July 26, 2010

I thought I''d revisit the issue of China. To recap for those tuning in late, I was opposed to the sale of Unocal to the Chinese oil company CNOOC. Some people saw that as xenophobia. Wrong. I had and have no problem with Chinese companies buying Maytag, IBM''s PC group ... heck, they can buy General Motors, for all I care. But, I did and do have a problem with Chinese firms buying strategic assets like oil. Why is that? At bottom, I have a distrust of the Chinese and their motives.The Chinese have been aggressively seeking free trade pacts with the other nations of the world, which is good news. But, they don''t seem to care who they deal with ... Venezuela, Cuba and Sudan are on their list of sought-after trade partners. As one US official said recently, this "indicates at best a blindness to consequences and at worst something more ominous. "I admit there are reasons to NOT be worried. Historically, and I mean for centuries, China has not been a particularly aggressive nation. They have been content with a relatively small sphere of influence. They have rarely tried to extend their hegemony beyond their own borders. On the other hand, there is NO history of amity with the United States, as there is in Western Europe. And, there is NO history of domestic government that most Westerners would be comfortable. That is , China, for centuries, has been a totalitarian state, whether under emperors, Chiang-Kai-shek, Mao, or the current bunch in Beijing. In addition, there is a long history of piracy in and around China, first on the high seas, now in the world of intellectual property. I just have a hard trusting them to be cooperative and responsible trading partners.

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