News Analysis: Oil deal with China troubling for Bush

[paineinthearse]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/06/26/news/china.php

News Analysis: Oil deal with China troubling for Bush
By Richard W. Stevenson The New York Times
MONDAY, JUNE 27, 2005

WASHINGTON President George W. Bush's initial response to the proposed takeover of a major American oil company by a Chinese rival has been to duck. It is not hard to see why. The $18.5 billion offer by CNOOC for Unocal, which had already made a deal to be acquired by the U.S. oil giant, Chevron, is forcing the Bush administration to confront its own internal rifts over whether China should be viewed as friend, foe or something in between. It is putting a spotlight on a host of related economic and foreign policy issues - from North Korea's nuclear program to America's growing dependence on foreign capital and the upward pressure on gasoline prices caused by China's thirst for oil - that defy easy solutions.

Hardly a week goes by without Bush vowing to make America less dependent on foreign sources of energy, so any deal that increases that dependence - or is even perceived as doing so - would create a problem for him. The situation has left the administration once again confronting the likelihood that its numerous ties to the oil industry will become a political issue. For now, the administration is in a holding pattern. With no deal yet agreed to, Treasury Secretary John Snow told the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday that the issue remained hypothetical.

So far, the White House has avoided substantive comment on the matter. People inside and outside the administration who are involved in the matter said that the White House would do its best to avoid taking a position for a while by referring a deal, if one is completed, to a body known as the Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States, which reviews sensitive acquisitions by companies from abroad on the basis of national security. "We have so much on the plate with China," said an adviser to Bush, who would speak only on the condition of anonymity because the president discourages unauthorized discussions about internal deliberations. "How do you come down hard on them for this deal?"

Dealing with energy policy has always been politically fraught for Bush, who got his start in business in the mid-1970s as an independent oilman in West Texas and who has often been cast by his opponents as a tool of the oil industry. Vice President Dick Cheney is even more of a lightning rod for that type of criticism, having led Halliburton, the giant oil field services company, before joining the Republican ticket in 2000. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a director of Chevron for a decade before Bush's election, and even had a Chevron tanker named for her. (The tanker has subsequently been renamed.)

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David E. Sanger and Jeff Gerth contributed reporting for this article.

[mikehiggins]

1. Like the Chinese give a hoot

what our lame duck president has to say.

What can the US do to get its way? Refuse to let China buy anymore of our bonds? Close down WalMart?

Everyone is looking at Iraq for the roots of the GOPuke's demise. I say look at China, or the supposed Soviet/India/Japan alliance now forming, and behold the dragon! (I just -heart- hyperbole)

Seriously, I honestly beleive we are done and the center of world power is inexorably moving to the Far East.

So it goes...

[Old and In the Way]

2. But Republicans can't possibly mind.

That have privitized Iraq's oil infrastructure. They'd be rather hypocritical if they suddenly veto'd this sale based on "national interests".

This ought to be a wake-up call to all American's why some things are not in our national security interests to privitize.