The state-controlled Chinese company had already gobbled up large amounts of oil and natural gas deposits in Australia, Indonesia and elsewhere.
China is making its presence felt in many areas. Qingdao Haier, China's biggest maker of appliances, recently teamed up with two U.S. investment firms to offer nearly 1.3 billion dollars for Maytag, the third-largest maker of appliances in the United States.
Lenovo, China's leading computer maker, recently spent 1.75 billion dollars to take over IBM's huge PC business.
Should the Unocal and Maytag deals also go through, Chinese companies - with the help of cheap loans from state banks and their own overflowing tills - will have invested more than 20 billion dollars in the United States this year.
North of the border in Canada, Minmetals of China recently failed in an attempt to swallow the giant mining and metals concern Noranda.
The Chinese telecommunications supplier Huawei Technologies in considering a bid for Britain's Marconi Group, according to the Wall Street Journal newspaper.
The U.S. daily also reported that Chinese automaker Shanghai Automotive Industry might buy "design boutiques in Italy and Germany" after taking over South Korea's Ssangyong Motor.
U.S. politicians, both Democrats and Republicans, have expressed alarm at China's sudden appetite for foreign companies. For some time now, they and U.S. trade unions have decried the huge U.S. trade deficit with China and mass migration of industrial jobs to that Far East economic wonderland.
They want to impose punitive tariffs of 27.5 per cent on Chinese imports if China does not float its currency within half a year. The yuan has been pegged to the dollar, keeping Chinese exports cheap.
China has been investing its fat trade surpluses and dollar riches from currency market purchases mainly in U.S. Treasury bonds - it now holds no less than 230 billion dollars' worth. The United States depends on these bond purchases by China and other countries to finance its enormous current account deficit.
Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow and Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan warned against punitive tariffs. Snow even declined to say whether there would be a national security review of a purchase of Unocal by CNOOC.
It appears that China and its big companies have decided to use their growing economic power to expand abroad.
Although companies in the energy and natural resource sectors top their list of desirable acquisitions, companies in many other areas of business are also of interest.
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