In recent years,the regional distribution of inward FDI in China is quite unbalanced and the regions with higher economic marketization demonstrated undoubted superiority in attracting FDI.By reference to international investment,neo-institutional economics and corporate capability theories,this paper provides several theoretical explanations for the causal relationship between economic freedom and the wholly-ownership tendency of FDI.The examination gives strong empirical support for the significant positive relation between marketization index and the scale as well as wholly-ownership tendency of FDI.