The US gets worked up over ports and oil. France is sensitive about its strategic yoghurt reserves. China, it seems, gets particularly touchy when it comes to beverages.
Last November China's ministry of commerce, which oversees anti- monopoly issues, cleared the $52bn (€38bn, ￡36bn) acquisition by InBev of Anheuser-Busch but laid down several conditions restricting the combined group's freedom to increase its presence in China. The ruling sent the message that Beijing's anti-monopoly law, passed last August, would hold sway even over non-Chinese deals that might affect China's increasingly significant market. Last week the ministry rejected Coca-Cola's $2.4bn bid for Huiyuan Juice, killing what would have been the biggest foreign takeover of a Chinese company.
Coca-Cola has taken what some are calling China's Smoot-Hawley moment on the chin. Although privately taken aback, in public it expressed disappointment but respect for Beijing's decision, which some fear could trigger retaliatory protectionism. The US reaction too, insofar as it opines on anything other than AIG bonuses these days, has been low-key. The only people to have displayed raw emotion have been Australian MPs opposed to China's onslaught on their country's mining assets. For them, Beijing's rejection has been manna from heaven, providing another reason to block Chinese bids.