CHINA'S BUSINESS INTERESTS COMPROMISE U.S. PORT SECURITY!
By Mark Knapp + March 28, 2011
Hutchison Port Holdings, has a Panama-based subsidiary, Panama Ports Company- that operates the Port of Balboa and its sister port at Cristobal; i,e,, both ends of the Panama Canal. Hutchison Whampoa is affiliated with the Chinese government and has subsidiaries operating Ports all over Europe (and several other continents). The fact that this huge transportation conglomerate has close ties to the Chinese military raises several issues from economic, geopolitical and military standpoints!
Hutchison Port Holdings (HPH) is the world's leading port investor, developer and operator with interests in a total of 308 berths in 51 ports, spanning 25 countries throughout Asia, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, the Americas and Australasia. HPH also owns a number of transportation-related service companies. In 2009, the HPH Group handled a combined throughput of 65.3 million TEU worldwide.
The Houston Chronicle reported on March 4, 2011 that the Port of Galveston was in final negotiations to outsource its operations giving China a toehold in U.S. port operations. The lease- proposed as a joint venture between Carlyle Group and Hong Kong-based Hutchison Port Holdings (operations in more than 50 ports in 25 countries)- involves the entire port structure.
Standard leases within the industry are usually more like thirty years. If consummated, the 75-year lease would give Hutchison its first U.S. toehold:
"This would be the first foray of the largest terminal operating company in the world to the United States," said port consultant Erik Stromberg, former chief executive officer of the American Association of Port Authorities. “It will be, as far as I know, the first one, but it won't be the last.” You are going to see ports that look like Galveston looking more and more to the private sector."
Read more at: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7457880.html
Additionally, Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa is close to obtaining a U.S. government contract to screen U.S.-bound cargo in The Bahamas for terror threats.
Thus, U.S. customs agents will not be working with the screening equipment, designed to detect smuggled radioactive materials, according to Jones Bahamas. But a spokesman for Hutchison Port Holdings, the world’s largest ports company, told the Associated Press that his firm has elaborate security checks in place.
Hutchison operates 43 ports that have radiation scanners. Cargo that flows through foreign ports goes through American security procedures once it reaches the United States. Not inspecting cargo until it arrives at U.S. ports, however, risks an attack on the American coast.
The fact that Hutchison's billionaire chairman, Li Ka-shing, has substantial business ties to the Chinese government raises the issue of whether we are compromising the security of our ports by outsourcing management and inspection operations.
Sen. Schumer (D-NY) has raised questions about the Bahamas contract but now believes that it may be sufficient to station U.S. customs agents at the Bahamas port along with the HPH inspectors.
http://www.jonesbahamas.com/news/45/ARTICLE/8207/2006-03-27.html
During a recent Federal Way Kiwanis meeting, I asked Port of Seattle Commissioner Bill Bryant some questions about Chinese port operations at the Panama Canal. According to the Commissioner, the Panama Canal is preparing to expand in order to handle larger ships. Apparently, the fact that the world’s shipping is intertwined with a holding company that is closely enmeshed with Chinese military interests is not even on the Port of Seattle’s radar screens! Alert citizens need to educate our political leadership. The business threats from such a competitor as Hutchison Whampoa and its subsidiaries are difficult to estimate. But we cannot afford to miss the military implications.
