At What Cost Did China Get Canal?

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Sept 13, 1999 | by J. Michael Waller

According to Moorer, Law No. S states that the treaties prevail in the event of a conflict but, in his words, the "clause is meaningless if the U.S. government doesn't act immediately."

The United States hasn't acted and Congress, despite hearings, hasn't either. And the administration is sticking to its script of don't worry.

For example, when asked if the PRC will have an added ability to monitor shipping through the canal, the White House declined to comment. Would the White House put its assurances in the context of threatening statements against the United States by PRC Defense Minister Chi Haotian? The White House declined to link the two. Will U.S. military personnel be out of their Panama bases by the end of the year? According to Leavy, "I don't know." With reports that Beijing is building electronic intelligence facilities in Cuba in addition to its Panama Canal move, is the administration "at all concerned that the PRC is moving more aggressively in the Western Hemisphere somehow?" Leavy: "Not that I'm aware of, no." Asked if Hutchison Whampoa had ties to the Chinese military, Leavy said he didn't know.

Nevertheless, the White House official and his counterparts at State and Defense insisted that Washington was safeguarding U.S. national interests in the Panama Canal and reserved the right to unilateral military force. So, asked one reporter, what was the result of U.S. protests about the rigged bidding process that gave the facilities to Hutchison Whampoa? Replied Leavy, "I'm not aware of any actual remedy that was changed, but our protests were noted."

"In essence, we now have a company with strong ties to the Chinese Communist government acting as a gatekeeper of the canal," according to C. Thomas Burke, a member of the State Department's Panama Canal Study Commission from 1990 to 1994. Burke was part of a four-year, $20 million study to explore ways of enhancing the canal after the U.S. pullout. "Our lack of direction is creating a dangerous political vacuum which is being filled right under our noses by forces that in the future might just be hostile to our best interests."

Lott, in his letter to Cohen, was more direct: "U.S. naval ships will be at the mercy of Chinese-controlled pilots, and could even be denied passage.... In addition, the Chinese Communist Party will gain an intelligence information advantage by controlling this strategic choke point. It appears that we have given away the farm without a shot being fired."