{"id":66611,"date":"2005-07-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2005-07-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2005\/07\/20\/unocal-ce-nest-quun-debut\/"},"modified":"2005-07-20T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2005-07-20T00:00:00","slug":"unocal-ce-nest-quun-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2005\/07\/20\/unocal-ce-nest-quun-debut\/","title":{"rendered":"Unocal, ce n’est qu’un d\u00e9but <\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Unocal, ce n’est qu’un d\u00e9but <\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

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\t20 juillet 2005 Le texte du 19 juillet 2005 de l’excellent Michael A. Weinstein, de PINR, sur la question de l’offre de rachat d’Unocal par le chinois CNOOC<\/a>, situe bien l’ampleur du probl\u00e8me illustr\u00e9 par cette transaction.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tActuellement, les perspectives concr\u00e8tes sont les suivantes:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• Les actionnaires d’UNOCAL voteront le 10 ao\u00fbt sur l’offre de Chevron ($16,5 milliards), d’ores et d\u00e9j\u00e0 accept\u00e9e dans son principe.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t• Le 17 juillet, la direction d’Unocal s’est r\u00e9unie et a rejet\u00e9 l’offre de CNOOC dans sa forme pr\u00e9sente, sans pour autant rompre les n\u00e9gociations. Il s’agit d’un cas classique de tentative de faire monter les ench\u00e8res.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tSelon Weinstein, les circonstances de la transaction se sont tr\u00e8s fortement politis\u00e9es, essentiellement dans un sens tactique voulu par Chevron. La tactique est \u00e9vidente. Chevron comprend bien que l’aspect g\u00e9ostrat\u00e9gique de la question, qui pourrait d\u00e9boucher sur l’interdiction de rachat par CNOOC, est la possibilit\u00e9 pour lui de l’emporter au niveau d’offre qu’il a impos\u00e9.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\t\u00ab Neither of the adversaries seems willing to give way and, having been placed on the defensive, Chevron has politicized the conflict, exerting pressure in the U.S. Congress on a broad front to ban the C.N.O.O.C. takeover outright or to delay it sufficiently to persuade Unocal shareholders to accept Chevron’s offer, which already has regulatory approval. Chevron’s lobbying effort, which has met with impressive success, has been countered by a similar C.N.O.O.C. campaign. Vice Chairman of Chevron, Peter J. Robinson, openly admits trying to turn the company’s conflict with C.N.O.O.C. into a geopolitical issue. C.N.O.O.C. strives to interpret the bidding war as simply an ordinary business deal.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Despite the Congressional outcry, the Bush administration has remained neutral in the Unocal dispute, promising that C.N.O.O.C.’s bid if it is accepted will be reviewed by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S., which vets foreign takeovers of U.S. companies on security grounds. The administration’s silence reflects the conflicting interests at play in Washington’s global economic policy, which the Unocal fight has highlighted.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb In its attempt to portray its conflict with C.N.O.O.C. as a geopolitical issue, Chevron has brought to the fore the increasingly difficult decisions faced by Washington in responding to the rise of China’s economic power. Writing in U.S. News and World Report, Matthew Benjamin has summarized the problem succinctly: Essentially, the United States and its politicians are learning that globalization is not pain free.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Sino-U.S. relations are among the most complex bilateral ties in the world and are marked by subtle patterns of dependency, interdependence, competition, cooperation and conflict. Up until the Unocal dispute, economic relations between the two great powers had achieved a highly unstable equilibrium based on Chinese exploitation of the U.S. market for its exports in return for China buying U.S. debt. That tacit bargain had already come under stress through the loss of U.S. manufacturing jobs to China, ballooning Chinese textile exports, alleged Chinese violations of intellectual property rights of U.S. companies, technological transfers and mounting opposition to the low currency valuation of China’s yuan relative to the U.S. dollar.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Resistance in the U.S. to the domestic impact of China’s growing strength has crystallized around the Unocal dispute because C.N.O.O.C.’s bid is the most serious instance of recent Chinese moves to acquire U.S. assets rather than simply to fund its debt. The recent rise in the price of oil and the high probability that elevated price levels will persist has made energy a sensitive political issue in the U.S. By going to Congress, Chevron has succeeded in making Unocal a strategic issue.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Finding access points in every Congressional committee concerned with foreign trade, resources and military security, Chevron’s campaign culminated on July 13 at a hearing of the House Armed Services Committee at which congressmen favorable to Chevron joined with anti-Beijing defense hawks to commit to introducing a bill blocking a C.N.O.O.C. takeover. Linking fears that Beijing might use its acquisitions to disrupt the U.S. economy and the arguments that U.S. energy companies are barred from buying Chinese firms and that Beijing’s financing of C.N.O.O.C.’s bid with low-interest loans violates fair trade principles, Congressional opposition to the bid spread beyond its original base in California to include every region.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\tL’analyse de Weinstein a l’avantage d’ouvrir larges les portes d’une question essentielle: le possible retour, \u00e0 visage d\u00e9couvert, du nationalisme \u00e9conomique am\u00e9ricain, et le renversement du courant de la globalisation. C’est le point essentiel de son analyse, qui s’inscrit dans le grand courant d’unilat\u00e9ralisme agressif des \u00c9tats-Unis depuis septembre 2001. Il s’agit d’une \u00e9volution de toutes les fa\u00e7ons isolationniste qui pourrait aussi bien s’exprimer dans le nationalisme \u00e9conomique et le retour au protectionnisme qui prendrait dans le cas \u00e9voqu\u00e9 ici les traits d’un protectionnisme strat\u00e9gique, voire d’un protectionnisme de survie.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tVoici les portes largement ouvertes de l’argumentation de Weinstein:<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab The wave of economic nationalism set in motion by Chevron’s lobbying carries with it the long term possibility that U.S. resistance to asset acquisition might place foreign investments of U.S. corporations in jeopardy, stalling or even reversing economic globalization. Analysts agree that C.N.O.O.C.’s bid, which follows Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s personal computer business and Haier’s bid for Maytag, will be repeated by many more efforts by Chinese firms to acquire U.S. assets. As time goes on Washington will be increasingly forced to choose between globalization and nationalism.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Whether or not C.N.O.O.C. succeeds in making an offer generous enough to persuade Unocal’s shareholders to acquiesce in a takeover, the bidding war has brought to the surface an underlying strain of economic nationalism in the U.S. that is unlikely to abate. As interests in the U.S. are affected adversely by Chinese economic initiatives, the alliance between those interests and anti-Beijing security hawks will strengthen, placing strains on Washington’s support of globalized investment markets.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Look for a series of difficult decisions on asset acquisition to emerge in the years ahead that will significantly determine the future of globalization and the shape of Sino-U.S. relations.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tLes cons\u00e9quences de l’\u00e9volution am\u00e9ricaine qu’envisage Weinstein nous paraissent tr\u00e8s probables dans certains domaines (non sans introduire un d\u00e9sordre aux USA \u00e0 cause des contradictions avec la doctrine de libre-\u00e9change). La perception de certains domaines sensibles, celui du p\u00e9trole \u00e9videmment, avec les perspectives de r\u00e9duction de la production, implique une notion d’une force consid\u00e9rable de survie, surtout dans le climat psychologique exacerb\u00e9 actuel. C’est-\u00e0-dire qu’\u00e0 la rationalit\u00e9 de la concurrence \u00e9conomique pourrait se substituer l’irrationalit\u00e9 du sentiment de l’urgence de s\u00e9curit\u00e9 nationale. L’id\u00e9e de Weinstein est que toutes les th\u00e9ories, toutes les conventions s’effaceront devant une telle pression. L’affaire Unocal-CNOOC est peut-\u00eatre la concr\u00e9tisation de l’entr\u00e9e du monde postmoderne, dans tous les cas du syst\u00e8me de l’am\u00e9ricanisme, dans le domaine de ce qui va \u00eatre per\u00e7u comme une lutte pour la survie.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tL’importance pour l’Europe de cette possible \u00e9volution serait tr\u00e8s grande, m\u00eame si les Europ\u00e9ens pr\u00e9f\u00e8rent penser \u00e0 autre chose. Les rapports commerciaux et technologiques entre l’Europe et les Etats-Unis ne pourraient qu’en \u00eatre puissamment affect\u00e9s, d’autant que, dans le contexte ainsi d\u00e9crit qui est celui de la concurrence pour la survie, les imp\u00e9ratifs d’alliance, de valeurs communes et autres sornettes politico-morales, seraient pulv\u00e9ris\u00e9s par la pression inverse que l’on d\u00e9crit ici. Ce qui rapprochait l’Europe des Etats-Unis, sa proximit\u00e9 d’\u00e9quivalence de puissance, son niveau de vie, ses capacit\u00e9s technologiques, deviendrait de plus en plus le contraire: un motif majeur d’affrontement.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Unocal, ce n’est qu’un d\u00e9but 20 juillet 2005 Le texte du 19 juillet 2005 de l’excellent Michael A. Weinstein, de PINR, sur la question de l’offre de rachat d’Unocal par le chinois CNOOC, situe bien l’ampleur du probl\u00e8me illustr\u00e9 par cette transaction. Actuellement, les perspectives concr\u00e8tes sont les suivantes: • Les actionnaires d’UNOCAL voteront le… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[668,4644],"class_list":["post-66611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires","tag-pinr","tag-weinstein"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=66611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/66611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=66611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=66611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=66611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}