China's battle of the beers

The Financial Times reports:

Interbrew, the Belgian beer group, is to acquire a 70 per cent stake in eastern Chinese brewer Zhejiang Shiliang for US$53.2m.

The deal, which will give Interbrew a market share of close to 50 per cent in the relatively affluent eastern province of Zhejiang, underlines the strength of foreign interest in the vast and fast-growing Chinese beer market. However, Interbrew is having to pay considerably less than Anheuser-Busch, the world's biggest brewer, has offered for China's Harbin Brewery after an unprecedented takeover battle with global number two SABMiller...

...Such thirst for a role in China marks a dramatic turnround following the general retreat that followed a series of expensive failures of foreign owned breweries in the 1990s, but this time international companies are largely seeking to work through existing local brands.

The FT article (which is here) does not point out that the reason SABMiller has been successful in China is precisely because it was the first foreign brewer to to 'work through existing local brands' rather than introducing international ones.