The Wall Street Journal‘s latest Notable & Quotable column cites an editorial in yesterday’s China Daily:
China National Offshore Oil Corp has to bear the cost of its abandoned bid for the American oil company Unocal. But the fallout from the bid will not only affect the Chinese side. The idea of the United States as a self-appointed champion of the free market has become questionable….The unjustified U.S. opposition, largely politically motivated, will … poison the current prevailing mood as bilateral economic ties between China and the United States are enhanced. The high-profile takeover battle demonstrated to the world that the United States is not a free economy as it claimed to be. In the U.S. market, an asset for sale has not gone to the buyer that most prized it, because of regulatory concerns fuelled by bogus fears and hidden interests.