One of the main complaints I have gotten from readers of my China pieces (on the CNOOC/Unocal/Chevron menage a trois) is something akin to the following: CNOOC is a state-owned company, and therefore does not respond to the market, and the Chinese are communists, and just different because they are Chinese. CNOOC will simply go to the Chinese government’s big bag o’ cash, grab a handful, and outbid poor Chevron. That’s why, they say, Congress needs to intervene, and prevent the sale from taking place. It is true that CNOOC Ltd., the publicly traded subsidiary of state-owned China National Offshore … Continue reading Markets Work in Asia, Too