-Caveat Lector-
"To subdue the enemy without fighting is the supreme excellence."
-- Sun Tzu, author of The Art of War
http://www.insightmag.com/investiga/dnc19.html
Published in Washington, D.C.. . . . Vol. 15, No. 18 -- May 17, 1999 . . . .
www.insightmag.com
China's Military May Get U.S. Base
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By Timothy W. Maier
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The Chinese Ocean Shipping Co.'s bid to operate from the Long Beach Naval
Station foundered amid controversy, but the City of Angels now is eager to
make a similar deal.
They're back. The China Ocean Shipping Co., or COSCO, the merchant marine
for the People's Liberation Army, or PLA, has returned with a vengeance. It
didn't set well with COSCO when it lost out on the former U.S. Navy base in
Long Beach, Calif., last year because an alerted Congress tucked legislation
into an appropriations bill prohibiting such a takeover.
. . . . But Beijing now may have an opportunity to slip through the back
door while Congress is focused on the Kosovo crisis. COSCO's checkered past
includes smuggling heroin and AK-47 assault rifles into the United States
and delivering arms worldwide for the PLA, but it has not given up hope of
securing a U.S. mainland facility for its shipping and/or espionage
operations. Insight has learned that COSCO could end up with its port,
anyway, once another company takes over the old Long Beach Naval Station and
port facility.
. . . . If that fails, COSCO has set its sights on a base in Los Angeles,
which is only too eager to do business with the comrades. Supporters of
COSCO -- such as "honorary adviser" and former secretary of state Al Haig
and a host of Long Beach and Los Angeles officials -- claim it is no threat,
noting it has been operating in the port for 15 years, sharing facilities as
it has done in New York and Miami.
. . . . But COSCO doesn't have its own port, with its own armed security and
potential base for espionage, which is a major difference to concerned U.S.
intelligence experts who long have warned that allowing COSCO to operate its
own port on U.S. soil could create a national-security nightmare.
. . . . Sen. James M. Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican, has described the
PLA's shipping arm this way: "COSCO is not a benign private commercial
enterprise. It is a wholly owned subsidiary of China's People's Liberation
Army. It serves as the merchant marine of the Chinese military, and there is
every reason to believe it will do their bidding in terms of smuggling,
intelligence-gathering and weapons shipments. Considering China's long-term
ambitions for superpower status in the next century, it would be foolish for
America to surrender control of a strategically located West Coast port to
an arm of the Chinese military."
. . . . Just how foolish? Here's a snapshot of COSCO's history of activity
in U.S. ports. In 1992 the U.S. Federal Maritime Commission fined COSCO
$400,000 for paying kickbacks. In 1993 a COSCO ship was caught transporting
87 pounds of heroin. In 1996, a Justice Department sting operation exposed
an attempt to sell 2,000 AK-47s to California street gangs, with the promise
of delivering missiles to knock a 747 airliner out of the sky.
. . . . Concern about this pattern of behavior last year prompted Inhofe and
California Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter to use an appropriations bill to
prohibit COSCO from seizing the Long Beach Naval Port. But this did nothing
to prevent COSCO from taking over a civilian port or even negotiating a port
deal with Los Angeles. Speculators are only too glad to work out a land
swap. Informed of COSCO's latest plan, Hunter tells Insight, "I'm going to
write a letter to the secretary of the Navy and tell him such a land-swap
deal using the Navy base as trade bait for an alternative location for COSCO
is an attempt to circumvent Congress' intent."
. . . . Hunter says he also plans to introduce legislation calling for a
"comprehensive ban on shipping companies guilty of illicit arms transfers,
as COSCO is, from having access to American ports." He adds: "It's sad to
see commercial greed has outbalanced legitimate security interests."
. . . . As of now, COSCO is subleasing port facilities in the Long Beach
area and in several other parts of the country. But it wants its own secure
port operation. Surprised that Beijing is planning to go ahead, Hunter and
Inhofe will have to move fast to stop the Chinese military's merchant
shipper from securing a permanent U.S. base. Inhofe's spokesman, Gary
Hoitsma, says issues associated with the war in Kosovo have been taking up
most of their time, but they will take a hard look at COSCO to see what sort
of legislation would have to be passed to prevent it from landing a port in
a heavy high-tech and defense area.
. . . . President Clinton has no plans to thwart this Communist China
priority. In fact, the Clinton administration has done just the opposite. At
the very time the Justice Department launched its biggest espionage case
since the Rosenbergs, concerning allegations that nuclear secrets were
stolen by Beijing from the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Clinton was
paving the way for COSCO to take over the port at Long Beach. Even as it
denied payments had been made by the government of China to the Clinton/Gore
campaign fund and other Democratic Party causes, the White House pressured
preservation officials in the Navy, State Department and local government to
abandon efforts to preserve the historic buildings at the naval station.
. . . . In 1997, the New York Times raised questions concerning why a
"Clinton-administration official made what several people involved describe
as highly unusual telephone calls to push for construction of a container
terminal that would be leased to a shipping company owned by the Chinese
government."
. . . . But why would Clinton have a personal interest in COSCO? That was
never fully understood -- until now. Enter Johnny Chung, friend of the
president. Chung was sentenced to five years probation after pleading guilty
to charges relating to illegal campaign monies received from the PLA. He now
is cooperating with the Justice probe dealing with Chinagate. Chung's claim
that Beijing dumped $366,000 into the Democratic fund-raising activities is
explosive, and the timing of the donations certainly is suspicious.
. . . . In 1995, while the National Security Council staff was starting to
worry about Chung portraying himself as being sanctioned by Clinton to
negotiate the release of human-rights activist Harry Wu from a Chinese
gulag, Chung set up meetings with then-Democratic National Committee, or
DNC, chairman Don Fowler. They met March 9, 1995, at about the same time
Chung was providing Hillary Clinton's top aide, Margaret Williams, with a
$50,000 political donation.
. . . . After the DNC meeting, Fowler arranged for Chung and his COSCO
friends to attend a Clinton radio address. Chung and six Chinese "business
executives" listened to the radio address and, shortly afterward, Chung
dropped $50,000 to the DNC.
. . . . During the next two years, Chung incorporated seven companies with
investors from China. Federal Election Commission records show several of
his largest political donations were made as he created shell corporations.
. . . . As the money rolled in, the White House aggressively began to pursue
COSCO's project, finding itself in the "unusual" role of making telephone
calls to Long Beach officials. Chung began dropping money to the DNC in
1994, the very year the Clinton administration closed the base. By March
1995 Chung is dropping big bucks --$50,000 a pop -- and the Marines suddenly
found themselves evicted from Long Beach Naval Station. Soon the White House
was pressuring Long Beach to cut a deal with COSCO, with Dorothy Robyn, a
member of the Economic Council, calling local preservation officials to
discourage efforts to save buildings at the base and allow them to be razed
quickly. At the same time federal institutions interested in using the base,
such as the Marines and the Federal Maritime Commission, were turned away
because Clinton wanted to give it to Long Beach with the understanding it
would be handed to the Chinese.
. . . . "It's very clear that the money that Chung gave from the Chinese had
influence in corrupting the entire base-closure process," says Richard Fine,
a citizens' advocate who sued Long Beach to force creation of a commercial
museum, arguing it doesn't make economic sense to turn the Navy port into a
container yard. "The White House gets real active once the money comes in.
The only thing missing in this story is the White House quote: 'Johnny Chung
is here with $366,000 and we'd like your help with COSCO.' The timing
chronology is too perfect. Chung gives money and the White House comes
calling. That tells you the U.S. government is the cheapest government to
buy."
. . . . Fine lost his case when the court ruled he had no standing to sue,
but he appealed. He argued that turning the naval station into a port would
result in $569.7 million of waste, create fewer jobs than would the museum,
destroy the local ecology and demolish the historical buildings built by
famous black architect Paul Williams. Fine claimed it would take some 75
years for the port to recoup its investment loss on the proposed deal and 52
years to pay back the principal on the money that would be borrowed to build
new port facilities.
. . . . If Fine wins his appeal, it simply means COSCO will be more
aggressively courted by Los Angeles.
. . . . For now, the former naval station is gone and so are the historical
buildings, says Bill Hillburg, a reporter with the Long Beach Telegram, who
has followed the case. While some activists are trying to get on the ballot
to rebuild all those historical buildings, it's unlikely that will happen --
just as it is unlikely that COSCO will be stopped from operating a U.S.
port. The bottom line, Hillburg says, is that "COSCO will be in Long Beach
or Los Angeles."
. . . . Unless Congress stops it, the PLA will hit the beach on U.S. soil
with a facility so large and protected that it will be impossible for U.S.
Customs to monitor the contents of the huge cargo containers moving in and
out from China or the possible clandestine activities that such a base would
afford the People's Liberation Army.
http://www.insightmag.com/investiga/dnc19.html
Bard
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