In Washington DC they call it 'hardball'. The rough and tumble of Congressional politics where interests, ambitions and motivations are myriad and often never fully clear.
Tomorrow Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa could find itself at the centre of events far beyond its control as the Senate Armed Services Committee stages a hearing into hotly denied claims of creeping mainland control over the Panama canal.
Insiders feel a rough few weeks lie ahead before Hutchison is left to shore-up its reputation. Others fear it is merely the start of a deeply worrying trend that shows the extent to which Hong Kong is 'written off' by some American elites as merely part of China.
At issue is a contract Hutchison won in 1997 to operate the Cristobal and Balboa container ports at the Pacific and Atlantic entrances to the highly strategic shipping lane.
Hutchison has found itself thrust under the spotlight just as the United States completes its pull-out from the canal in December under a 1977 treaty signed by former president Jimmy Carter - a deal that has long inspired Republican distaste.
The fact that Hutchison is the world's largest operator of container ports has been lost in a gathering storm of right-wing Republican Party concern over China and a renewed attempt to embarrass the Clinton administration.