All your gas stations are belong to us

So today is the first I've heard that CNOOC, a Chinese oil company, may be trying to buy Unocal. Could this be the first in a long line of aquisitions of US owned gas companies, or does China already own sizable amounts of US oil interests? Certainly they have to do something with their estimated $1 trillion in US dollar assets.

It actually doesn't bother me much if this is the case - I think the more US oil interests are owned by other countries the more incentive there will eventually be for Americans to use something other than oil to power their country. After all, how is it that so much of the world's oil is controlled by US companies anyway? As was said when America invaded Iraq, "How did our oil get under their sand?".

Still, for some I think this news will smack of the 80s when the Japanese economy was booming and everyone was talking about how much of the US the Japanese owned. Normal American paranoia and xenophobia ensued. The only difference here is that China was never decimated by allied forces during WWII, however to the American's who got all freaked about Japanese investments I'm afraid to say the Chinese, for obvious reasons, are painted with the same "dang furners" brush.

Of course China doesn't have to own a single oil company to make a huge impact on oil in this country. After all, that's the consequence of America getting a taste of it own "cure all" free market economy medicine. With China in the WTO it'll be hard to discriminate against them, so long as they are willing to play ball. As the oil peak effect comes into play I wonder how long it will be before a giant squeeze in the oil market will destabilize the WTO? Or perhaps by then, the US will have become too dependent on selling to the 1.2 plus billion consumers in China to have the option to care.

As they say - we live in interesting times! My hope is that in my remaining 40 or so years I can live to see even more interesting times - like America finally kick its oil habit. If it hasn't by then I think its doomed, one way or the other.