With the sample of 2571 foreign direct investment of multinational enterprises in China from 2005 to 2016, the Logit model is used in this paper to empirically test the influence of host country system differences and international experience on the success or failure of foreign direct investment by Chinese enterprises. Our empirical findings are: the greater the difference in institutional distance (whether positive or negative), the larger the possibility that foreign direct investment by Chinese enterprises will fail, that is, the institutional distance is featured by “symmetric effect” on the success or failure of foreign direct investment by Chinese enterprises; as a “distance bridging” variable, international experience has regulatory effect that weakens the negative effect of institutional distance on Chinese enterprises’ overseas direct investment success rate in the negative institutional distance, but has no regulating effect in the positive institutional distance, which is featured by “asymmetric effect”; the adjustment of institutional distance to the success or failure of foreign direct investment by Chinese enterprises has industry characteristics. When Chinese enterprises directly invest in “sensitive” industries, the adjustment effect of international experience on the relationship between negative institutional distance and investment success or failure is less obvious than that in “non-sensitive” industries. In addition, the sample data of foreign investment by China’s multinational corporation in the “Belt and Road” countries are examined, which is consistent with conclusions. The research results also show that the host country’s dependence on trade, infrastructure and strategic resources are all important factors affecting the success or failure of foreign direct investment of Chinese multinational enterprises. According to the above conclusions, some suggestions and countermeasures are proposed in this paper.