A Chinese company’s interest in buying acquiring Unocal has raised a big question for the US: put bluntly, how much of our country do we want to sell to a potential future adversary? Put more diplomatically, given that the US and China are not allies, and that China is the world’s fastest growing economy: in the world, what rules should govern how we invest and trade with it?that nation?

Whatever the merits of the Unocal deal, this should be a wake-up callwakeup . During the cold war, we developed criteria for determining when to worry if a key global resource or technology was found primarily behind the Iron Curtain. We do have not have similar such devised a built similar agreement around a set of principles to guide relations with China. The proposed Unocal sale to CNOOC nooc, if nothing else, should push us to begin this debate.