INDIVIDUALS AND NATIONS ARE LINING up to “sue China” for inflicting the latest China-originating virus/pandemic.
Politicians are telling their constituents to stop buying cheap Chinese products and to start buying products made “at home.”
A few brave politicians even are questioning China’s take-over of national infrastructure and critical industries.
SUING CHINA IS A WASTE OF paper and time. Any attorney who files a suit against China is doing it for personal PR; he or she cannot reasonably believe China’s government — a government that denies it inflicted the pandemic du jour on the world — will pay anyone anything.
What China WILL do, and IS DOING, is to produce, and sell to the world, products needed to counter the effects of the pandemic: personal protective equipment (PPE), ventilators, etc. In other words, China is making money off the pandemic that started in China.
This scrivener’s crystal ball fails to show what would happen to the world’s economy if consumers were to heed the politicians’ advice and buy from anyone BUT China.
The Chinese have been buying up infrastructure and essential businesses around the world.
PORTS The Chinese are buying, or buying control of, sea ports. The Mediterranean rapidly is becoming a Chinese sea. China also is present at the biggest ports on Europe’s Atlantic coast.
Chinese sea port interests (Credit: American Journal of Transportation
https://tinyurl.com/ybnk6c7h)
According to the NPR1 "this is about more than just moving cargo, analysts say. President Xi Jinping's new silk road, named after the ancient trade route, has sped up China's advance toward becoming a superpower of the seas, spreading not just commercial ships but naval power and influence to more and more areas of the world."
Not everyone is happy about the Chinese invasion.
Giorgos Nouchoutidis, who worked at the Greek port of Piraeus before retiring, believes "We handed over control of our most important port to a company that's not even in the European Union." The EU pushed us to do it. They will see the damage to our interests in a few years."
The American Journal of Transportation (AJOT) web site2, notes that “Chinese port investment encircles the Mediterranean from the eastern ports like the Israeli ports of Haifa and Ashdod, the Egyptian Port of Alexandria, and Piraeus in Greece. While some worry about the nature of the Chinese expansion – debt trap diplomacy - others laud the investment as a key to the region’s port development, which has lagged behind increases in ship sizes and volume.”
There are about 15 major ports in the U.S. Each is divided into a handful of separately operated terminals. That makes roughly 100 terminals.3
According to Bob Waters, a VP at SSA Marine, "the biggest U.S.-owned terminal operator manages seven terminals. The next biggest? That's Maher Terminals, in Elizabeth, New Jersey. They manage one terminal. Waters says about a dozen are managed by city or state governments. "
Of those, "United States companies have eight, foreign companies have 80. Those companies managing U.S. terminals are all over the world, in China, Denmark, Singapore, South Korea."
Joe King, Former Chief, U.S. Customs Terrorism Unit: "There is always a debate in the U.S. government between trade and security. For the last 20 years, trade is winning it." However, "If security is tightened, You'd have containers backed up that you could walk across the Pacific Ocean on, they'd be so tightly packed".
Some, like Sen. Hillary Clinton, have suggested that the U.S. should allow foreign companies to run U.S. terminals, but forbid companies owned by foreign governments. That's almost equally impossible, says Peter Tirschwell, of the Journal of Commerce.
Potential problem for manufacturers
“Under bilateral agreements as part of the Container Security Initiative, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) inspectors work in nearly 20 foreign ports to help ensure the security of U.S.-bound cargo before it disembarks.” Additionally, CBP tracks all cargo from the time it is loaded on board until the time it is released from its U.S. destination port. Shippers can be fined heavily for failing to provide CBP with up-to-date tracking information. Ships that have undocumented containers can be barred from U.S. ports.4 There are tales of undocumented containers “falling” off a ship before the ship enters U.S. waters.
Ports lacking non-CBP personnel could manage to allow dangerous cargo to be loaded onto U.S. bound vessels (ship or air).
U.S. Navy access
Control of foreign ports by the Chinese, or any other potential enemy, could deny U.S. warships access to the port or cause the port to be a combat zone.
Currently U.S. ships are welcome in most Mediterranean ports, albeit some, such as at least one in Turkey, discourage U.S. Navy ships by attacking sailors on shore leave.5
As noted earlier, China’s control of the world’s ports is part of China's advance toward becoming a superpower of the seas
Not just shipping
In addition to moving to control sea ports around the globe, China also is buying up food processing companies. The most prominent foreign acquisition of an American food company in the past few years was Chinese company WH Group’s 2013 purchase of Smithfield Foods for $4.7 billion. The combined company is the largest pork producer in the world. WH Group, formerly known as Shuanghui, allegedly has received subsidies from the Chinese government. The deal was the largest ever Chinese acquisition of an American company.6
The same source, Food & Power, notes that “China isn’t the only growing power in the American food system. Two powerful Brazilian companies, 3G and JBS, have amassed enormous influence in the food sector. JBS is a meatpacker that, by annual sales, is the number two food company in the world, second only to Nestle. The largest meat producer in the world, JBS leads in beef, chicken, and lamb production, and is number three in pork, after Smithfield and Tyson. In 2007, JBS acquired Swift Foods Co., which was at the time the third-largest pork and beef processor in the U.S., for $1.4 billion. In 2009, JBS purchased a controlling stake in Pilgrim’s Pride, now the largest chicken producer in the U.S.”
Israel’s leading dairy products company, Tnuva, was bought by the Chinese. The Chinese also own agrochemicals manufacturer Makhteshim Agan with ChemChina in 2011. Both companies are owned by companies the Chinese government. 7
Additionally Chinese firms are heavily involved in infrastructure projects. These companies, too, are owned by the Chinese government.
China “owns” the U.S.
Over the years the U.S. government – including both major parties – have been writing IOUs to China.
While Social Security was supposed to be sacrosanct, untouchable, the U.S. government has issued IOUs to China using the Social Security fund — the one that was never to be touched by any politician — as collateral. Medicare, Medicaid, and veterans’ benefits also cover IOUs to China.
How much does the U.S. owe China?
The quick answer is that as of January 2018, the Chinese owned $1.17 trillion of U.S. debt or about 19% of the total $6.26 trillion in Treasury bills, notes, and bonds held by foreign countries. That sounds like a lot of money—because it is—but it is actually a little less than the $1.24 trillion China-owned in 2011.8
Say it isn’t so
Just what do foreign nations or foreign companies own in the U.S. There are some surprises.
According to CNBC9, China owns
- AMC theaters
- GE Appliances
- Ingram Micro
- Legendary Entertainment Group
- Motorola Mobility
- Riot Games
- Ritz-Carlton locations in California
- The Chicago Stock Exchange
- The Fairmont Scottsdale in Arizona
- The Four Seasons Resort in Jackson Hole, Wyoming
- The Waldorf Astoria
From ABC News10 a number of “American” companies no longer are “American.”
- Alka-Seltzer (German)
- Armour, Farmland and Healthy Ones (China)
- Gerber (Swiss)
- IBM Thinkpad (China)
- John Hancock Insurance (Canada)
- Purina (Swiss)
- Smithfield Ham (China)
- Vaseline (English & Dutch)
Sources
1. NPR: https://tinyurl.com/y7artgx2
2. AJOT: https://tinyurl.com/ybnk6c7h
3. NPR/WLRN: https://tinyurl.com/y7yfzhjj
4. Containers: Personal knowledge with an ocean transport company.
5. Turkish gang attacks U.S. sailors (video): https://tinyurl.com/y8j3jhvv
6. Smithfield acquisition: https://tinyurl.com/y7sujvfu
7. Israel: https://tinyurl.com/y9dd6b48
8. U.S. debt to China: ThoughtCo. https://tinyurl.com/ycqs7pka
9: CNBC: https://tinyurl.com/yavhq6w6
10: ABC: https://tinyurl.com/yagaqaxo
PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.
Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.
Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.
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