This week's $775 million announced sale of BP plc's (NYSE:BP) Pakistan assets focused on the seller and its $20 billion cleanup bill halfway around the world. Perhaps more attention should be paid to the buyer, a Hong Kong-listed company called United Energy Group Ltd. While not a state-owned Chinese enterprise, UEG and its major shareholder, Zhang Hongwei, have strong ties to the Beijing power base.

There are many ways to interpret UEG's acquisition of these oil and gas concessions and production facilities. They all have global implications.

To stoke its raging economy, a mercantalist China is on a resources treasure hunt. That is taking its cash-rich companies, most of which are state-owned enterprises, just about everywhere. Oil is gold. In the past year and a half, Chinese companies have inked multibillion-dollar deals to acquire petroleum assets in Brazil, Canada and West Africa. The most recent occurred last week when China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. (NYSE:SNP), or Sinopec, announced it would pay $2.45 billion for the Argentine operations of Occidental Petroleum Corp. (NYSE:OXY).

With some of these deals, the Chinese maintain the fiction that they're interested in local energy self-sufficiency and economic growth. That's what UEG is saying about Pakistan, although no one should take the explanation at face value. China wants as many guarantees as possible for long-term access and will offer a premium for the resource companies that can insure continued supply.

Part and parcel of this global quest is a willingness among Chinese resource companies to tread where others fear. Pakistan is one such destination. Foreign investment is difficult to come by, understandable given sectarian violence, ineffective government and a war that has bled into its border from Afghanistan. Even some oil companies, which fancy themselves as a notoriously swashbuckling breed, have been treading carefully in a country that often appears lurching toward anarchy. Some believe BP may have been more than happy to use the need to fund the Gulf cleanup as an excuse to get out of Dodge.

The UEG foray into Pakistan plays on India's slightly paranoid view of the world. From the vantage point of New Delhi, Pakistan is India's major adversary. China is India's biggest long-term rival. In something as critical as oil supply, co-joined interests must give the Indian government fits.

India sees itself as top dog in South Asia. It snarls and growls when there's even a whiff of territorial encroachment.

Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao (pictured) is now wrapping up a three-day visit to India. While the hosts are all smiles and Chinese banks extend low-cost loans to grateful Indian companies (so they can buy Chinese equipment), there's barely concealed suspicion and resentment in India of China's intentions. In New Delhi power corridors, it's pretty much accepted wisdom that China is attempting to encircle India through trade, development and a liberal sprinkling of its cash reserves.

Last month, India's neighbor to the south, Sri Lanka, inaugurated a deepwater port, in the far southern town of Hambantota. Beijing financed the $1.5 billion facility, and Chinese labor was imported to construct it.

It was no simple act of altruism. The port can accommodate oil tankers steaming their way to China from points west. That can now include Pakistan.