Clancy's stodgy turn-of-the-century caper showed a belligerent China using military force to pursue its expansionist agenda.

Nearly a decade on, the truth is much stranger than fiction: China doesn't need bombs and missiles when a chequebook works just as well.

In 2000 Clancy portrayed China as a near basket-case, its ageing dictators desperate for overseas assets to plug a financial haemorrhage.

The modern reality is a global powerhouse, bulging with foreign reserves, and the ability to splash out US$14 billion in a dawn raid on Rio Tinto's London-listed stock without blinking.

And, in supreme irony that would probably make Clancy blush, China's partner in the raid was a blue chip United States aluminium firm, Alcoa.

In Clancy's fiction, Uncle Sam was the benevolent superpower, thwarting China's evil ambitions before it could snare the democratically reformed Russians.

In 2008, America has jumped into bed with China Inc., while the Russian Bear (embodied by strong-man President Vladimir Putin) reprises its role as the Bad Guy.

The Chinese script is being written by Chinalco's Xiao Yaqing, who was in Sydney yesterday wooing journalists and politicians.

But he still has to contend with the boxing kangaroo.

Or in this instance, a South African by the name of Marius Kloppers, draped in an Australian flag in his Melbourne office.

Kloppers is set for a busy day on Wednesday, when he reveals the extent of BHP's interim profit, along with his bidding intentions on Rio Tinto.

Does he A: Bid at the previously flagged 3-for-1; B: Up the ratio; or C: Walk away, and try to snatch Rio's iron ore assets further down the track?

Kloppers has some serious thinking and scheming to do.

But, as the FT's Lex column noted: "It's hard to play chess with a Dragon breathing down your neck".

The Metal Detective believes that Kloppers should call the Dragon's bluff and stick to 3-for-1.

As Southern Cross Equities said in a note yesterday, Chinalco's 60 pounds per share raid does not create a higher valuation benchmark for Rio.

"Strategic buyers, almost by definition, overpay," the broker said in a note written by its director Charlie Aitken.

Rio's United Kingdom stock on Friday jumped 12 percent above the value of BHP's offer.

"BHP has always known that it would have to raise a little, but it doesn't need to chase the Dragon that far."

Southern Cross believes Chinalco's strategic aim is to form a blocking stake, leaving the way for some horse-trading later if BHP wants the merger deal to fly.

Presumably that involves shelling out Rio's valuable aluminium assets to China and Alcoa, leaving BHP with the juicy Pilbara iron ore.

Mind you, the conventional wisdom may be misguided, as Chinese firms have been aggressively targeting Western Australia's iron ore sector.

Sinosteel recently bought a blocking stake in MidWest Corp., the target of fellow WA iron ore producer Murchison Metals.

Just last week Baosteel bought 19.7% of Mt Gibson Iron from Russia's Gazmetall Holdings, joining Hong Kong-based APAC Resources on the share register.

And yesterday it was rumoured that China Investment Corp, China's sovereign-wealth fund, and coal miner China Shenhua Group have been in informal talks to buy a 16% stake in Fortescue Metals in a deal worth $US2 billion, according to the South China Morning Post.

So, while all the focus has been on Rio Tinto, clearly the Dragon has been breathing fire over some of Australia's second-tier iron ore resources.

Who knows which innocent bystanders (or minority shareholders) will get toasted in the ensuing inferno?

Whatever Kloppers decides this week, the move by China on Rio Tinto is the "biggest of vote of confidence yet on the commodity super cycle and economic decoupling", according to Southern Cross.

The broker says the Chinese action will be the trigger for further mergers and acquisitions as the grab for resource assets accelerates.

We are in the midst of a once-in-a-century carve up, it believes, urging investors to commit to the next generation of 'Kangaroo' resource stocks if they want to get a slice of the action.

"The two stocks you simply have to buy on the back of these developments are Fortescue Metals Group (FMG) and Oxiana (OXR)," it says.

Is Aitken too bullish, given that the US may already be in recession?

Maybe, but when a Dragon puts real money on the table, even super-cycle sceptics sit up and take notice.