CNOOC’s $18 billion bid for Canadian oil and gas producer Nexen is the third China-related deal in recent months to have cleared the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS), the regulatory agency that reviews mergers and acquisitions that could have implications for U.S. national security. BGI-Shenzhen’s bid for Complete Genomics and Wanxiang Group’s for battery maker A123 Systems also got a green light from CFIUS.
Its approval to buy Nexen was the final regulatory hurdle CNOOC needed to clear to close what will be the largest Chinese foreign investment to date. It must seem a far cry from its 2005 effort to buy California’s Unocal. That deal, with fewer security implications for the U.S. than the Nexen deal (the Canadian company has oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico near U.S. military installations), was shot down by fevered political opposition in Washington, stoked by rival bidder Chevron, without ever even getting as far as a CFIUS review. Lessons learned.
China Bystander 
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