Hong Kong was the biggest investor in the 1980s. During that time, Hong Kong lost it's manufacturing to China, most companies in the manufacturing industries closed their factories in Hong Kong and moved to China. Same thing happened to Taiwan, but I do not know to what extent.
Those factories would have to bring in machineries, build factories and production lines, those are considered as investments. Remember, HK and Taiwan was big in electronics components and OEM assembly, those production lines are very captial intensive. Same for the Printing, Plastic, and Metal Industry.
My father and all but one uncle were running business in the watch industry, 3 out of 4 factories moved to China.