San Diego Politics Online
How Red China Plays the Game
By J. P. Orphanos
3 December 1998
Sometimes in the media you will hear or read statements that the United States is the world's only military superpower. Most of these themes are illustrated due to the collapse of the Soviet Union into smaller more autonomous republics. Recently at a small gathering someone mentioned that the U.S. doesn't really have any more security worries due to the end of the cold-war era. In what quickly turned into a lively discussion another participant interjected that terrorism should be our biggest concern. Possible terrorist acts not only of individuals but also of those sponsored by nations capable of producing inexpensive nuclear devices and other weapons of mass destruction. I was asked what I thought our nation's greatest security threat was and my answer shocked some. I told them the Red Chinese.
Communist China has been changing on the surface and yet remains steadfast in old ways. In the news recently two high profile Chinese dissidents were released from their many years in prison, a move to soften America's views on China's human rights abuses. Yet tens of thousands of Chinese are still held as political prisoners in slave-labor camps throughout Communist China. We all remember to well watching with horror as People's Liberation Army tanks ran over democracy yearning students in Tiananmen Square and how our diplomatic ties were severed.
Now we learn in the media that U.S. companies are actively doing business as usual in China. Beijing is buying supercomputers, producing blackmarket software CDs and that some American companies have greatly enhanced China's space program possibly with the blessings of President Clinton. While Communist China portrays itself in the media as on the path to an open and free market economy, the deceit and arrogance of their dictatorial ruling regime in Beijing needs to be brought center stage.
Americans have to know that China is not afraid to show its hand by displaying their nuclear capabilities. In this dangerous nuclear brinkmanship they threaten our survival and may have called our hand as to how far we will go to protect Asian nations like Taiwan. The Beijing government in a bold move tested six nuclear-capable missiles only 100 miles north of Taiwan during July of 1995 and the only response from the Clinton Administration was the issuing of a mild statement of "concern".
In early 1996 Communist China held massive war games off the coast of Taiwan launching missiles and using live-fire to prepare for what Beijing says could be the force that liberates the "renegade province". During the war games, our government was warned to stay away from Taiwan. A Chinese official asserted in a discussion with former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Defense, Charles W. Freeman Jr., that the People's Republic of China would be able to act militarily against Taiwan without fear of intervention by the United States because U.S. leaders, "care more about Los Angeles than they do about Taiwan."
Mr. Freeman characterized the statement as a threat by the Communist Chinese to use nuclear weapons against the U.S. as blackmail if we decided to prevent the PRC from their vision of a unified China.
Because of big-business interests the United States has given Beijing the "kid-glove-treatment" many times in the past. Recently de-classified CIA and Military Intelligence reports from the Truman era document that the Chinese communists held U.S. soldiers as POWs during and after the Korean War. As of this date the Red Chinese government has refused to even discuss the matter.
Documents obtained from the U.S. National Archives report that up to 4,000 Americans were held as prisoners in Canton, Hankow, Shanghai, Chekiang, Nanking, Manchuria and elsewhere in China. More than 900 of these prisoners never returned and no one in China is speaking about what happened to these men.
CIA Information Reports go into detail that some U.S. captives where even paraded through the streets of Chinese cities like Paoshan in Yunnan Province China for propaganda purposes. One CIA report states that "Communist barkers pointed the U.S. Soldiers to the spectators, saying 'these are the people we've been fighting - and have conquered."
Some U.S. soldiers were brought to "thought training" camps in China for interrogation and re-indoctrination where they were forced to study Communist propaganda. In one camp the reports say, "The prisoners were under the instruction of Europeans." Another states that the Chinese camps had Russian supervisors and advisors. All of the camps were heavily guarded and the reports even detail the number of guards and what types of rifles they had.
Other recent developments worthy of our attention is Communist China's interest in acquiring property and land in the United States. In the California desert community of Adelanto two Chinese holding companies: the China Export Bases Development Corp. and Conbo International Group began building a Chinese run "Wholesale Town" on 50 acres. One of the companies that is considering building in Adelanto goes by the name J.J. Ammunition. They want to produce and then export inexpensive Chinese Norinco bullets. Just last year Norinco was charged with smuggling 2000 AK-47 Chinese army rifles into the United States from China.
The stated objective was for Chinese manufacturers to move goods through the port of Long Beach utilizing the Communist Chinese Government's shipping company COSCO operated by the Peoples Liberation Army. Thanks to Congressman Duncan Hunter, COSCO has not yet taken over the Long Beach port as the Clinton Adminstration had wanted. COSCO is currently negotiating contracts for other U.S. ports including Charlston South Carolina and Mobile Alabama. In Central America COSCO also just acquired the Pacific port of Balboa and the Atlantic port of Cristobal and could be in a postion to block U.S. ships from passing through the Panama Canal.
We can not trust the Government of Red China. The Korean War was over 45 years ago and the Chinese government still refuses to come clean on the issue of American serviceman held as prisoners on their soil. We have been threatened militarily by them and yet the Clinton Administration grants them "Most Favored Nation" status for trading. As more facts come out about the Chinese connected Democrat Fund-raising scheme and the transfers of rocket, computer and satellite technology from companies like Loral, Hughes and NEC the chess game becomes more complicated. But, the object of chess is much like that of war, you maneuver your pieces to advantageous positions and strike to achieve checkmate.
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