Let’s have a free market, but not in my back yard

At the end of June, Kenneth Lewis, CEO of Bank of America, said that Chinese investment in the US should not be hampered. “I don’t think it can be a one-way street,” he argued.

He has a point. If US oil company Unocal accepts Chinese company CNOOC’s bid but US regulators reject it because of a perceived threat to US national security should strategically sensitive US oil assets fall into the hands of a state-run Chinese company, it will stink of hypocrisy.