Under the new development pattern of internal and external double circulation, corporate social responsibility is an important way to ensure the smooth internal circulation, and the high-quality development of foreign direct investment is the new demand of external promotion. We take this as the background framework to study how foreign direct investment affects corporate social responsibility. Based on the perspective of overseas subsidiaries, this paper quantitatively defi nes whether the enterprises carry out foreign direct investment and its development quality, and uses the sample data of listed companies to carry out empirical research, and fi nds that: (1) Foreign direct investment itself does not affect corporate social responsibility, only high-quality outward direct investment can enhance corporate social responsibility; (2) The enhancing effect of high quality outward direct investment on corporate social responsibility has heterogeneity of ownership nature and overseas subsidiaries location diversifi cation; (3) The transmission mechanism of high-quality foreign direct investment to enhance corporate social responsibility is to increase capital gains and improve management efficiency. From the perspective of corporate social responsibility, this paper demonstrates the importance of high-quality development of foreign direct investment to internal circulation, which provides a necessary reference for the long-term development strategy of foreign direct investment in the new era.