From Grist Magazine:

China has been a global trade presence since well before Marco Polo trekked there, but, as the recent flurry of successful and attempted acquisitions of major Western brands suggests, its influence has surged of late. If you like the German spectator sport of schadenfreude, one delicious consequence of this is watching presidents, prime ministers, and CEOs from other nations scramble for position in the rapidly rearranging global business turf. Countless commentators have raised questions about the economic and global security implications of this rearrangement, but the murmur about the potential environmental and social consequences has been far more subdued.