There is a belief that the

But Rio Tinto's Bingham Canyon open-cast mine in Salt Lake City, Utah, is too. And now the operation, which has produced more copper than any other mine, has come into the sights of Beijing.

Government-owned Aluminium Corp of China (Chinalco) got a unanimous nod from Rio Tinto's board for its proposed US$19,5bn investment in the company. Of this, $12,3bn buys stakes in individual assets, and the remainder is in the form of loans that Chinalco can convert into Rio Tinto shares.

This route would have given shareholders in the UK and Australia the opportunity to protect their shareholdings from dilution.

The deal even has some angry shareholders calling for the heads of Rio CE Tom Albanese and chairman Paul Skinner.

A failure to see eye to eye over it also caused nominated incoming chairman Jim Leng to quit the company before he started.

Soon SA investors may be faced with similar scenarios.

Ernst & Young partner in charge of global mining & metals Michael Lynch-Bell says he expects the investment trend to continue.

"I'm not expecting a flood, but there should be some chunky acquisitions," he says. But Lynch-Bell also notes Chinese companies are cautious.

Thebe Securities international economist Lih-Wen Chu says we aren't likely to see a swathe of local SA companies getting taken out. China imports most of its minerals from Australia and Brazil, so the strategic imperative would be in those regions.

Perhaps this point is underpinned by the fact that the first companies to go this route were Rio Tinto, which has a strong presence in Australia and South America, and Oz Minerals, whose name says it all.

Chinese government-owned Minmetals agreed mid-February to buy Oz Minerals, the world's second-biggest zinc miner, for $1,7bn.

Sovereign wealth fund China Investment Corp has also been talking to Australian iron-ore miner Fortescue Metals about possible investments.

But Chinese companies have landed in the DRC and Zambia over the past couple of years hunting for, and mining, copper.

There are also anecdotal reports of Chinese firms approaching SA companies saying they have billions of dollars to spend in Africa, but need a partner to find opportunities.

In SA, Chinese companies might be most attracted to ferrochrome and platinum. SA produces more than 70% of global supply of both of these.

Platinum is on Beijing's radar screen because it is used to reduce pollution from cars. One of China's biggest gold-miners, Zijin Mining, owns a fifth of Ridge Mining's stock.

Ridge will start producing platinum at its Blue Ridge mine on the eastern limb of the Bushveld Complex in March.

While Ridge is in talks to merge with Aquarius, speculation is a Chinese company might step in and buy a stake in Ridge.

Chu says if the Chinese car market continues to grow at current rates, it would make sense for the country to invest in platinum production. China is forecast to overtake the US this year as the world's biggest car market.

Other cash-strapped juniors like Wesizwe, Jubilee and Anooraq might also find themselves commuting to Beijing in coming months seeking investment.

On the ferrochrome front, China's second-biggest steel producer, Sinosteel, has majority ownership of ASA Metals, which operates the Dikalong mine and smelter, south of Polokwane.

The ferrochrome sector, controlled by Xstrata and Samancor Chrome, has effectively been shut down this year because of demand disappearing. Ferrochrome is used to make stainless steel.

If demand doesn't return to the market soon, these companies will find themselves suffocating for lack of cash flow, which could open the door for Chinese investment at the asset level.

Chu says BHP Billiton might also see Chinese interest in getting a stake, but the world's biggest miner is well capitalised and doesn't have much debt. Anglo American is, perhaps, a more likely candidate.

The level of Chinese merger and acquisition activity in Africa will be a question of balance between the degree to which governments and investors are willing to release their resources to a country keen on keeping prices low, and a short-term desperation for cash.

With around US$40bn of debt, Rio was a company desperately in need of a capital transfusion.

And its deal with Chinalco was always going to ruffle some feathers, if only because it's heralding a tectonic shift in the commodities world.

A sector controlled by the UK, Australian and North American money for more than 100 years now has Chinese companies and sovereign wealth funds swooping in and snatching up shareholdings.

But governments are also worried about Chinese companies getting control of their resources with the intention of securing lower prices.

Chinalco president Xiao Yaqing denies its investment in Rio is about pricing. However, Chu says that this is not true. Backing Chu is a sentence in the company fact book posted on China's biggest aluminium producer's website: "Chinalco intends to realise value through capitalising on consolidation opportunities to become more competitive in price negotiation."

The Chilean government welcomes Chinalco getting stakes in Rio's assets in that country, but Australia's response has been more wary. It tightened foreign ownership rules the same day Rio announced the deal.

Two words that are going to find themselves being thrown around the mining sector far more frequently in the next couple of years are sinophile and sinophobe.

All eyes will be on the Rio deal, which goes to shareholder vote in April.

As the Financial Times puts it: "Rio, flat on its back with its feet wiggling in the air, is now in the petri dish of a giant experimentation - the biggest investment China has sanctioned outside its borders."