Bush Ban on Chinese Imports
Charles R. Smith
Wednesday, May 28, 2003
Chinese Arms Maker Gets Cut
The Bush administration has just imposed a two-year ban on imports from Chinese arms maker NORINCO (China North Industries). According to U.S. defense intelligence sources, President Bush imposed the restrictions personally.
The move is welcomed in national security and human rights circles but viewed with great displeasure in the boardrooms of Wal-Mart and Kmart.
"The China Support Network (CSN) commends the Bush administration in taking this strong measure in imposing stiff economic sanctions on PLA-controlled NORINCO," stated CSN spokesman David Chu.
CSN is an affiliation of human rights and national security experts who advocate a ban on all imports from China.
"CSN sees this as an important first step in checking the global ambitions of Communist China, which is not only hegemony in Asia, but around the world," noted Chu.
NORINCO's role as arms maker for the PLA is well known. NORINCO manufactures ballistic missiles, artillery, machine guns, tanks, lasers, radars, surface-to-air missiles, ammunition and land mines, to name a few.
NORINCO also makes a wide variety of household products sold in retails stores in America. These products include tools, toys, bikes and ceramics.
NORINCO Chinese Army Inc.
The U.S. public knows little about how NORINCO finances its arms production, however. The fundamental principles of Chinese strategy are embodied in two People’s Liberation Army (PLA) terms for national defense. Junzhuanmin is the turning over of military resources to civilians for civilian use, and junmin jieje is the integration of the military and civilian.
Both terms refer to the combination of military and civilian resources such as airports, seaports, roads and communications.
However, Junzhuanmin and junmin jieje also translate into a conversion that is reversible, with each resource having a dual function – military and civilian. This twin-track policy has resulted in increased budgets for the Chinese army, advanced technology for modern weapons and a strengthening of the Chinese military-industrial complex.
According to a Commerce Department document on Chinese military defense industries, the PLA strategy is an economic war against America.
"[Chinese] Civilian resources should be transferable to military industries for weapons production," states the document, titled "Swords Into Market Shares," which was forced from the Clinton administration by a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
"This is not only to prepare for war, but also to use trading firms such as NORINCO (China North Industries Corporation) and China Great Wall Industry Corporation to acquire foreign technologies, such as electronics, for military as well as economic modernization."
Slave Labor Camps
The Bush move to ban all imports from NORINCO will hurt China. NORINCO does an estimated $100 million in business in the West each year, selling everything from small arms to toys.
The low-cost Chinese products are a result of low-cost labor. In the labor market, PLA-owned NORINCO does have an advantage over most U.S. corporations.
"The Communist Chinese are using tens of millions in thousands of Laogai slave concentration camps in Communist China to fuel this trade deficit, just as Nazi Germany did in WW II," stated David Chu of the China Support Network.
"They are using the hard currency from the trade deficits with America to buy the latest military weapons from Russia, such as the Sunburn cruise missile and the Shkval 'rocket' torpedoes – weapons primarily designed to kill U.S. aircraft carriers and submarines."
The Bush move is the first time in a decade that the U.S. has actually imposed such strict sanctions against a Chinese company. NORINCO has had a long history of bad corporate behavior in the West.
NORINCO frequently confronted the Clinton administration in a number of arms scandals, including attempts to sell Chinese-made machine guns to U.S. drug dealers.
Clinton Dummy Commerce Department
While NORINCO was very well known inside the Clinton White House, Clinton's front office for advanced military exports to China, the Commerce Department, claimed to know little about the multibillion-dollar arms giant.
In 1996, Clinton transferred export oversight to the inept and ill-equipped Commerce Department. President Clinton signed the executive order that ended 40 years of legislation designed to prevent war. The transfer also forced the paper trail for military exports to China to now end at the Commerce Department instead of at the Oval Office.
In 1997, after the transfer of authority by Clinton, Commerce Department officials in Beijing clearly stated they did not track Chinese army-owned companies. Thus, the only U.S. government agency with the legal authority to stop exports had no idea what to do.
"One of the largest PLA-affiliated firms is NORINCO," states a 1997 e-mail from Commerce official Robert Bannerman in Beijing.
"Nothing is these databases indicated its affiliation. We do not maintain a formal FCS all-encompassing computer database of Chinese companies. ..."
According to a 1997 Rand Corporation report, NORINCO plays a key role in the global arms market. In fact, the main reason why the Bush administration imposed the severe penalties on NORINCO was for its unrestricted sales of ballistic missile technology to Iran.
John Huang and NORINCO
In contrast, the Clinton administration paid little attention to NORINCO arms sales to the Middle East. However, there was one member of the Clinton team who seemed to be keenly aware of NORINCO sales attempts.
According to documents discovered in the offices of convicted Chinagate figure John Huang, NORINCO wanted to sell artillery to Kuwait. In 1995, Kuwait allocated $1.3 billion to upgrade its field artillery. Included in this new program was an intense competition between U.S.-based United Defense and NORINCO for the contract.
The documents in Huang's files note that there was "heavy pressure from the Chinese Government" on Kuwait "to select NORINCO."
Huang's file on the Kuwaiti howitzer purchase also contains detailed weapon information of great value to the Chinese military.
"China also remains the only member of the UN Security Council that has not been awarded a large military contract from Kuwait. It is understood that the Chinese are pressing this issue with the Kuwait Government," notes the Commerce document from Huang's files.
"The Chinese offer is of particular concern in that its howitzer has been recently modernized and configured to NATO standards for ammunition interoperability," states the document from Huang's office.
Why would John Huang, ex-Lippo banker and DNC fund-raiser, follow NORINCO artillery sales from his Commerce Department office?
John Huang invoked his Fifth Amendment rights over 2,000 times when asked under oath if he was an agent of the Chinese army.
NORINCO Friends
It is a fact that NORINCO sells its weapons to a wide variety of nations. In 1998, U.S. intelligence satellites tracked a Chinese freighter bound for Pakistan that contained a load of NORINCO-made anti-tank missiles.
Information published in the Pakistan Observer on June 23, 1998, noted that China also transferred a large number of depleted uranium tank shells designed for the Pakistani armored forces. NORINCO made the shells with help from the China National Nuclear Corp., which supplied the uranium.
Pakistan has recently upgraded its Type-59s with night vision, stabilized guns and laser range finders, and some have received a heavier 115 mm smooth-bore Chinese gun. NORINCO supplied the new systems.
The Clinton administration even sought to help NORINCO. According to Commerce Department documents, the Clinton administration approved the export of blade cutters and molds for a NORINCO artillery-fuse production facility.
"When will Americans wake up to stop this insane 'blood transfusion' that we are providing to Communist China?" asked CSN's David Chu.
"When will Americans realize that history repeats itself?" warned Chu.
