BESIDES understanding what you are getting with a China fund, you also should examine whether you really need one, Mr. Rocco said. “You’re not going to miss China’s growth if you have a well-balanced portfolio,” he said. Many international and emerging-markets funds include Chinese stocks, and American and European multinationals are increasingly generating profits in China, he said.

Jesper O. Madsen, manager of the Matthews China Dividend fund, counsels caution. “Anybody who looks at China needs to ask himself why he’s there,” Mr. Madsen said. Too often, retail investors pile into emerging countries after stock run-ups, losing sight of whether a particular market looks cheap or expensive based on its average price-to-earnings ratio. “If you overpay,” he added, “you won’t see good returns.”

For some people, investing isn’t just a way to increase wealth, but also a hobby. Even if they have a well-rounded portfolio, they want to make small bets on markets or sectors that they think will thrive.

If you are one of these, should recent news of Chinese inflation, which hit 5.5 percent in May, and the possibility of real estate bubbles in Beijing and Shanghai daunt you?

Several China-fund managers say the risks are real — but tolerable.

“From 2000 to 2010, when China really began to industrialize, there was surplus labor and a cycle of infrastructure investment that drove a lot of productivity growth,” said Eric A. Brock, co-manager of the ALPS Clough China fund. “Inflation over that period was shockingly low. Today is different. You still have the productivity story, but the supply of labor has tightened. It wouldn’t surprise us if inflation is 3 to 5 percent a year going forward, but that’s not a problem in the context of 8 to 10 percent annual growth.”

If inflation began to accelerate, Mr. Brock said he would worry. But so far, he said, the government has kept prices mostly in check by raising bank reserve requirements and interest rates. Last week, the central bank raised short-term rates for the third time this year. Mr. Brock and his co-manager, Francoise Vappereau, are betting that rising wages will propel the growth of China’s consumer sector. As the Chinese earn more money, opportunities arise for companies like the furniture maker Man Wah Holdings, which Mr. Brock called “the La-Z-Boy of China.” “People are hitting an income level where demand for Man Wah’s product can rise,” he said.

Frederick Jiang, manager of the Ivy Pacific Opportunities fund, said that while real estate values in Beijing and Shanghai have shot up, he was more worried about inflation than about bubbles in these markets. “If you compare prices in Shanghai and Beijing relative to the average income there, there’s a bubble,” he said. “But relative to Mumbai or Moscow, they’re still cheap.”