Cnooc Nexen deal will go through I saw lately in financial newspapers or TV shows lots of talk about this deal and frankly there are more fears or phobias propagated than solid arguments against it.
Let's see each of the con side:
1) Cnooc is an SOE (State Owned Enterprise). Meaning by definition Cnooc goes by the agenda of a country and not by the financial success or ethical code of a corporation.
Wrong if we take the facts that in the past years Cnooc did very well for their shareholders (beating their peers by a comfortable margin) and still expanding at rough neck pace. And i didn't heard any politiccaly incorrectness from the company except a few minor stories bring out by some biased radical columnists. BP's famous oil spills in the gulf and way back to the disaster of Bhopal where half a million people of India was affected shows that accidents can happen from big non SOE companys. And Cnooc's ones are not even a fraction of these disasters in magnitude.
2) Cnooc is not only an SOE but worse it's a Chinese SOE
So what's the fuss about an SOE being chinese or russian or singapourian or whatever country it came from? The truth is the rise of China annoyed big time our powerful neighbor from the south. You just listen to the presidential debate and both candidates are fiercely accusing China for all their country headaches such as China is stealing all their manufactures jobs or China is manipulating their currency etc...These are not valid arguments and are just good for the internal US audience for the time of an election. We all heard these in every election. First the low wages manufacture jobs are not coming back and that's not because of China but rather that's how poor people in emergent countrys are working hard to pull themselves out of poverty. Meaning if it's not China it would be Vietnam, Laos and even Africa that gonna to have these jobs. Second who besides the US is threatening China to be a currency manipulator. Every time the US withdrew their accusation in front of the WTO ... wonder why. One must rather ask who is holding the world with the power of its currency if not the US dollar. And they can print as much as they want as QE1, QE2 and why not QE3 etc...
3) China did not play by the rules
Well China is a member of the WTO. Since the financial mess of 2008 China is almost the only powerhouse that keeps driving the global economy and that keeps the price of commoditys (including oil) quite high. All these are beneficial to countrys like Australia or Canada...yes Canada. Instead of welcoming chinese investments we prefer to embrace US geopolitical interest. Mind you the financial mess caused by the savage and greedy US financial system, cost the whole world (including Canada) hundreds of millions jobs and Europe is still paying dearly the price. Not counting we are losing by the billions of dollars every year (50 millions per day) by selling our oil to just one customer meaning the US who is not even paying us the world price of oil. Makes you wonder again who is not playing by the rule.
4) We don't want foreigners to control our natural ressources
Fair play. At least it didn't seems to apply only to the Cnooc Nexen deal but more in general. So who the hell gonna to develop our ressources that need in the next 10 years 200 billions just for the oil sands projects. If a canadian company want to take out Nexen with the same price Cnooc is willing to pay for then we are surely glad for that. Reality is we need massive capital that we don't have. Can we seat over our ressources forever and wait. Sure we can by delaying good paying jobs that we need today. Let's face it Cnooc Nexen deal is a win win deal. We are just selling the right to extract the ressources to China (we are not giving away homeland or whatsoever) and in return we are collecting royalties and taxes. Lots of jobs would be created that way for canadians. All we have to do is to outline the conditions for a foreign take over of a canadian company and Stephen Harper is doing that. For years Canada has been keen for allowing foreign investments and most of the investments are coming from the states. Things has changed over time. China has the money these days so it's natural there are more investments from China or Asia.
5) There is no reciprocity from China
Go listen to succesful canadian CEOs with businesses in China. They are all excited by the vast opportunity over there and they give you another side of the story. Just to name a few autos companys that all have double digits growth year after year. Of course there are also numerous companys that have difficult times to operate in China. There are winners and losers as in every places around the world.
6) There are no rules of law in China
Well China is still considering being an emergent country. With a break neck pace development, give them another generation and they will catch us fast in terms of Human rights, Rules of law and Copyrights, Social Security net etc...You have to view China as Canada in the sixties. They cannot be at our level in just 30 years. It takes the US 100 years before becoming the powerhouse we know today.
7) China has a different system (being communist a unique party)
I love that one. It summed up everything down to this one i believed. For the first time, there is a system that work it's way out of poverty successfully without being influenced by another colonial powerhouse. The wealth is swing from the West to the East and that's super scary for lots of people. So blaming China for all their headaches is natural and easy. But the world don't need another cold war confrontation. We can choose to recognize China's strength and work together peacefully for a better world or we can confront head to head with them in order to maintain the western supremacy at any cost. And that goes a little beyond the deal we are talking about even though it is the root of all our questioning everytime we are dealing with China.
To terminate my points, i would paraphrase a friend of mine ... it all ends up as a love and sexual affair. If you love it it's an art and if you don't it's a perversity.