Bad blood was spawned in the streets in the early '90s when the U.S. Congress opposed the 2000 Olympics for Beijing. The bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade during the Kosovo War was not regarded as an accident by either the people or the authorities and is still talked about here. Displeasure with Iraq followed these special irritants.
Beyond the streets, however, is one prominent Chinese businessman who feels he was treated unfairly by U.S. politicians: Chengyu Fu, chairman of the China National Offshore Oil Corp. (CNOOC). A little over 70 percent of CNOOC is owned by the state (the rest by private investors). But Fu told me the Communist regime had nothing to do with his decision to buy California-based Unocal oil company or his decision to back off when a firestorm developed in Congress.
In CNOOC's gleaming Beijing office building, Fu said he thought the Unocal deal would not only have benefited his shareholders but also fit the U.S. ideal of unimpeded investment across national borders. Instead, China was accused of trying to corner the international oil market. "We thought we were doing a good thing," Fu told me. "I was naive. But this is the world we live in."
CNOOC, he said, is a good global citizen. When Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast, the company's employees voluntarily contributed $100,000 for relief of the victims, which was matched by the company for a total $200,000 contribution. That unpublicized charity, he said, reflects a China that members of Congress don't know about. "China has changed," he said. "Even the Communist Party has changed. But the world does not know it."