In The Art of War, the oldest military treatise in the world, Sun Tzu said plans should be modified according to circumstances. This month, CNOOC, the Chinese oil company, was forced to abandon its $18.5bn (€15bn) bid for US rival Unocal following political opposition. M&A practitioners expect the deal's collapse to lead to a change in tactics from Chinese companies looking to buy overseas assets.

Mark Palmer, head of the New York corporate practice at Linklaters, the law firm, said: "The deal could have gone differently, so I do not see its collapse having a huge impact on the M&A pipeline. CNOOC could have partnered with a local firm to give it more of an Anglo base and could have been initially more clear on what was intended with Unocal's US assets."