Randall Forysth devotes much of Barron’s latest “Up & Down Wall Street” column to the recently announced deal in which China’s largest meat processor plans to buy Smithfield Foods.

The obvious attraction for Shuanghui is that in China pigs are more prone to be found floating dead in rivers than taking flight. So the company may be able to expand the supply of safe meat to Chinese consumers, already the world’s biggest pork eaters, who will likely further increase their appetite for meat as the growing middle class starts to live higher on the hog. And that aptly describes Smithfield executives, too, who stand to pocket more than $85 million in the buyout, according to Bloomberg.

The deal is unlikely to raise alarms of a bacon gap, analogous to worries over a missile gap with the former Soviet Union during the Cold War, although the deal will be reviewed by the government’s Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. And while the Smithfield takeover is the biggest deal for a Chinese buyer of a U.S. company to date, it’s unlikely to be the last.

With its currency, the yuan, at a record level against the dollar — in large part because of prodding by the U.S. government — China can buy U.S. assets relatively cheaply. Deals such as Cnooc’s failed attempt to acquire Unocal for $18.5 billion in 2005 would still most likely be blocked because of security concerns. But the burgeoning ranks of Chinese millionaires and billionaires no doubt will want to join their peers from around the globe to snap up luxury overseas digs at comparative bargain prices (at least compared with Hong Kong or London) in the States.

That China might want to go on an American shopping spree might have something to do with the vast amounts of greenbacks it has accumulated, including $3.4 trillion in currency reserves at its central bank, the bulk of which is parked in U.S. Treasury and agency securities.