More push back from the anti-investment crowd in Beijing still pissed off over the UNOCAL deal (among other things). Nice quote from Jeremy Gordon, too. From the Business Times:

China will expedite the passing of a proposed anti-monopoly law to keep overseas capital from controlling businesses critical to its security, the National Development and Reform Commission said last week. The country will also gradually reduce tax exemptions given to overseas firms and seek to prevent tax evasion by foreign companies, the nation’s leading economic planning body said in a statement supplementing its 11th five-year plan for foreign investment, released on Nov 9.

The government is adjusting its policy on foreign investment under its new five-year plan to emphasise the quality of overseas capital rather than quantity, the planning body said in the statement. China will also amend current policies that don’t support free competition between local and overseas firms, the statement said. It will also look to crack down on regional authorities that tend to ‘blindly attract foreign investment’ counter to the national interest.

The commission said it was concerned that an increasing number of leading firms had been bought by overseas capital due to the lack of adequate regulation. ‘There has been quite a lot of domination by foreign companies in some areas of the economy and the Chinese are worried that they will lose the value that their own brands might create for the economy,’ Jeremy Gordon, chief executive officer of China Business Services, said on Aug 25.