Beijing ‘never behind’ bid for Unocal – Francesco Guerrera, Joe Leahy and Fang Wang

From the Financial Times:

CNOOC never received explicit approval from the Beijing government for its daring $18.5bn bid for US energy group Unocal – a lack of support that contributed to this week’s collapse of the Chinese group’s takeover attempt…

Despite protests from US politicians that the state-controlled group’s bid was sponsored by Beijing, people close to the situation said the Chinese authorities steered clear of the Unocal takeover battle.