Canada's Growing China Ties (PDF)

The proposed purchase of a Canadian oil company with global reach by a state-controlled Chinese oil company is not about a mortal Canadian enemy seizing control of a single and strategic asset. Neither buyer nor seller has earned either reputation. It is more about the inexorable, patient, and long-term strategy, of China to gradually own preferred access worldwide to the resources it does, and will, need, and the degree to which short-term western financial markets seek rapid fire returns and profits. When a fiduciary manager or a target company can add 40% to shareholder value quickly, they are hard pressed to look away and may well be sued by institutional and other shareholders if they do. The very market forces that built, with some regulatory help (like Mr. Diefenbaker's Ottawa Valley Line), the traditional oil and gas basins of Canada's west now make it hard for the market and senior managers to resist the high valuation blandishments of state-owned entities abroad.