As Asia’s burgeoning chemical giant ChemChina sharpens its focus on European takeover targets – it recently bought plastics machinery manufacturer Krauss Maffei and made a bid for Swiss agrochemical producer Syngenta – the company has come into focus again, hiring a former Bayer manager, Michael König, to run its China National Bluestar Corp subsidiary.

Bluestar, which holds ChemChina’s specialty chemicals activities, is no stranger to Bayer, having worked with the German group on chlorine technology. König, who from 2013 until resigning the position at the end of last year, was responsible for Human Resources on the Bayer managing board, is no stranger to China either.

Relocating to the People’s Republic for in 2000, the German exceutive spent several years building the chemical producer’s business in Asia, mainly for the engineering plastics activities belonging to sub-group Bayer MaterialScience, now spun off and trading as Covestro, A Mandarin speaker, König is credited with having extensive experience in dealing with Chinese authorities.