After Buying Spree, China Owns Stakes in Top U.S. Firms

[sabra]

Source: NY Times

SHANGHAI — Flush with cash despite the global economic downturn, China’s sovereign wealth fund quietly snapped up more than $9 billion worth of shares last year in some of the biggest American corporations, including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America and Citigroup.

Although most of the stakes were small, China Investment Corp., the government’s $300 billion investment fund, now owns stock in some of the best-known American brands, including Apple, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson, Motorola and Visa.

The detailed list, which contained holdings totaling $9.6 billion as of Dec. 31, was disclosed Friday in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; it lists stakes only in companies traded in the United States.

The filing offers a glimpse of how China is trying to diversify its more than $2 trillion in foreign currency holdings with stock, rather than investing almost entirely in U.S. Treasury bonds and other debt securities issued by governments and by government-sponsored enterprises like Fannie Mae.

Prime Minister Wen Jiabao of China and other officials have repeatedly expressed worry about how the country’s holdings of U.S. Treasury securities could be hurt by inflation or by mounting U.S. debt. By buying the securities of international companies, China is trying to spread its fast-growing wealth more widely. It is also seeking to acquire strategic stakes in companies that could feed its hungry economy with a wide range of commodities.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/09/business/global/09invest.html?ref=business

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. Japan used to own L.A.

Things change.

[customerserviceguy]

9. Not the same thing

The Japanese owned real estate, the Chinese are smart enough to buy the corporations, and they get the politicians that come with them...

[alfredo]

23. China may have learned from Japan's mistakes.

[Solly Mack]

2. K&R

[OhioChick]

3. Hmmm....So now they can donate come election time? n/t

[babyblonde]

4. ahhh

yup!:grr:

[davidwparker]

5. +1

[Mithreal]

7. Well, since they have been funding our government instead of taxpayers

seems only right they should get some representation for their investments.

:evilgrin:

[ChaoticSilly]

29. Yep

And when they donate to Repubs we need to shout from the rooftops about how they are being financed by Communists. That should make a few freeper heads explode.

[Mithreal]

6. Maybe China can give us Universal Healthcare by leveraging their influence

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/world/asia/22iht-beijing.1.19590543.html

:sarcasm:

[On the Road]

11. Wow -- They are Planning National Heath Care

I was about to say that contrary to popular belie:

Even during the height of the cultural Revolution, China did not have universal health care. My significant other's father was a communist party member, but he had only had coverage for himself. When she got sick, he had to take an enormous loan out to save her life and keep her leg from being amputated.

So if the Chinese are contemplating universal coverage, that is a huge step forward for them.

[Pavulon]

14. Maybe they can throw you in jail for questioning the Katrina response

they are a totalitarian state and kill people who do not follow the rules. Mmm melamine tasty, and kills little kids too.

[Mithreal]

15. You're right. China providing universal health care cannot be praised.

Wonder who and what bound us so tightly to that country anyway?

People here have been politically prosecuted and imprisoned in the US but we can't look back.

We don't put to death any innocent people here either, that's for sure.

Tell you what, look at the US body count just in the last decade and compare it with China or maybe you forgot we are illegally occupying and massacring people who cannot defend themselves.

Yes, we are so damn superior and while our country developed never annihilated people.

Comparing them to us in terms of free speech, ok, I concede that any free speech there is severely restricted. Nothing even remotely like that here, right, sure.

Selective enforcement is alive and well here too.

[Name removed]

17. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mithreal]

18. You're right, my good friend whose brother and sister-in-law

own a company in China and talks about it often and even about moving there herself, nah, I don't know anything. My college roommate from China that came here to be educated, nah, I don't know anything. I watch a lot of foreign films and documentaries too, nope, they never taught me anything. I read a lot, nope, never learned anything from that.

You are an offensive fellow, aren't you?

[Pavulon]

20. You cant own a company in china without a sponsor

approved by the state. as an american you cant own a company in china outright. I visit at least twice a year and conduct large manufacturing operations in asia pac, including mainland china. To keep from going to jail requires employment of local legal resources. Licenses are regional and "discretion" is abound.

You want to own telecom, good fuckin luck. You can not interfere with the states ability to kill or jail those who question it.

If offensive means not glossing over a oppressor state that uses humans as expendable resources then yep, I claim that.

[Mithreal]

21. Glossing over is a ridiculous charge. You hurled a personal attack.

If China creates universal health care before we do, I think that is something worth shaming this country. Do you disagree?

We also live in an oppressor state that uses humans as expendable resources. Sure there is a matter of degree.

[Pavulon]

22. The state will happily abort your second child, free of charge.

just like they will shoot you in the face for opposing their position. They will jail you for publishing numbers of students killed in earthquakes in defective schools. They will kill you for opposing their policy in tibet.

Please dont compare the US to China, there is no comparison. Stalinist russia is a great comparison state, stick to that one.

[Mithreal]

25. You really have no intention of any honest discussion do you?

Instead it is all about taking whatever to extremes.

[Pavulon]

26. Health care is very important

and should have been passes. However I also like not living in an oppressor state that will kill me for dissent or jail me for not towing the official line or asking questions.

[Mithreal]

27. Absolutely.

The US has lost a lot of its moral high ground. President Obama seemed to promise we would return to a firmer place. China does all those things you say wholesale. Do you know about Governor Don Siegelman's treatment? There are stories of hundreds of other political prosecutions in this country during the Bush years.

[Pavulon]

30. If was not shot in the face with a Norinco pistol

it is not an apt comparison. I am aware of his situation. Did Obama pardon him?

[Mithreal]

8. Our government owning an interest in American multinationals is seen as some sort of evil

but when China owns portions of American companies, it's a-ok?

Anyone know if any R's are freaking over this or are they all just welcoming it?

[Kweli4Real]

10. Well ... in light of the recent SCOTUS ruling ...

These next couple of elections should be very interesting. I predict a sudden rise in congressional interest in the loosening of trade restrictions, workplace regulations and government purchasing/selling rules.

Thanks SCOTUS.

[Fool Count]

12. Well, if the American people refuses to exercise control over their country's

economy via state ownership of shares, then there are other peoples and countries that will do
it for them. As to the private and corporate owner, these supposedly rational agents of the infallible
free market, they will just sell their shares to whoever pays most.

[JDPriestly]

13. Last I heard, the Chinese government still claimed to be Communist.

So now a Communist government owns a share in our capitalist economy.

Whether China is Communist or not, we know that it is not democratic in much of any sense of the word that we would understand.

[golfguru]

16. 400 years ago China had the biggest economy in the world

And they are on track to dominate world economy again.

[Zorra]

19. Maybe the republicans will run a corporate sponsored Wen Jibao for US President

in 2012.

Or something like that.

[Frank Booth]

24. China loves the US Supreme Court!!

Especially Justice Kennedy and those who joined in his blowout giveaway to foreign influence!

[Winterblues]

28. Not to even mention all the real estate they bought up during the slump.

Chinese are no slouches when it comes to Capitalism. They pick things up very quickly..