Who\'s Afraid of China Inc.?(转载 NY Time)

China's offer to acquire Unocal has touched off intense debates on trade, globalization and military might. Above, Chinese soldiers marched in Beijing.
By STEVE LOHR
Published: July 24, 2005
WILLIAM A. REINSCH, an avowed free trader, welcomes China's rising stature in the international economy. After all, he is the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, an organization founded in 1914 to promote an "open world trading system." Indeed, when he was a senior trade official in the Clinton administration, Mr. Reinsch was chided by some security analysts who said he was being soft on China by placing matters of commerce ahead of national security.
But even Mr. Reinsch is uneasy about China's attempt to buy Unocal, a midsize American oil company. The outcome of the takeover contest for Unocal is uncertain, and last week its board embraced an improved offer from Chevron. Yet Cnooc, a government-backed Chinese oil company, still has the higher offer - and it could up the ante.
If the Chinese bid proceeds, Mr. Reinsch wants to see a thorough national security review of the deal, one that goes beyond the usual focus on weapons technology to include energy security. "Our Army, Navy and Air Force run on oil," he explained.
Oil is the ultimate geopolitical commodity - it is "The Prize," as Daniel Yergin titled his epic history of petroleum and international politics. And even if Cnooc fails to grab Unocal, the pursuit has pushed the two sides of the Chinese challenge together and into the spotlight of public debate. For China is both an engine of economic globalization and an emerging military power. In symbolic shorthand, it is Wal-Mart with an army.
The two sides aren't neatly divided. But those who focus on economics tend to see partnership, cooperation and reasons for optimism despite tensions, while security experts are more pessimistic and anticipate strategic conflict as the likely future for two political systems that are so different.
In China, there are also two camps - the security hawks and the economic modernists, according to China analysts. The modernists see China joining the United States as the second great economic power of the 21st century, and the two nations sharing the gains from increased trade ties and global growth. The hawks regard that view as naïve, and fret that American policy is to remain the world's only superpower and to curb China's rise. So China's response, the hawks say, is to try to erode United States hegemony and reduce America's power to hold China down.
Both faces of China have been evident recently. Two weeks ago, a senior Chinese military official, Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, said China should use nuclear weapons against the United States if the American military intervenes in any conflict over Taiwan. Then, bowing to pressure from the United States and other trading partners, China announced last Thursday that it would no longer peg its currency tightly to the dollar. It is a measured step, and it will not do much to moderate China's huge trade surplus with the United States anytime soon. But the move is a sign of flexibility and accommodation.
"Do we see each other inevitably as antagonists, or do we see a world of globalization from which both sides benefit? That is the big issue," said Kenneth Lieberthal, a senior official in the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.
"And that framework, one way or another," added Mr. Lieberthal, a China analyst and a professor at the University of Michigan business school, "will drive an enormous number of policy decisions."
So that is the China question: Is it an opportunity or a threat? If nothing else, the Cnooc bid for Unocal has shown how unsettled American thinking is on China and how deep the anxieties run, both in matters of national security and trade.
It is easy to dismiss Washington as a hot-air factory, but the scope of the outcry in Congress is significant. Resolutions and legislative proposals, all critical of Cnooc's takeover bid, have piled up in the House and Senate, from Republicans and Democrats. A resolution presented last month by Representative Richard W. Pombo, a California Republican, declared that permitting the Chinese company to buy Unocal would "threaten to impair the national security of the United States." It passed, 398 to 15.
Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, has drafted three pieces of anti-Cnooc legislation that range from calling for a six-month Congressional inquiry into the bid to a bill that would prohibit the deal. Mr. Dorgan objects to the Chinese move on fair-trade grounds. The Chinese government, he says, would not allow an American company to buy a Chinese oil company. "So why on earth should they be able to buy an American oil company?" Mr. Dorgan said.
China's offer to acquire Unocal has touched off intense debates on trade, globalization and military might. Above, Chinese soldiers marched in Beijing.
By STEVE LOHR
Published: July 24, 2005
WILLIAM A. REINSCH, an avowed free trader, welcomes China's rising stature in the international economy. After all, he is the president of the National Foreign Trade Council, an organization founded in 1914 to promote an "open world trading system." Indeed, when he was a senior trade official in the Clinton administration, Mr. Reinsch was chided by some security analysts who said he was being soft on China by placing matters of commerce ahead of national security.
But even Mr. Reinsch is uneasy about China's attempt to buy Unocal, a midsize American oil company. The outcome of the takeover contest for Unocal is uncertain, and last week its board embraced an improved offer from Chevron. Yet Cnooc, a government-backed Chinese oil company, still has the higher offer - and it could up the ante.
If the Chinese bid proceeds, Mr. Reinsch wants to see a thorough national security review of the deal, one that goes beyond the usual focus on weapons technology to include energy security. "Our Army, Navy and Air Force run on oil," he explained.
Oil is the ultimate geopolitical commodity - it is "The Prize," as Daniel Yergin titled his epic history of petroleum and international politics. And even if Cnooc fails to grab Unocal, the pursuit has pushed the two sides of the Chinese challenge together and into the spotlight of public debate. For China is both an engine of economic globalization and an emerging military power. In symbolic shorthand, it is Wal-Mart with an army.
The two sides aren't neatly divided. But those who focus on economics tend to see partnership, cooperation and reasons for optimism despite tensions, while security experts are more pessimistic and anticipate strategic conflict as the likely future for two political systems that are so different.
In China, there are also two camps - the security hawks and the economic modernists, according to China analysts. The modernists see China joining the United States as the second great economic power of the 21st century, and the two nations sharing the gains from increased trade ties and global growth. The hawks regard that view as naïve, and fret that American policy is to remain the world's only superpower and to curb China's rise. So China's response, the hawks say, is to try to erode United States hegemony and reduce America's power to hold China down.
Both faces of China have been evident recently. Two weeks ago, a senior Chinese military official, Maj. Gen. Zhu Chenghu, said China should use nuclear weapons against the United States if the American military intervenes in any conflict over Taiwan. Then, bowing to pressure from the United States and other trading partners, China announced last Thursday that it would no longer peg its currency tightly to the dollar. It is a measured step, and it will not do much to moderate China's huge trade surplus with the United States anytime soon. But the move is a sign of flexibility and accommodation.
"Do we see each other inevitably as antagonists, or do we see a world of globalization from which both sides benefit? That is the big issue," said Kenneth Lieberthal, a senior official in the National Security Council during the Clinton administration.
"And that framework, one way or another," added Mr. Lieberthal, a China analyst and a professor at the University of Michigan business school, "will drive an enormous number of policy decisions."
So that is the China question: Is it an opportunity or a threat? If nothing else, the Cnooc bid for Unocal has shown how unsettled American thinking is on China and how deep the anxieties run, both in matters of national security and trade.
It is easy to dismiss Washington as a hot-air factory, but the scope of the outcry in Congress is significant. Resolutions and legislative proposals, all critical of Cnooc's takeover bid, have piled up in the House and Senate, from Republicans and Democrats. A resolution presented last month by Representative Richard W. Pombo, a California Republican, declared that permitting the Chinese company to buy Unocal would "threaten to impair the national security of the United States." It passed, 398 to 15.
Senator Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, has drafted three pieces of anti-Cnooc legislation that range from calling for a six-month Congressional inquiry into the bid to a bill that would prohibit the deal. Mr. Dorgan objects to the Chinese move on fair-trade grounds. The Chinese government, he says, would not allow an American company to buy a Chinese oil company. "So why on earth should they be able to buy an American oil company?" Mr. Dorgan said.