Reply #11: Newsweek's Samuelson:

[ckramer]

Let's Stay Out Of This Fight

It's an incendiary mixture: China and oil. But Washington should stay out of the battle between Chevron and CNOOC for Unocal.

Read it here

"We cannot decide whether China is a threat or an opportunity, and until we do, every discussion of our relations seems to slide into confusion and acrimony. The latest example is the noisy controversy over the bid by CNOOC (the China National Offshore Oil Corp.) to buy the American oil company Unocal. There are some real issues here, but they're lost amid all the political clamor. We're being told (to cite one congressional resolution) that CNOOC's victory might "impair the national security" by jeopardizing "critical energy production capacity." The alarms sound plausible but are actually over the top."