Paul Krugman has an interesting op-ed today on recent attempts by Chinese companies/the Chinese government to acquire American companies.  He calls it, "The Chinese Challenge."  He also compares recent Chinese actions with "Fifteen years ago, when Japanese companies were busily buying up chunks of corporate America."  Back then, Krugman was not concerned, but now he is.  Why?

…judging from early indications, the Chinese won’t squander their money as badly as the Japanese did.
The Japanese, back in the day, tended to go for prestige investments - Rockefeller Center, movie studios - that transferred lots of money to the American sellers, but never generated much return for the buyers. The result was, in effect, a subsidy to the United States.
The Chinese seem shrewder than that. Although Maytag is a piece of American business history, it isn’t a prestige buy for Haier, the Chinese appliance manufacturer. Instead, it’s a reasonable way to acquire a brand name and a distribution network to serve Haier’s growing manufacturing capability.

But the second reason is perhaps more the more crucial one for Krugman; it is moves by the Chinese government to be a major player in "the Great Game" over resources in Central Asia:

 

The more important difference from Japan’s
investment is that China, unlike Japan, really does seem to be emerging
as America’s strategic rival and a competitor for scarce resources -
which makes last week’s other big Chinese offer more than just a
business proposition.

 

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation, a
company that is 70 percent owned by the Chinese government, is seeking
to acquire control of Unocal, an energy company with global reach. In
particular, Unocal has a history - oddly ignored in much reporting on
the Chinese offer - of doing business with problematic regimes in
difficult places, including the Burmese junta and the Taliban. One
indication of Unocal’s reach: Zalmay Khalilzad, who was U.S. ambassador
to Afghanistan for 18 months and was just confirmed as ambassador to
Iraq, was a Unocal consultant.

 

Unocal sounds, in other words, like exactly the
kind of company the Chinese government might want to control if it
envisions a sort of "great game" in which major economic powers
scramble for access to far-flung oil and natural gas reserves. (Buying
a company is a lot cheaper, in lives and money, than invading an
oil-producing country.) So the Unocal story gains extra resonance from
the latest surge in oil prices.

 

If it were up to me, I’d block the Chinese bid for
Unocal. But it would be a lot easier to take that position if the
United States weren’t so dependent on China right now, not just to buy
our I.O.U.’s, but to help us deal with North Korea now that our
military is bogged down in Iraq.