Jin Liqun, chairman of the board of supervisors of China Investment Corp, slammed the welfare systems of European countries and said the continent must address its own problems to attract outside investment.
"If you look at the troubles which happened in European countries, this is purely because of the accumulated troubles of the worn out welfare society," Jin told Al-Jazeera television in an interview broadcast at the weekend.
"The labour laws induce sloth, indolence, rather than hardworking."
Jin, a former vice finance minister, said Beijing would consider investing in Europe but any decision would be based on likely investment returns.
"Our people would ask us the question: 'Wait a moment. Are you sure you can get a fair share of returns?'," Jin told the television network.
European leaders have called on China, which has the world's largest foreign exchange reserves at $3.2 trillion, to invest in a bailout fund -- the European Financial Stability Facility -- to help the region overcome the debt crisis.
The head of the bailout fund, Klaus Regling, has travelled to Beijing for talks about a possible contribution, but China has so far made no firm commitment to provide financial assistance for the troubled eurozone.
A move to help developed European countries would be a hard sell for Communist Party leaders in a country where millions of people live in poverty and inflation and soaring housing costs are straining household budgets.
China has also been burned before on risky overseas investment. It bought stakes in investment bank Morgan Stanley and asset management firm Blackstone only to see values collapse in the 2008 global financial crisis.
The losses led to severe criticism of the investment choices made by the sovereign wealth fund, only a year after it was established in 2007.
Jin called on European countries to have a "credible" programme to attract investment and generate confidence.
"As long as eurozone members would fix some of the economic, social problems they have, as long as they have a fairly credible, convincing workout programme, the outside world would have confidence," he said.
- AFP/fa
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