July 17, 2005

CNN.com - Red storm ahead - Jul 15, 2005

China wants to buy some of our strategic assets... and our govt will let them.

CNN.com - Red storm ahead - Jul 15, 2005

"You have to hand it to the Chinese government, though. China has the audacity to demand that the United States' Congress allow this deal to proceed, despite the utter absurdity and contradictory position it holds, denying foreign ownership of companies in its country, including its energy assets. The Chinese also must have absentmindedly forgotten it owns nearly all of CNOOC and carries an unadulterated record of currency manipulation and unfair industry subsidization."

"..China has an astounding $700 billion in U.S. currency in reserve. Here's an idea of what China could do with that money if this administration and Congress decide to allow it to buy the U.S. strategic assets: $700 billion, for example, could buy all of this nation's top oil companies, worth an estimated $615 billion. It would still have enough money to buy two of our top defense contractors, Boeing and Lockheed Martin, worth a combined $81 billion."

Holy crap.

"The object of China's strategy is inexorably to supplant the United States as the world's premier economic power," says Frank Gaffney, president of the Center for Security Policy, "and if necessary, to defeat us militarily."

"Laissez-faire economics can no longer disguise the potentially ruinous C'est la vie politics that define our relationship with China."