Sunday, February 04, 2007
Follow up to Dubai Ports World notes
In 2006, the Clarion published one letter written to several American senators regarding a proposal by Dubai Ports World to invest ports in America and later a follow-up screed about the inconsistency of allowing another Dubai based company to buy a maker of American tank components.
see those posts:
post 1, letter
post 2, follow-up
The story continues...
Most obviously it is not a zero sum game, but Dubai Ports World which was summarily run off by the xenophobic American Congress last year in its effort to invest in American ports, this week announced it was dropping $450 million to build and operate ports in the People’s Republic of China. More specifically, D.P. World, according to the Wall Street Journal, is going to invest $448 million in Qing-dao in northeastern China to build and operate four ports in a city that is most famous in America for its beer, Tsing-Tao.
While this paper, believes there should be a robust discussion about the limits to growth, both within each country and globally, a dangerous precedent was set by running off Dubai Ports World from the bully pulpit before the deal could even be reasonably discussed. The rationale about American security was an outrageous exaggeration rooted in race based fear mongering in the on-going aftermath of 09.11.01.
Anti-Arab sentiment caused this huge multi-national corporation based in Dubai to take their money elsewhere.
Almost co-terminously with the vituperative attacks against D.P. World, another foreign takeover attempt was scuttled by abject political interference. This one, however, was a much bigger deal. A Chinese oil company, China National Offshore Oil Corporation bid over $18 billion dollars for the California based oil company, Unocal. This was $2 billion more than Unocal had been offered by Chevron. Insted of accepting this far more lucrative offer, American politicians got involved and again, ugly fear mongering, xenophobia and jingoism reined supreme. The bid was scuppered.
It is not a zero-sum game. The benefits of growth are not absolute. But the wisdom of these decisions and the pattern set by them is discouraging. They show an American state moving in the direction of scelrotic Europe, where embedded and beholden national champions like Gaz de France and Alitalia must be preserved at all costs.
China is willing. America must be, too.
Racism of any stripe hurts America is the message of this outcome. Anti-Arabism and Sinophobia will serve America equally as poorly. More, not less, contact is what America needs. Don’t fear, engage. That should be the lesson of the fall of the Berlin wall, and franky, Vietnam, too, better to engage. Why fight when you can trade?
Read more...
Dubai Ports World in China
Unocal bid
see those posts:
post 1, letter
post 2, follow-up
The story continues...
Most obviously it is not a zero sum game, but Dubai Ports World which was summarily run off by the xenophobic American Congress last year in its effort to invest in American ports, this week announced it was dropping $450 million to build and operate ports in the People’s Republic of China. More specifically, D.P. World, according to the Wall Street Journal, is going to invest $448 million in Qing-dao in northeastern China to build and operate four ports in a city that is most famous in America for its beer, Tsing-Tao.
While this paper, believes there should be a robust discussion about the limits to growth, both within each country and globally, a dangerous precedent was set by running off Dubai Ports World from the bully pulpit before the deal could even be reasonably discussed. The rationale about American security was an outrageous exaggeration rooted in race based fear mongering in the on-going aftermath of 09.11.01.
Anti-Arab sentiment caused this huge multi-national corporation based in Dubai to take their money elsewhere.
Almost co-terminously with the vituperative attacks against D.P. World, another foreign takeover attempt was scuttled by abject political interference. This one, however, was a much bigger deal. A Chinese oil company, China National Offshore Oil Corporation bid over $18 billion dollars for the California based oil company, Unocal. This was $2 billion more than Unocal had been offered by Chevron. Insted of accepting this far more lucrative offer, American politicians got involved and again, ugly fear mongering, xenophobia and jingoism reined supreme. The bid was scuppered.
It is not a zero-sum game. The benefits of growth are not absolute. But the wisdom of these decisions and the pattern set by them is discouraging. They show an American state moving in the direction of scelrotic Europe, where embedded and beholden national champions like Gaz de France and Alitalia must be preserved at all costs.
China is willing. America must be, too.
Racism of any stripe hurts America is the message of this outcome. Anti-Arabism and Sinophobia will serve America equally as poorly. More, not less, contact is what America needs. Don’t fear, engage. That should be the lesson of the fall of the Berlin wall, and franky, Vietnam, too, better to engage. Why fight when you can trade?
Read more...
Dubai Ports World in China
Unocal bid
Labels: Middle East, Politics
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