China hits reverse on letting GM sell its Hummer line. Now what?

On Thursday, China moved to block the sale of Hummer to a company based there. GM has been trying to sell Hummer since last year, and once again, it's on the market.

The Hummer deal-or-no-deal has been alternately humorous and depressing, pitting the slapstick of GM's amazing tone-deafness against the tragedy that accompanies any slow-motion car wreck. It's been almost exactly a year since Tata and Mahindra, India's dueling car companies, were lining up to compete for Hummer. In classic style, however, GM seemed unable to read the gargantuan writing on the wall, and decided to play it cool. Tata and Mahindra soon lost interest in the coy carmaker, and GM found itself stuck with what amounted to a huge cut of increasingly fragrant rotten meat.