The China Chronicles

The evening television news on July 16 captured a dramatic and historic moment that has ominous implications for America: Presidents Jiang Zemin of China and Vladimir Putin of Russia hugging each other. The Kremlin bear hug marked the signing of a treaty of "friendship and cooperation." It commits the two giants to jointly oppose U.S. policies to build an anti-missile defense system, to defend Taiwan, and to expand the purpose and influence of NATO.

In a joint statement, the two dictators said they are hoping for a new world order. One Russian commentator in Moscow described the treaty as "an act of friendship against America."

The treaty requires Moscow and Beijing to coordinate their response closely if either is subjected to pressure or aggression from another power.

The language of the treaty makes clear that it is designed to proclaim to the world that Russia will resist both NATO's activity in Europe and America's defense of Taiwan.

Putin forcefully stated Russia's opposition to NATO expansion. He said it will prolong the Cold War. "When NATO enlarges, division doesn't disappear, it simply moves toward our borders."

The treaty includes strong language demanding the maintenance of the 1972 ABM Treaty "in its current form." In fact, the treaty is no longer operative because the country we signed it with, the Soviet Union, no longer exists.

Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Thomas H. Moorer (U.S.N. Ret.) recently warned us about Communist China's war plans. "They've stated flatly the U.S. is their No. 1 enemy," he said, and we have to learn the lesson that we can't pacify aggressors with weakness.

"They are right in the Caribbean with an operation," Admiral Moorer added, refer-ring to the fact that a Chinese-controlled firm now controls both ends of the Panama Canal.
(NewsMax.com, 4-23-01)

For several years, Adm. Moorer has been warning that it is highly dangerous to U.S. national security to allow Communist China to establish a beachhead in the Western Hemisphere by controlling the Panama Canal. He told the U.S. Senate, "We are on what I consider to be a collision course with disaster in the very near future. . . . I truly can't remember a time when I have been more concerned about the security of the country."
(Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, 6-16-98)

Moorer was a Navy pilot during World War II and served as JCS chairman during the Vietnam War.

The Monroe Doctrine enunciated the U.S. policy that it is "dangerous to our peace and safety" for any foreign power to extend its system to the Western Hemisphere. In 1962, we worried about Communist Russia's nuclear missiles deployed to Castro's Cuba. Now we face the possibility that Communist China may put its nuclear missiles in Panama for a blackmail threat about Taiwan.

In the meantime, it appears that China is using Panama to smuggle Asian migrants, primarily Chinese, to the United States. The human smuggling routes go through Hong Kong, the Netherlands, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, and Panama. After landing, the Asians are taken by land to the Costa Rico border, then through Mexico, where they cross into the United States. (China Reform Monitor 381, 5-7-01)

Update on Human Rights

Ninety percent of transplants performed in China use human organs taken from executed prisoners who may be executed for such crimes as "counter-revolutionary offenses," a code word for pro-democracy activism. Harry Wu testified that "The Chinese government controls and operates a system to harvest organs from executed prisoners and ensures its secrecy." Wang Guiqi, a former doctor at a Chinese People's Liberation Army hospital, testified: "My work required me to remove skin and corneas from the corpses of over 100 executed prisoners." He said he saw other doctors remove vital organs from executed prisoners, and that kidneys were sold to high-ranking people for $15,000 each.
(House International Relations Committee hearing, 6-27-01)

Conditions in China's prison factories, which include political and religious dissidents, have become more abusive under market reforms. Guards go for months without pay, beat prisoners routinely, use electric batons for torture, and hang prisoners by their hands to spur on other workers. Prisoners collapse from exhaustion of working 16-hour shifts and through the night without sleep. It's common to see inmates spitting blood and fainting from exhaustion.
(Washington Post, 6-14-01)

Update on Free Trade

"The face of capitalism in China looks like this. At the Shanghai Stock Exchange, restricted shares open only to Chinese investors have, in general, soared over the last decade while those stocks open only to foreign investors have sunk by 40%. Corruption is getting worse under a system that favors well-connected officials and their princelings."
(Peter Hadekel, editorial page editor of the Montreal Gazette, in the Washington Times, 6-22-01)

Can there be big market oppor-tunities if people have no money to buy our goods? The World Bank says there are 120 million Chinese who make no more than $1 per day. A senior Ministry of Agriculture official said that China's 50,000 counties and townships are on the verge of bankruptcy, with a combined debt of about $25 billion.
(China Reform Monitor 393, 6-26-01)

More than half of the taxpayer-funded Export-Import Bank's loans and long-term loan guarantees over the last two years have gone to just one corporation, Boeing. Many of these loans and loan guarantees have been used to subsidize transactions between Boeing and Communist China. In the last two fiscal years, the Export-Import Bank has subsidized more than 50 Boeing sales, with loans and long-term loan guarantees totaling $8.9 billion in value.
(Human Events, 6-25-01)

Update on Military Threat

The Chinese military conducted its largest war game in several years, coordinating air, naval, missile, and amphibious infantry forces, with the publicly stated goal to practice attacking and occupying an outlying Taiwanese island and fighting off an aircraft carrier. The exercises took place 98 miles west of a strategic Taiwan island.
(China Reform Monitor 389, 6-4-01)

A Chinese Ming-class attack sub-marine conducted secret underwater operations for more than a month without being detected, according to U.S. intelligence sources. Intelligence officials say the undetected SSN deployment is evidence that China is improving its underwater warfare skills.
(Washington Times, 6-1-01)

China made at least three arms shipments to Cuba in the last several months, delivered by COSCO (China Ocean Shipping Co.,) which is owned by the Chinese government. The shipments probably went through the Panama Canal, now controlled on both ends by Chinese interests. (Washington Times, 6-12-01) Under U.S. law, economic sanctions must be imposed on any nation or company that provides military assistance to a country that is a sponsor of terrorism, and Cuba is one of nine countries so designated. Did you hear anything about sanctions being imposed on China?

Update on What China Is Saying

Asia Times reports that Chinese boss Jiang Zemin has ordered a Communist Party document issued to all publications listing strict censorship criteria and threatening permanent closure, without warning, if editors express opposition to the Party line. Strictly forbidden are articles criticizing Party policies or the "cardinal principles of Marxism."
(China Reform Monitor 394, 7-2-01)