"also I am fairly certain you are wrong on the 100 year lease - the US owned the canal zone as sovreign 'in perpetuity.' "
http://www.infoplease.com/spot/pancanal1.html
The canal and the canal zone were handed back by Carter after the Senate approved the Panama Canal Treaty.
Regarding Chinese control of the canal.
http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a384f25db438e.htm
and
http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/china/1999/e-11-18-99-5.htm
"pointing to the fact that Panama has signed a 50-year lease for two ports at each end of the Canal with Hong Kong's Hutchison Whampoa company, run by Li Ka-shing, who is closely associated with the Beijing regime, Moore said this "gives China's Communist Party de facto control over the most strategic waterway in the West."
your first link agrees with me.
"AFTER ENCOURAGING PANAMA'S INDEPENDENCE from Colombia, the U.S. signed a treaty in 1903 that gave it the rights to build and operate the canal for perpetuity. The agreement also gave the U.S. the right to govern the 10-mile wide, 40-mile long strip of land around the canal, called the Panama Canal Zone."
obviously the carter treaty changed this
second and third links quote the alarmists - these are the crowd that is responsible for the disinformation out there.
just because moore says so doesn't make it true. find these ports on a map and tell me what they have to do with canal operation or control.