Because China is at the center of a repositioning of the international scene at both the financial and the political level, the country is at the root of discussions relating to state investment abroad. What is particularly fascinating in the case of China is that the country has developed a number of sovereign funds, and that these behave in substantially different ways. Thus we aim to answer the following question: How can the divergence in the investment profiles of the Chinese sovereign funds be explained? This paper brings to the fore an exploratory model that will allow for the development of new hypotheses relating to the causes of the variation in the profile of the Chinese sovereign funds on the international scene. Our explanatory variable consists of the mixture of political coalitions within the Chinese leadership, which have had an impact on the creation, mandate, and investment strategies of the Chinese sovereign funds.