Number of Texans on payroll of Chinese companies growing; China has $6 billion tied up in Texas

Dylan Baddour, Houston Chronicle | June 4, 2015

• 

District 16

Chinese-funded jobs: less than 10

Total Chinese investments: less than $50 million

Chinese-owned operations: less than 5

Source: "Chinese Investment in the United States by Congressional District," National Committee on US-China Relations May 2015 and Rhodium Group

Image 1 of 26

Texas districts with the most Chinese jobs

A new report found the number of Americans employed by Chinese firms in the United States more than quadrupled in the past five years. 

Click through our slideshow to see which congressional districts in the Lone Star State sport the most Texans on Chinese payroll.

A new report described the turning tides of American-Chinese business relations.

For decades, money flowed from the United States into the People's Republic, building factories and paying wages for manufacturing on behalf of American companies. But the one-way road appears to be widening, and Chinese firms are buying parts of America.

That comes as the United States is in the process of handing off the baton of the world's largest economy.

The National Committee on US-China Relations and the Rhodium Group released last month a report on Chinese investment in the United States, tallying $46 billion between 2000 and 2014. Almost $6 billion of that was in Texas, which sports two of the top 15 congressional districted receiving the most investment.

Both of those districts are in Houston, where almost 3,000 people are employed by Chinese firms.

ABOVE: China's biggest Texas investments

"Chinese [foreign direct investment] into the US has taken off, bringing a growing number of firms from China face-to-face with US communities; new corporate neighbors are moving in," the report said.

Nationwide, 80,000 Americans are now on the payroll of Chinese corporations, up from less than 15,000 five years ago, and counting indirect employment (like employees of construction contractors hired by Chinese firms) would add tens of thousands, the report said.

Most of the growth in Chinese investment in the United States has not been through the construction of new Chinese firm offices in the U.S., but rather through Chinese acquisition of companies already operating here. Such is the case for many of the biggest Chinese-owned employers in Houston.

For example, Nexen Inc. is a formerly-Canadian oil company with a large regional office in Houston. In 2013 it was bought for $15.1 billion by the state-owned China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC), in what was then China's largest-ever foreign takeover. The company also owns oil assets in the Gulf of Mexico.

Friede Goldman, a drilling rig designer and another major Chinese-owned employer in Houston, was bought by the state-owned China Communications Construction Company Ltd. in 2010 for $125 million. A Chinese firm bought Inova Resource Ltd. in 2013, which also has a Houston office.

And CNOOC operates a major venture in the Eagle Ford Shale.

But contrary to some domestic concerns over the Chinese buying up America, the report notes that Chinese investment in the United States is good news to American communities.

"Many Chinese takeovers have generated local investments as the new owners have saved firms from bankruptcy and provided new financing lines," it said. "In most cases, acquisitions have led to expansions, and examples of downsizing are rare."

By 2020, the report predicts, Chinese firms could directly employ 200,000-400,000 people in the U.S.