Graphic source: China National Offshore Oil Corporation
Obama's nominee for a top intelligence post, the U.S. National Intelligence Council (NIC), sits on the board of a major oil company owned by the Chinese government that is widely seen as conducting business deals meant to expand China's influence worldwide.
Charles "Chas" Freeman, the U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the first Gulf War, is on the board of the China National Offshore Oil Corporation, or CNOOC, which in 2005 tried to purchase the ninth largest oil firm in the U.S. while he was a member. The merger was halted following bipartisan congressional opposition amid fears the deal would harm American national security interests.
The Chinese oil firm also has been accused of multiple human rights violations.
Freeman has served on the board of CNOOC since 2004. He also founded a pro-China organization, the U.S.-China Policy Foundation, which seeks to promote U.S.-China relations.
75% of CNOOC, the third largest Chinese oil company, are owned by the government of the People's Republic of China.
In 2005, CNOOC made a staggering, all-cash $18.5 billion offer to buy the American oil company Unocal. Immediately, lawmakers and many policy experts, including a broad array of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, mounted a major opposition campaign to the bid, urging the Bush administration to have the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. determine how the deal would affect national security.
Alan Tonelson, a research fellow with the U.S. Business and Industry Council, told reporters in 2005. "It's also part of a Chinese campaign to move, again, very aggressively into the American economy."
"The acquisition would significantly help China achieve its goal of dominating the entire (Asian) region," John J. Tkacik Jr. wrote in a 2005 article in Capitalism Magazine.
Arakan Oil Watch, a human rights organization, issued a report accusing CNOOC last October of human rights abuses and land theft in an oil prospecting venture in Burma.
As previously noted, Freeman also has Saudi Arabian and bin Laden family ties.