The Art of War, or: How China plans to dominate the world economy ….

“If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength and resources. Therefore, feed off your enemies and forage for their resources.”

~ Sun Tzu

With a war chest of $2.85 trillion, and a renewed swagger it was only a matter of time before China flexed its economic might by diving back into investing in western banks.  After ill-fated multi-billion dollar investments in Blackstone Group LP, Morgan Stanley and Barclays PLC, last week a Chinese bank agreed to buy a stake in the US arm of Bank of East Asia.

Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (I.C.B.C.), the largest of China’s “big 4” state owned commercial banks agreed to pay $140 million for an 80% stake in the United States subsidiary of the Bank of East Asia, which is based in Hong Kong and has 13 branches in New York and California. The rationale was: