Foreign direct investment (FDI) is an important driving force for international trade and national economic development, while the structural trade friction among the world′s major economies impacts the division of labor in the global value chain, and inevitably affects the location direction and flow of FDI in the global scope. The Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CPC clearly regards "stabilizing foreign investment" as an important work to maintain the steady and healthy development of the economy, and encourages foreign investors to invest in high-tech fields such as electronic information, modern medicine and new materials of which the national high-tech zone is an important carrier. Over the past 40 years of the reform and opening up policy, national high-tech zones such as Zhongguancun Science Park, Shanghai Zhangjiang High-Tech Park and Suzhou Industrial Park have grown from scratch, from weak to strong, which are not only regional economic support points and innovation gathering highlands, but also the forefront of China′s opening up. Therefore, the main concern of this paper is: Can the national high-tech zones attract and retain FDI?
    Theoretically, the establishment of national high-tech zones is conducive to the formation of industrial agglomeration, technological innovation and infrastructure advantages, thus promoting the region to attract more FDI. However, some high-tech zones in developed countries have not promoted the local technological progress and economic development, while in developing countries, the growth rate of many park enterprises even lags behind that outside the parks. In the Chinese setting of the political bidding competition system, some local governments, in order to pursue the number of high-tech enterprises, also pile up enterprises with quick results and low industrial relevance, resulting in the homogenization of industries in the park. Therefore, the coexistence of theoretical contribution and practical problems leads to the uncertainty of the impact of national high-tech zones on regional FDI, which needs to be supported by rigorous theoretical and empirical evidence. The main content of this paper is as follows:
    Firstly, this paper analyzes the impact of national high-tech zones on FDI, and gives the following hypotheses: H1: the establishment of national high-tech zones promotes FDI; H2, the promotion effect of national high-tech zones on regional FDI is more significant in areas with low dependence on natural resources and superior market and human resources.
   Secondly, based on the quasi-natural experiment from the national high-tech zones and the data of 276 prefecture-level cities in China from 1994 to 2017, this paper uses difference-in-difference model, and aims to study the influence of national high-tech zones on regional FDI. The results show that: (1) The national high-tech zones have attracted the inflow of regional foreign direct investment, and the policy effects of national high-tech zones are more significant in eastern region, and the regions which have less dependent on natural resources, and superior market and manpower conditions; (2) The national high-tech zones have increased the industrial agglomeration, technological innovation level and infrastructure level of the region, thereby enhancing the region′s competitive advantage in attracting foreign direct investment.
   Finally, this paper gives the following suggestions: (1) Government should strengthen the coordinated development in the developed and underdeveloped areas, and expand the policy support for the central and western regions to attract foreign investment; (2) The national high-tech zones management committees of each region ought to formulate a reasonable development strategy based on the local resource endowment characteristics; (3) With the advantages of industrial agglomeration and scientific and technological innovation of the national high-tech zones, enterprises in the park are supposed to be encouraged to actively participate in the construction of traditional infrastructure such as railways and highways, as well as new infrastructure projects such as 5G, artificial intelligence and big data, so as to improve the quality and efficiency of regional infrastructure supply.