FP article Feb 5Critics of the pending acquisition of Aecon Group Inc. by a massive Chinese state-owned enterprise are urging the government to look past short-term interests of Canadian investors and consider the broader implications of Chinese capital inflows into sensitive assets. Investment Canada is currently reviewing the $1.51 billion acquisition by China Communications Construction Co., which is nearly 64 per cent owned by the Chinese government and is one of the worlds largest construction firms. In December, Aecon shareholders overwhelmingly supported CCCCs offer to buy the company for $20.37 a share, a 23 per cent increase over its market price in October. But critics are raising the alarm over concerns of ceding control of a company that builds and refurbishes nuclear energy plants to an increasingly aggressive foreign power. Aecon shareholders vote to approve takeover offer by Chinese companyJohn Ivison: Public deserves answers on Chinese takeover of Canadian construction giantLiberals warned to be careful before approving China bid for Calgarys Aecon We cant expect individual shareholders to take a long-term view, but we should demand our government to think about the broader consequences, said Duanjie Chen, a former researcher at the University of Alberta who studies Chinese foreign direct investment. Every foreign company they buy is a stepping stone for the Chinese government, she said. Ottawas decision on the acquisition is expected in the next few weeks. It could still be subjected to a comprehensive national-security review, which would take months to complete. The forthcoming decision comes amid growing allegations of China increasingly peddling influence abroad. In recent years, Australia, Canada, the U.K., New Zealand and others have raised red flags over varying degrees of Chinese interference in political, academic and publishing circles.Australia, which has seen the most acute signs of bribery and intellectual suasion by Chinese firms among developed nations, is now crafting new laws to better defend againstunprecedented and increasingly sophisticated efforts by the Chinese to sway public opinion. Chinese SOEs often lay the groundwork for the countrys political ambitions, said Derek Scissors, a resident scholar the Washington-based American Enterprise Institute. And while individual Chinese companies might not pose a risk in their day-to-day operations, he says, they can always be enlisted to do work on behalf of the state. CCCC International Holding Ltd. of China has made a $1.5-billion bid to buy Calgary-based Aecon Group Inc.Canadian Press Any Chinese company is hostage to the wishes of the party at any given time, Scissors said. According to CCCCs 2016 annual report, the company considers response to national strategy as its most material social responsibility after engineering quality.The company did not respond to a request for comment. Such concerns prompted the U.S. tosharpen its definition of what should be considered strategic infrastructure in foreign investments, and U.S. Congress is currently working to reform its Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). You have to treat every Chinese company as a potential threat in this fashionnot that it is a threat, but as a potential threatand then you have to decide what that specific threat is, Scissors said. A group of domestic construction companies including Ledcor Group, PCL Constructors Inc. and P.W. Graham & Sons Construction have been lobbying the government to reject the deal, arguing it could make the domestic market less competitive. They also argue that Aecon has contracts at potentially sensitive assets, such as telecommunications infrastructure, nuclear facilities and the Site C dam in B.C. Others, meanwhile, argue that Aeconscontracts typically consist of routine work, like burying fibre optic cables or refurbishing turbine generators at nuclear facilities, and therefore wouldnt give CCCC intellectual property access. I think they poorly understand what Aecon actually does, said Frederic Bastien, an analyst at Raymond James based in Vancouver. Its starting to get a bit far-fetched. Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains said in Question Period Wednesday the acquisition would go through a robust and rigorous process before a decision is made. CCCCs Aecon deal is part of a larger international expansion in the developed world, following on the heels of the Chinese firms 2010 acquisition of U.S. firm Friede & Goldman and the 2015 purchase of Australian construction company John Holland. Acquiring Aecon is a major move of CCCC in its international strategy, the company said in a statement, adding that it would achieve a substantial breakthrough in its full entry into North America. The deal adds scope to an already massive construction company. CCCC is expected to be one of Chinas greatest beneficiaries of the One Belt, One Road initiative, which aims to create a sprawling network of rail, road and see ties between Europe, Africa and Asia. In the corporate mandate statement on its website, written in Chinese, CCCC says it is determined to become a world-renownedengineering contractor, urban complex developer and operator, specialty real estate agent, integrated infrastructure investor, and manufacturer and merchant of marine and port machinery. According to DBS Group, CCCC snapped up US$116 billion in new construction contracts in 2016 alone, over half of which are overseas developments. The company has projects scattered across Africa, Southeast Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East, and consist mainly of railway, road, bridge and port developments. CCCC is one of the state-owned companies driving Chinese foreign direct investment between 2005 and 2017 which is now nearing the US$1.8 trillion, according to data compiled by the AEI. Canada has been a favoured recipient of Chinese capital, receiving US$49 billion over the period, along with the U.K. (US$73 billion), Russia (US$53 billion) and Australia (US$103 billion). The share of public rather than private capital invested by China overseas also jumped in 2017 to 66 per cent of total investments, down from 54 per cent in 2016, according to AEI data, indicating the countrys renewed efforts to invest overseas through its state-owned enterprises. China has also pulled back spending through many of its private companies after a slew of international investments went sour. The acquisitions of Canadian firms by Chinese SOEs place the Liberal government in a delicate position, as they try to forge new trade ties with China while also resisting foreigninvestment in sensitive assets. This government is very open to China, said Maxime Bernier, the Conservative opposition critic for Innovation, Science and Economic Development. Im a bit concerned with the direction of the Chinese government with their state-owned enterprises. In March 2017 Ottawa approved the acquisition of Montreal based ITF technologies, a fibre optic cable provider, by Hong-Kong based O-Net, overturning a 2015 decision by the Harper government to block the investment. Financial Post