China’s state-controlled oil firm, China National Offshore Oil Corp., or CNOOC, has bowed out of the race to purchase Unocal Corp., a U.S. energy company with significant holdings in Asia, after the Chinese giant encountered heavy political opposition to its bid.
The Unocal affair highlights problems with the whole globalization argument. Rather than being the worldwide integration of economies based on the search for profit and the maximization of efficiency, globalization should be seen as describing relations between a select few countries in a select few issue areas.