![]() ![]() Its sponsors, among them New York's Chuck Schumer, claim such a levy would offset the low exchange value at which China artificially maintains its currency. Even before the recent surge in apparel imports forced the president to impose quotas, the Senate expressed approval of a bill to impose a 27.5 percent tariff on all made-in-China products. China has also purchased 40 percent of Sinopec's Northern Light oil sands project in Canada, at an ultimate cost of $2 billion taken a 10 percent stake in an Azerbaijan field and pipeline and invested in Venezuela's oil industry in return for President Chávez's promise to divert some of his nation's crude from the United States to fuel-hungry Chinese factories.Īll of this comes against the background of mounting congressional support for action against China. China's acquisition of Unocal's substantial Asian assets will increase its political influence in that part of the world. That policy is most noticeable in oil markets. China has decided to use its state resources to convert its major companies into important multinationals - part of an aggressive policy of projecting Chinese power on a global basis. That makes a mockery of the Chinese authorities' warning to the Bush administration not to politicize the CNOOC takeover bid. CNOOC is 70 percent state-owned, the beneficiary of cheap government financing, and expected to act in support of the regime's geopolitical objectives. The battle for Chevron is not a bidding war between two privately owned companies, both responsible for maximizing shareholder value. companies are not operating in a free market as that term is generally understood. The authorities are starting to realize that U.S. Or Unocal's board might decide that the several relevant regulatory authorities are so likely to veto the CNOOC bid as a threat to American security, that it would be wise to accept the lower Chevron offer.īut whatever the outcome of CNOOC's decision to bid for a major American oil company, it has raised the temperature of the already red-hot dispute over trade policy. It does top Chevron's offer by about $2 billion, but the American company is quite capable of raising its already-generous offer. That followed by a few months IBM's sale of its PC business to Lenovo, a Chinese computer maker, for $1.75 billion.Īt this writing it is impossible to predict whether the CNOOC bid will succeed. Last week, China's Haier offered $1.3 billion for Maytag, the troubled manufacturer of home appliances, with 20,000 employees. Japan did not buy strategic assets: ownership of New York real estate has no implication for national security ownership of oil resources does.ĬNOOC's $20 billion, all-cash bid for Unocal is only one of several being made by the Chinese regime, eager to expand the international influence of its state-owned companies. Japan did not engage in the wholesale theft of intellectual property, China does. Japan is a democratic country, and by and large an American ally China most definitely is not. Japanese companies were privately owned China's acquirers are state-run entities. Japan was not a major competitor for scarce resources such as oil China is. Japan was not a rival for influence in Asia, or in the world China is. The current Chinese takeover movement is different from the earlier buying spree by Japanese companies. ![]() To those who remember the hysteria that greeted Japan's purchase of Rockefeller Center, the jewel in the crown of New York real estate, in the late 1980s, "It's déja vu all over again," to borrow from the Yankee sage, Yogi Berra. Once again, politicians and policy wonks are up in arms about a foreign takeover of an American company, in this case the attempted acquisition of Unocal by China's National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC). Stelzer.įederal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan teamed up with Treasury Secretary John Snow to urge calm when they went before a Senate committee last week. ![]()
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