written following an article by Fareed Zakaria in Newsweek of August 15, 2005

Mr. Zakaria expresses serious criticism relating to the way the United States killed the attempt of China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOC) to buy American UNICAL. He says:

“It suggests that we’re intolerant of China’s economic rise and want to stop it. It also suggests hypocrisy. For years the United States has been pushing countries around the world to open up their energy sector to foreign investment. In particular, we’ve been making this case aggressively to China and Russia. When projectionist officials in other countries want to fend off a bid from an American (or other foreign) company, they invoke national-security concerns. Now they have a perfect precedent. And if the effect of the UNOCAL affair is to close the energy sector around the world to foreign investment, the damage done to American interests probably outweighs any gains in killing the deal. It also slows the opening of the Chinese economy, which is bad for the United States for both economic and political reasons.”

Further, at the upcoming, December 2005, enlarged East Asian Summit in Kuala Lumpur - with the participation of China, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand - only the US, a member of ASEAN, was not invited. This, even so that it is no more the overwhelming economic power in the region as it used to be. In three years, India’s trade with China will have surpassed India’s trade with the United States.

For comments to Mr. Zakaria on his page long article in Newsweek - please refer to: comments@fareedzakaria.com

The relation of the Bush Administration to China, as compared to that in Clinton’s days was touched upon in the review of “The Bubble of American Supremacy” by George Soros. See SustainabilTank.info, Book Reviews, July 23, 2005.