The Progressive Policy Institute reports:

This year, Chinese financial services firms bought stakes in investment banks Bear Stearns, Barclay's and Blackstone Group. Last year, Anhui-based auto firm Chery, bought Britain's defunct MG brand. Two years ago, the China National Offshore Oil Corporation bid unsuccessfully for Unocal and appliance-maker Hai'er lost out to Whirlpool in a bid for Maytag, but Lenovo bought IBM's old personal-computer unit . Shenzhen's telecom giant Huawei hopes for a share of 3Com. Are these things curiosities? Or glimpses of a future arriving faster than most guessed?

FDI transactions like these, in general, remain mostly preserves of the wealthy world. Each year UNCTAD's annual investment report totals up FDI flows and multinational employment. This year's version, out last week, counts about 78,000 multinational businesses worldwide, up from about 60,000 at the turn of the century. About 55,000 of the multinationals are based in the United States, Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Together these rich-world businesses accounted for $930 billion of the world's $1.3 trillion in foreign direct investment flows, or about 70 percent. Wealthy Asian economies -- Hong Kong, Korea, Taiwan, Singapore -- added another $70 billion.

To read more:

http://www.ppionline.org/ppi_ci.cfm?contentID=254483&knlgAreaID=108&subsecID=127&FREM=Y&sid=162754&mid=25181