eating your cake
Let me get this straight: the gods of vulture capitalism are upset because, having transferred most of the West's industrial capacity to China, they find the Chinese actually acting in the best interests of their own domestic workers by stonewalling a mega merger -- who understandably would be quite upset at losing their jobs due to Western-style M&A "workforce reorganization".
The whole "we're paying more so they can pay less" argument is an interesting one, given that it seems to be based on the assumption that consolidation leads to greater efficiency than competition. Instead of a vibrant marketplace full of merchants driven to efficiency by competition, it seems to propose a few very large private corporations whose operations, although protected by sovereign national governments, are not subject to regulation by them.
Frankly, I think the Chinese took the coward's way out here. Instead of delaying this merger to death they should have outright denied it. There's no way that an end game where China is pitted against a few very large and powerful corporations is going to benefit either the Chinese people or their leadership (a leadership whose lives ultimately depend on not driving their people to revolt).
Biting the hand that feeds IT
