A Chinese stake in GM? Bravo!

Shareholders benefit

    Both are plausible. And wouldn't that be, from a shareholder's perspective (which is to say, from the US taxpayer's standpoint), a good thing? Don't we want a successful GM IPO, so we can get more of our money back? Even the United Auto Workers, which now controls 17.5% of GM, presumably would like to see its shares become more valuable.

    I say presumably because the UAW's attitude toward GM's China exposure has always been skeptical. The union no doubt remains deeply fearful of GM importing more cars made in China into the US. (So sensitive is the pay disparity between autoworkers in China and those in the US that GM's management in Shanghai has always refused to answer straightforward questions about how much a production line worker there earns.) If SAIC buys a small chunk, wouldn't the China side of GM's house become that much more influential -- and possibly prod GM's management into looking at the US as an export market for Chinese-made vehicles?

    It's possible. But GM has had a standard riposte to those over the last couple of years who have asked why it doesn't import more vehicles from China into the US. The strategy, they always intone, is to build locally -- whether in the US, Europe or Asia. (The counter riposte to that, of course, is: and how's that strategy been working out for you in the last decade in the US, where GM's market share slowly but steadily shrunk to below 20%?)

    It's a fact that Chinese companies, both state-owned and otherwise, are becoming more influential in the world. If you're not used to that yet, you better catch up. After all that GM has been through, spare me the romance about a once great American industrial icon.

    There are additional facts that matter here: One, there is no plausible national security risk to any state-owned Chinese company owning a small stake in GM. Two, If GM has a future, China is a huge part of it -- and so, by definition, is Shanghai Auto. Which leads to fact number three: If SAIC decides it wants to buy a chunk of the new GM before the end of the year, the US Treasury ought to say what it will say to every other investor: thank you very much, and we dearly hope it works out for you.