China is of course already a regional power and with continued economic development will probably become a global superpower. Their purchases of US dollar-denominated securities with the proceeds of their massive trade imbalance with the US has been a factor in keeping interest rates as low as they are.
But bidding for Unocal means bupkes. The whole bid comes to something like 15 hundredths of a percent of GDP.
The Maytag story, though smaller, is sadder. Maytag of course has been a producer of high-quality goods and the "Maytag Repairman" commercials played off a reputation for quality which they earned and deserved. Unfortunately, they didn't see competition coming. Fairly high-quality imports, primarily from Korea, offered consumers lower prices but even more importantly features which Maytag didn't think consumers cared about -- lighter weights, electronic interfaces, smaller sizes, etc. When metal prices ran up, they were cooked. I hope someone can turn the company around and I don't much care if the lead of the investor group is a Chinese company.
