By the uniformly grey standards of China’s government-appointed chief executives, Fu Chengyu has some odd habits.

“People in China think I am strange because I do not drink tea. I like coffee,” says the CEO chief executive of state-controlled China National Offshore Oil Corporation in an interview. This week, the 54-year-old did something even more maverick than shunning China’s traditional national drink. After consuming many cups of coffee in an all-night board meeting, Mr Fu launched a US$19.6bn unsolicited bid for Unocal, pitting CNOOC against Chevron, the US oil major, and incurring the wrath of influential US politicians. sections of the US political class. The bid catapulted this typically reserved north-eastern Chinese man into arenas never before entered by the country’s corporate chieftains.