That String of Pearls Floats As Well

 Did you catch the article For China Boss, Deep-Water Rigs Are a 'Strategic Weapon' in the Wall Street Journal? I think it is one of the most thought provoking articles of the summer, because it has a directly attributed quote you need to pay attention to.

When China launched its first deep-water oil rig in May, Cnooc Ltd. CEO Chairman Wang Yilin delivered a message to employees and his Communist Party superiors about what it meant to Beijing's ambitions abroad.

"Large-scale deep-water rigs are our mobile national territory and a strategic weapon," he told a crowd gathered at Cnooc's glittering headquarters in central Beijing as well as rig workers by videoconference.

State-controlled Cnooc is using the rig to drill three wells this year in the South China Sea—an area with overlapping claims by China and other surrounding nations and an increasingly sore friction point between Beijing and Washington.

Mr. Wang now is spearheading Cnooc's $15.1 billion offer to acquire Canada's Nexen Inc., a blockbuster deal that needs U.S. regulatory approval because of Nexen's energy assets in the Gulf of Mexico.

It is the latest deal in a dual role that Mr. Wang has assumed since taking Cnooc's reins last year: running his company as a profit-driven multinational enterprise overseas, and promoting it as a political and strategic asset at home.

I don't really care what 95% of the PLA folks say, because only what 5% of the PLA folks actually matters. I also care quite a bit about what the top 5% of politically connected CEOs say in China, and CEO Chairman Wang Yilin qualifies.

Martin Murphy has written up a great analysis of this story.