Petrol

A Deft Balance in Orchestrating China's Oil Offer

Fabulous 2 page NYTime's article on the political implications and delicate dance going on with the CNOOC bid for Unocal. Definitely worth a read. Whether it goes through or not, Chinese companies are clearly taking President Hu Jintao's words to expand internationally quite seriously. First Lenovo bought IBM's PC business, then Haier (known for dorm fridges, etc) made a bid for Whirlpool (ongoing), and now CNOOC is bidding for the US's best placed Asian oil player. It becomes more muddled considering the fact that the financing of these bids is incredibly fishy and rife with government involvement.... but you won't hear that coming out of China, because the propaganda bureau has silenced anything but the "business prospects" of these deals.... nothing at all about geo-political national strategy.