The Chinese are buying North American pulp mills: is this good or bad?

Implications: The major implication is that major North American assets are coming under the complete control of Asian (mostly Chinese) companies and there is no secret that 100% of these mills' production will be going straight back to China.   Current global customers of these mills are already scrambling to find alternative suppliers - and, in a tight market, this is not easy! Will the new Chinese owners be willing to keep the mills updated with new technology and environmental regulations or will they be run into the ground until they literally fall apart? How many more market pulp mills will China seek to purchase to feed their enormous appetite - estimated this year to be 8.5 million mt of virgin market pulp?  Several mills have reported huge losses for 2007 with little remaining cash reserves.  Will the Chinese pounce on these mills like hungry vultures - buying them at greatly distressed prices and far below their replacement costs?

Analysis: Asia Pulp & Paper has just announced the purchase of Pope & Talbot's three market pulp mills at Halsey, OR, Harmac, BC and MacKenzie, BC plus a number of saw mills.  The purchase price was about 15-20% of these mills' replacement costs.  However, with the strong dollar, high wage costs, high wood costs and escalating freight costs, these 3 mills all lost a great deal of money in 2007.
Several years ago the PRC created the Sun Wave Corp. to purchase REPAP's shut down Prince Rupert, BC NBSK mill - a large mill located right on the water capable of producing 1500 mt/day of high quality  northern softwood pulp.  The smaller pulp dryer was quickly dismantled and shipped back to China but the larger pulp dryer still sits there and the mill has not been reopened even though there is a worldwide shortage of NBSK.  Why hasn't it been restarted?   The Union and the Province have already made enormous concessions.  A good question!
A smaller (700 tpd) NBSK mill located just east of Vancouver and shut down since 2006 was dismantled piece-by-piece and shipped back to China.  Is this a portent of things to come?   Will other smaller, uneconomical mills also find their way back to China?  Another good question.
Three years ago Lee & Mann, China's #2 containerboard and box manufacturer purchased the shut Unbl. Softwood mill at Somoa, CA with the expressed plan of shipping 90% of the mill's production  back to China to produce high quality linerboard.   Lee & Mann is also reportedly ready to purchase the shut down dissolving pulp mill at Cosmopolis, WN which Weyerhaeuser had deemed too small and too technologically out-of-date to be viable.   Dissolving pulp for rayon is currently very tight with spot prices running several hundred dollars above list prices.
Lastly, back in 2006 Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) which operates 12 paper and board mills in China purchased the Meadow Lake BCTMP mill in Saskatchewan.   This mill is able to produce 325,000 mt/year of Aspen  BCTMP but was having difficulty marketing their pulp either in North America or overseas.   APP has several SBS board mills which use this kind of pulp in the middle ply of packaging board (cigarette cartons, dry food products and frozen food cartons)  and has announced plans to ship 100% of the mill's production back to China.
Who could have foresaw these developments a decade ago?   And, who can foretell what the landscape will look like 10 years from now?  Will China (joined by perhaps Indonesia and India) have purchased another 5, 6 or even 10 North American mills?  We've got an abundance of trees and fresh water, an experienced/dedicated work force and major production facilities that can be purchased for as little as 10 cents on the dollar.  Does this not seem like a situation they can't ignore?