As the debate widens about the pending sale of the American company, Unocal, whether or not the US government should have a role in such a transaction seems to me to be one of the more interesting debate topics to hit the news pages in some time. The facts are as follows: Unocal is a large, but certainly nowhere close to the largest (at ~1% of US prodcution), American oil company. Chevon was about to purchase the company for $16.6B, but was trumped last week by an unsolicited bid for $18.5B by Chinese company, CNOOC. CNOOC, which is contolled by and 70% owned by the Chinese government, will be financing its bid largely through cheap financing structures made available at below market prices by the Chinese government.
The question on everyone's mind is, given that we are in the early stages of a 50 year "war" for contol of the world's fuel supply with China, should the US goverment somehow move to stop this transaction in the interests of national security?
Paul Krugman wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times today saying that he believes the US gov. should move to block the transaction. Forbes weighed in as well, discussign the growing debate in Congress on the issue. Chinese publications are also weighing in on the conversation. Finally, no debate would be complete without a piece from the Washington Times :), in this case, a piece about imminent war between the US and China over Taiwan. Let's hope that reports lacks as much credibility as the newspaper that published it.
While I understand the concern, I have to say that this seems to me to be a very, very slippery slope and that the US government has no business stepping in to stop a transaction of this nature. It seems that a better reaction would be to use this as a catalyst to get serious about funding R&D for new forms of energy, both because it makes strategic sense, and because we just might find ourselves in a position with something to export to the rest of the world....which would be a welcome change.
I'm interested to hear people's thougths on this sensitive issue, though, as I know that this is a deep and complex debate that we'll still be discussing many decades from now.
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