Few transactions seem to whip up emotion and hysteria like the purchase of western energy assets by companies linked to the Chinese government.
The unforgettable response to CNOOC's 2005 offer for United States producer Unocal - which saw an unprecedented frenzy of nationalism and Unocal shareholders eventually accepting a lower priced offer from US group Chevron - remains the textbook example, and most Chinese companies have subsequently learned to tread very carefully when contemplating transactions of their own.
PetroChina's role in the $520 million takeover offer for Queensland coal seam gas play Bow Energy announced on Monday, and its part in the $3.4 billion acquisition of Arrow Energy in 2010, shows how some Chinese companies have adapted and improved their approach to offshore M&A.
Rather than bidding for both companies entirely under its own umbrella, PetroChina has partnered in both acquisitions with Royal Dutch Shell.
There are many practical reasons for this - Shell's technical capacity and its existing presence in Queensland chief among them, but the Shell partnership also serves to protect it somewhat from some of the nationalistic and borderline xenophobic attacks that unfortunately still mar many Chinese transactions in Australia.
PetroChina appears to be happy to take a low profile role in the Bow takeover offer, just as it did during its offer for Arrow Energy.
It takes a back seat to Shell, despite the fact it covered the bulk of the price of Arrow Energy and will put up half of the price tag for Bow should its offer be accepted.
Indeed, the official press release from Shell and PetroChina contained no mention of either company's name.
Instead, the pair are sticking behind the Arrow Energy moniker they picked up last year. (The low-profile approach extends to the Arrow website, where a quick scan could only find one fleeting reference to Shell and PetroChina tucked away in the "History" section.)
While Shell is like PetroChina, a huge international player, its familiarity and history in Australia makes it a far more palatable proposition for those who may otherwise fear "the selling of the farm" to relatively unknown foreign entities.
In both Arrow and Bow, PetroChina picked wise targets.
Arrow represented just one of four advanced coal seam gas-to-LNG proponents in Queensland, all of which have been on the receiving end of major investments from international companies.
That meant there was never any chance of any regulatory impediments to either the Arrow or Bow investments.
With Bow, Shell and PetroChina have shown very good timing.
Bow's share price has been on the slide, not only due to the weak market globally but also due to the ongoing controversy over the environmental impacts of coal seam gas production and its failure to date to align itself with one of the LNG export projects.
The result is that PetroChina and Shell can offer a very strong premium for Bow - its $1.48 per share offer was a 67% premium to its previous share price close and well above the 74c low plumbed in May - without having to pay 2009-10 style prices.
Back then, when coal seam gas plays were being snapped up almost every other day, Bow was trading as high as $1.58. Despite significant progress since then, Bow has failed to recapture those levels.
From a public relations point of view, it's easy to see why PetroChina may be happy to keep their head below the parapet on Bow.
Given the populist and often ill-informed hysteria surrounding the environmental impacts of coal seam gas in Australia, offering protestors a Chinese company at which to direct their anger could only serve to further inflame tensions.
