China eyes U.S. ports: concerns are being raised about the involvement in a Pentagon-funded port-security program of a company linked to the Chinese Communist Party leadership

0 Comments | Insight on the News, Nov 26, 2002 | by J. Michael Waller

According to Woodrow, "China has already adjusted its foreign policy and energy strategy to accommodate its need for a larger share of the world's oil reserves. It has forged major oil deals with Sudan, Venezuela, Iraq and Kazakhstan. With these deals have come important military and security agreements. For instance, thousands of Chinese oil workers ... maintain security at facilities in Sudan. During Chinese leader Jiang Zemin's spring 2001 visit to Venezuela, he was greeted by that oil-producing nation's leader, Hugo Chavez, with the declaration that the Chinese Maoist revolution was the source of his own social revolution.... The Kazakh deals involve the construction of a massive pipeline across China from the huge Kazakh oil fields. China hopes to become a land bridge for future oil deliveries to Japan and South Korea, giving Beijing important leverage in its strategic goal to replace the United States as the major power in the Eastern Asian basin."

All this means big headaches for the United States and its allies, say Asia specialists, and adds to the concerns of some in the security community about Hutchison Whampoa's control of port facilities and shipping services along the world's sea lines of communication, or SLOCs.

But the company also is a leader in the SLOC's electronic equivalents in the cyberworld. Hutchison Whampoa has invested heavily in telecom companies around the world since the late 1980s, and has arranged satellite deals between the Hughes Corp. and a Chinese firm tied to the PLA. Hutchison Whampoa's recent purchase of a 61 percent stake in the troubled fiber-optic giant Global Crossing also has raised national-security concerns, as the company operates much of the hardware on which U.S. telecommunications, including military and intelligence channels, operate. That deal, at least, is under review.

J. MICHAEL WALLER IS A SENIOR WRITER FOR Insight MAGAZINE.