

In case this alarm wasn’t loud enough to convince the rest of the world, the Chinese government also made available Zhang Xiangchen, director of the Department of Policy Research at the Ministry of Commerce, for a separate interview with the China Daily. In that interview, Zhang said, "China is not worried about the massive transfer of factories by multinational companies to neighboring countries as the quality of foreign investment will improve.”

Well, one should always worry, when a government official says that he is NOT worried about something. Also, note the key phrase in his statement above: “neighboring countries.”

The Indonesian government just announced this week that Foxconn will be investing up to $10 billion in Indonesia to make products even cheaper than at the EMS giant’s China plants.

Foxconn isn’t alone. A few other multinationals are also moving production from China to low-cost countries in Southeast Asia. China Daily reported that Adidas said last month it will shut down the company's only fully-owned apparel factory in Suzhou, Jiangsu province, which employs 160 workers, at the end of October. This comes after Nike closed its only shoe factory in China, also in Suzhou, in 2009.