China Port Control More Worrisome Than Dubai Deal

Newsmax ^ | 3/24/06 | Christopher Ruddy

[freedom44]

The real reason the Dubai ports deal created such an uproar across America was the much larger issue of border security.

If only Congress would show as much concern for our border security as they did about the port deal.

Another matter Congress should concern itself with is China's growing reach over global ports - including ones close to the United States.

Many Americans already feel neglected by their government over illegal immigration and vulnerable to terrorism due to lax border security.

In my mind, it is still baffling to me that after Sept. 11, even after the U.S. government created a mammoth new security agency (Homeland Security) engaged in all sorts of domestic controls over U.S. citizens (think airport security and the Patriot Act) - we even went to war with Iraq - we still haven't moved to secure our porous borders.

Frustrated by federal inaction, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, both Democrats, have gone so far as to declare a state of emergency in counties bordering Mexico, and Napolitano has ordered more National Guardsmen posted at the border.

The Bush administration has tried to deflect criticism over our open borders by insisting that security remains the most pressing issue.

Then came the news that the United States had agreed to turn over operations in major U.S. ports to a company owned by the government of Dubai, one of the United Arab Emirates.

While I did not believe that either the Dubai deal threatened U.S. national security, or that it should have been prevented, I do believe it was fair for Congress to want a full review and not be railroaded into the arrangement.

While that controversy appears to have passed, I believe the issued has raised larger issues.

For one thing, should any foreign company be allowed to control operations in U.S. ports?

Laws are already in place to prevent foreign ownership of television broadcasting properties in the United States. Wouldn't concerns about terrorism at U.S. ports be even more in the national interest?

The U.A.E. deal focused attention on an unsettling fact: Foreign operators now control most of the port terminals in the United States, including 80 percent of the terminals in America's largest port, Los Angeles. While Dubai has been, in fact, a strong ally of the United States, other countries that control our ports may not be so friendly. The U.S. ports that Dubai Ports World agreed to take over were previously managed by a British company, and Dubai Ports had to outbid another foreign firm, part of the Singapore government's investment arm, to land the deal.

One terminal in New York is operated by a Hong Kong-based company with close links to China's communist party.

The majority leaseholder of a terminal at the Port of Long Beach in California is part of a company that serves as the merchant marine for the Chinese military.

China is pushing forward with a campaign to secure strategic ports around the world. A subsidiary of Chinese-owned Hutchison Whampoa Ltd., the world's biggest cargo terminal operator, has invested in 169 berths at 41 ports worldwide, and controls about 15 percent of global maritime container traffic.

Some of Hutchison's ports lie near key sea lanes and lines of communication, such as the Suez Canal. Hutchison even controls ports at both ends of the Panama Canal, and in Freeport, the Bahamas, just 60 miles from the United States.

Of the eight international regions with choke points labeled by the Department of Defense as "U.S. lifelines and transit regions," Hutchison has ports in six.

The late Admiral Thomas Moorer, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a founding board member of the parent company of NewsMax Magazine, told me repeatedly before he passed that China was using its commercial port facilities to expand its global military reach. A 1999 report by the American Foreign Policy Council determined that Hutchison "has substantial links to the Chinese communist government and the People's Liberation Army."

The port controversy does show that the potential for terrorism against Americans is enormous.

Still, in my view, Dubai should not have been singled out for exclusion from doing business in U.S. ports.

The U.A.E. has been a strong ally of the United States in the war against terrorism, and the port of Dubai is the busiest port of call for U.S. Navy ships outside the continental United States.

Singling out an Arab country for special treatment - remember that most U.S. ports are operated by foreign companies - could lead to a loss of support for U.S. policies in some Arab countries. New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof wrote: "If we want to encourage Arab modernization, we should be approving this deal - not engaging in quasi-racist scaremongering."

As Democrats and some Republicans alike beat the drum over the deal, Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., saw the bigger picture: "To kill the deal without a comprehensive solution to port security is just living for the political moment."

If there is one bright spot to emerge from the port controversy, it is that new attention has been focused on the security question in general. That attention should not stop at our ports - any effort to fend off attacks from foreign terrorism must include securing all of our borders.

[strategofr]

"One terminal in New York is operated by a Hong Kong-based company with close links to China's communist party.

The majority leaseholder of a terminal at the Port of Long Beach in California is part of a company that serves as the merchant marine for the Chinese military."

I think a general question of having foreigners in charge of US ports should be debated. But the idea of having Chinese in charge of US ports needs no debate. That should be ended immediately.

[tomakaze]

more backstabbing from the globalists? surprise surprise.

[Wolfie]

You can elect Dems or Republicans all you want, you still get big corporate globalists. Meanwhile they have us duking it out over social issues that shouldn't be anything but a minor concern.