At the APEC conference in Taipei last August, several mainland Chinese asked us for assistance in entering the U.S. and select European markets. All were OEM manufacturers intent on following the lead of companies like LG and Samsung in segueing from being builders of white box to being globally branded powerhouses. We advised them on marketing, sales, and support issues when selling products outside their domestic markets. We discussed options such as setting up operations country-by-country or just taking the plunge by buying an existing company with an established brand.

Ten months later, we can see that buying a brand is the preferred choice. Organic growth in other countries a long slog with no guarantee of success. Buying a brand, though, gets you into a market immediately with a known entity. This news about Haier follows Lenovo’s acquisition of IBM’s PC division, a move that gave the Chinese company immediate credibility with the respected ThinkPad line. Meanwhile, Chevron will duke it out with Chinese oil company CNOOC over Unocal.

Which of the competing bids will win the famed Maytag repairman? Our money is on the Chinese. The value of the Maytag brand is higher to Qingdao Haier than it is to a private equity firm like Ripplewood that may just want to cut costs, increase efficiency, and flip the investment a few years from now — or even break up the company sooner and sell bits to Bosch-Siemens, Miele, or Whirlpool.

Whatever the outcome of this particular bid, Americans and Europeans can expect to see many of the dollars and euros they paid for Chinese-manufactured goods repatriated in the form of treasury bond purchases (already a reality in the U.S.) and more acquisitive plans. This flow will change the dynamics of many companies and create opportunities for North Atlantic technology and service firms in supporting reverse localization as the Chinese productize domestic products for international sale. They also may seek services to gain insights into the minds of red-staters and blue-staters. Globalization will certainly be afoot when you wash your dainties in a Chinese top-loader washing machine.