Red China: Gatekeeper of the Panama Canal — November 1999
November 1, 1999 by Phyllis Schlafly
PSR_199911
Red China: Gatekeeper of the Panama Canal
Jimmy Carter never would have been able to ram through his two treaties giving away our Panama Canal if the Senate in 1978 could have looked into the future and known that, when the U.S. Flag is lowered on December 31, 1999, Red China would become its gatekeeper. But that's what's scheduled to happen unless Congress takes immediate action to prevent it.
Don't expect the Clinton Administration to interfere with China's stunning beachhead in the Western Hemisphere. Clinton is hopelessly indebted to the Chinese and their allies in Indonesia for financing his presidential elections in 1992 and 1996.
China didn't need to send an invading army. Because of what is euphemistically called "free trade," China has plenty of cash to buy and bribe its way into our domain.
Communist China is the greatest national security threat to America today and in the foreseeable future. At a major meeting in Beijing in 1994, China designated the United States as its primary global rival. China is rapidly building a modern war machine with 18 long-range and 140 intermediate and medium range missiles. It's based on espionage, theft, trade deals that include technology transfers, and cash provided by a $60 billion-a-year favorable balance of trade.
Every month, China collects up to $6 billion in U.S. cash by selling its slave-labor products to Americans, but China buys only $1 billion worth of U.S. goods. The Chinese pocket the $5 billion a month difference and use it to build their military-industrial complex.
In order to cash in on the cash-rich Chinese, Panama manipulated the bidding process, holding repeated rounds of bids, for leases for the U.S.-built ports of Cristobal on the Atlantic end of the canal and Balboa on the Pacific end. The 50-year leases were awarded to a Chinese Hong Kong corporation named Hutchison Whampoa operating under the name Hutchison Port Holdings.
Hutchison Whampoa had come in only fourth in the bidding, after the Japanese firm Kawasaki/I.T.S., the U.S. firm Bechtel, and the Panamanian American company M.I.T. For exclusive control of the two ports, Hutchison Whampoa agreed to pay $22.5 million a year plus what one Panamanian called "bucket loads of money" under the table, and Panama's Law No. 5 was passed on January 16, 1997 to confirm the deal.
Law No. 5 blatantly violates the Panama Canal Neutrality Treaty, Article V, which stipulated that only Panama is allowed in defense sites. By giving Hutchison "priority" for its business operations, Law No. 5, Art. 2.11d, also violates the treaty's Article VI, which guaranteed "expedited" and "head of line" passage for U.S. warships.
Art. 2.10c of Law No. 5 gives Hutchison Whampoa the "right" to operate piloting services, tugs and work boats, which translates into control of all the Canal's pilots. Art. 2.10e grants the "right" to control the roads to strategic areas of the Canal, and Art. 2.12a grants priority to all piers, including private piers.
Art. 2.8 gives Hutchison Whampoa the right to "transfer contract rights" to any third party "registered" in Panama. Those rights could be transferred to China, or even Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Libya or North Korea.
The Hutchison leases even violate Panama's own constitution, Art. 274, which requires a plebiscite on Canal matters. None was held. Law No. 5, Art. 2.1, also grants "first option" to Hutchison Whampoa to take over the U.S. Rodman Naval Station, the Pacific deep-draft port facility capable of handling any warship. The Chinese will then have the power to exclude U.S. warships while admitting Communist warships.
The billionaire chairman of Hutchison Whampoa, Li Ka-shing, was a business and political buddy of the late Deng Xiaoping and now has the same close relationship with both Jiang Zemin and the Riady financial empire of Indonesia. No doubt that's why he controls most of China's commercial ports and seaborne trade as well as most of the dock space in Hong Kong.
Li was China's chief agent in facilitating China's smooth takeover of Hong Kong in 1997. Hutchison Whampoa partnered in several enterprises with China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), which is directly controlled by the People's Liberation Army, and served as a middleman in China's deals with the U.S. firms Hughes and Loral.
The Carter-Torrijos Treaties, bad as they were, gave the United States the right to defend the Panama Canal militarily. The Chinese leases, however, will make it impossible to do this without directly confronting the Chinese Communist regime.
In 1996, when China was "testing" missiles to scare Taiwan before its election, the United States sent warships to the area and China responded by impudently threatening to "rain down fire" on Los Angeles from its China-based ICBMs. Would Communist China do the same if it bases its shorter-range missiles in Panama?
China will be able to ship its shorter-range missiles across the Pacific, unload them at Balboa, and conceal them in warehouses until the time is ripe. If Congress doesn't act immediately, we are heading for a Panama Missile Crisis like the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.
Panama — the Biggest Blast of Y2K
While many Americans are making party plans to celebrate Y2K on New Year's Eve, Panamanian officials are lobbying to get President Clinton or Vice President Gore to attend their unique Y2K revelry. That's the day when the U.S. flag over the Panama Canal will be lowered for the last time as we abandon ownership of one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the world.
It was the Carter-Torrijos Panama Treaties of 1978 that put December 31, 1999 in the history books as the date when the Panamanians take over our Canal.
Rumors have been floating that the Panamanians have also invited Fidel Castro to attend. It would be fitting that he join the merrymaking because it was Castro who thumbed his nose at the Monroe Doctrine when he allowed Soviet missiles to be stationed in Cuba in 1962.
The Monroe Doctrine enunciated the U.S. policy that it is "dangerous to our peace and safety" for any foreign power to extend its system to the Western Hemisphere. In 1962 we were worried about Communist Russia's nuclear missiles deployed to Cuba; in 1999 we face the possibility that Communist China may put its nuclear missiles in Panama for a possible blackmail threat about Taiwan.
This danger comes from the fact that Panama has granted a Chinese Communist "front" 50-year leases to occupy the U.S.-built ports of Cristobal on the Atlantic end of the canal and Balboa on the Pacific end.
Rather than addressing the real arguments, Clinton had his spokesman Joe Lockhart call these concerns "silly stuff" and had an unnamed White House official assert that the Chinese corporation holding the leases "is a legitimate company." But, as the Cox Report showed, the Chinese have totally integrated military and industrial operations under policies of the late Deng Xiaoping.
Immense pressures are working to close our eyes to the national security danger from the Panama-China leases. Clinton doesn't dare to upset the Chinese with whom he has suspect political and financial ties, and too many senior Republicans are committed to the fantasy that China is just a trading partner, not a potential enemy.
Here are some constructive steps we can take.
1) Renounce or renegotiate the Panama Canal Treaties in light of new evidence that the United States and Panama did not ratify the same text. The DeConcini Reservation, which was added to get the treaty through the Senate, gave us the unilateral right to intervene in Panama if we believe the Canal is threatened.
Carter hid from the American people the fact that Panama ratified the treaty without our reservation. Panama's version contains a three-paragraph counter-reservation, never submitted to the U.S. Senate, that requires Panama's "cooperation" before we try to defend the Canal. Another reason to renounce the treaty is that Panama's Law No. 5 violates the Panama Canal treaties over and over again.
2) Demand that Panama nullify the lease agreements granted to the Chinese and initiate a new bidding process that is open and fair. No one should be bound by the current agreements because the process was corrupt and discriminatory against a U.S. company.
3) Exercise our rights under the 1978 Panama treaties to protect and defend the Canal beyond the year 2000. Halt any more transfers of U.S. military installations, including Howard Air Force Base, the most important U.S. base south of the Rio Grande; Rodman Naval Station, a deep-draft port capable of logistic support for any warship; and Fort Sherman, our only base specializing in jungle warfare and survivor training.
Depending on Panama to defend the Canal against China's aggressive acts, or against the Colombian drug cartel, is a bad joke. Panama has no army, navy or air force, and the country's police are completely unable to defend the canal against sabotage or terrorism by narcotics-funded forces coming in from Colombia.
Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Thomas Moorer told the U.S. Senate that "we are on what I consider to be a collision course with disaster in the very near future. . . . I truly can't remember a time when I have been more concerned about the security of the country." (Testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, June 16, 1998)
Panama has a new government and frequent polls show that a majority of Panamanians support a continued U.S. military presence. Time is running out to do something to stop Communist China from establishing its threatening beachhead in the Western Hemisphere.
Please see our Panama Page for the latest updates on the Panama Canal.
The Feminization of the U.S. Military
Even though the voters elected a President who said he "loathes" the military, we couldn't have imagined back in 1992 how much damage Bill Clinton would actually do. Now we wonder if our once-great military can survive another year of our most embarrassing Commander-in-Chief.
The Pentagon is complaining that it's in a near-crisis because recruitment numbers have taken a nose dive. The Army and Air Force are falling far short of their targeted goals, while the Navy is squeaking by only by lowering its standards and recruiting quotas. Our most experienced pilots are leaving in unprecedented numbers, and even large cash inducements can't prevail on them to reenlist.
The Army is trying to entice young men to enlist by offering "signing bonuses" of thousands of dollars. That's on top of other bonuses including as much as $50,000 for college tuition. But raising the pay of our service personnel and buying them glitzier equipment won't remedy the problems any more than additional money poured into poor schools is improving education. The two major problems with the military today are (1) the assignment of U.S. military personnel to foreign conflicts that bear no relation to American national security and (2) the feminization of the military. Another morale-lowering problem is the court-martialling of honorable servicemen for such offenses as refusing to wear a United Nations uniform or refusing to be "shot" with the experimental, controversial anthrax vaccine.
The Pentagon is blaming our affluent society, low unemployment, civilian career opportunities, the fact that the pool of young men age 18 to 22 has declined, and particularly the drop in the number who have high school diplomas. The Army is starting a program to pay thousands in this latter group to study for G.E.D.s so they can qualify to enlist, which of course means that the taxpayers will pay a second time to teach recruits what they weren't taught in public schools.
Global cops and global social workers are not what the U.S. armed services are supposed to be, and Clinton's attempt to transform the mission of the military is a major reason for the falloff in recruitment and retention rates. Furthermore, contrary to Administration propaganda, Clinton's "peacekeeping" expeditions were not nation-building in Haiti, Somalia or Bosnia, and they certainly were not humanitarian in Yugoslavia.
Secretary General Kofi Annan, in his speech this fall to the United Nations General Assembly, called for "a new commitment to intervention." His call to violate national sovereignty for phony "humanitarian" purposes flouts the UN and NATO Charters, just as Clinton's war in Yugoslavia flouted the U.S. Constitution, which gives the warmaking power to Congress not the President.
We don't need high-priced consultants and surveys to tell us why young Americans are not signing up. They don't want to serve in a foreign legion under foreign commanders for undefined and unconstitutional purposes.
House Military Personnel Subcommittee chairman Steve Buyer (R-IN) said it best: "We're fooling ourselves if we believe we can solve the problem with more G.E.D. programs or more money for ads. What we need is a change in foreign policy."
"Be All That You Can Be" was one of the most successful and memorable of all 20th century advertising slogans. Under the advice of consultants hired to refocus its $300 million recruitment advertising, the Army is abandoning this famous slogan.
The Army has ordered hundreds of new enlistees to go back to their home town to persuade some of their old neighbors to sign up. When a New York Times reporter asked one of these new privates what his sales pitch is, he said he tells his old buddies that "it ain't so bad." Maybe the Army will now be erecting billboards that read "Join the Army — It Ain't So Bad."
The Pentagon's new PR consultants are supposed to research "the attitudes and habits of the young" in order to design new advertising. But the consultants are wasting their time if they start from the mindset that our goal must be a gender-neutral military and that recruitment strategy must appeal equally to men and women.
A gender-neutral military is what the feminists have been demanding for 25 years, and now that the feminists are in the driver's seat of the Clinton Pentagon we can see the folly of this goal. What the feminists really want is to give the orders, with the men cowed into submission.
Everybody with ordinary common sense knows that, under the Clinton Administration's social engineering in pursuit of a gender-neutral military, there is no way a serviceman can "be all that he can be." Coed basic training and the Pentagon's refusal to allow women to fail in tests for officer assignments mean that standards have been re-defined and lowered to female achievement levels. Real men will not be attracted to join an organization that invites them to be all that a woman can be.
Funny thing, the Marine Corps (which a Clintonista Pentagon feminist labeled "extremist") doesn't seem to suffer these problems. It hasn't succumbed to mixed-gender basic training, and recruits of both sexes can realistically aspire to be all that they can be.
We don't need high-priced consultants to tell us why the gender-neutral policies have plummeted the recruitment and retention rates. In 1997, a Pentagon commission headed by former Senator Nancy Kassebaum-Baker called for sex-segregated basic training. She served the ball right up over the plate, but the Republican Congress struck out, created another commission stacked with feminists, and then caved in to their demand to continue coed basic training.
Gender-integrated basic training has resulted in lower standards, more injuries to women, more resentment among men, and scandalous examples of rape and sexual harassment. An official tax-funded survey found that 76% of male trainers and 74% of female trainers say that discipline has been hurt by gender-integrated training.
The Clintonistas' attack on morals is another personnel problem that is causing morale to suffer. This policy inflicted career-ending punishment on a serviceman with a superior record because he objected to spending 48 hours secluded with a female not his wife. Whatever happened to common sense, as well as standards of honor, morality, and patriotism?
At Minot Air Force Base, N.D., the practice is to send two officers down to the base of the missile silo, where they spend 24 to 48 hours secluded in a space about the size of a school bus, with one bed and one bathroom behind a curtain. The Minot missile force has 250 men and 83 women, resulting in the high probability of mixed-gender two-person crews.
Lt. Ryan Berry, a Catholic and married, objected to being so cozy for so long with a woman not his wife. He was punished by his commanding officer, who spouted the feminist mantra that "equal opportunity" is the Air Force's top priority. Lt. Berry's case proves that "equal opportunity" for women requires indiscriminate assignment that flouts common sense, the realities of human nature, the dignity of marriage, and respect for the wives at home.
The latest feminist foolishness is the Navy toying with the notion of putting female sailors on submarines. Navy Secretary Richard Danzig floated this terrible idea in a June 3 speech to the Naval Submarine League when he warned the submarine force that it was in danger of remaining a "white male bastion" and ought to get in step with the rest of society.
The Navy has already sent some female officer candidates on unprecedented two-day-and-night "career orientation" trips aboard submarines. The close quarters and psychological strain of submarines are even more unsuited for coed coziness than the coed tents which the U.S. Army uses for our "peacekeeping" forces in Bosnia.
On attack submarines, three men often share a single "hot bunk" in rotation. It's hard to say which option would be more destructive of submarine teamwork and morale: a "hot bunk" ménage à trois or giving female sailors preferred, exclusive accommodations.
A splendid source of information on the Clinton Administration's foolish feminist personnel policies is the Center for Military Readiness, P.O. Box 5185%, Livonia, MI 48151. Phone (734) 464-9430, fax (734) 464-6678, www.cmrlink.org
The purpose of the military is to defend Americans against the bad guys of the world. The warrior culture, with tough, all-male training, is what attracts young men into the armed services and motivates them to sacrifice personal comfort and safety while serving their country in uniform.
It's no wonder that the services can't fill their recruitment goals for a feminized military. Dumbing down the physical and psychological requirements so that Clinton's political appointees and the medaled brass can continue to tell us that women and men are performing equally is destructive of morale for many reasons, not the least of which is that it is a lie.
The duty to provide for the common defense is the most important duty of the Federal Government. Will the next President put a stop to social engineering in the military, mixed-gender basic training, dumbed-down standards and gender-norming to accommodate the physical capabilities of women, redefining "combat" to accommodate the feminist policy of assigning women to combat duty, lying about "equality" in the armed services, destroying the careers of male officers who dare to tell the truth, and putting women in places where they don't belong such as on submarines?
Although the Constitution gives Congress the responsibility "to make rules for the government and regulation of the land and naval forces," most of the recent destructive social experimentation to create a gender-neutral military has been implemented, not by law, but by executive orders and administrative regulations. They can be reversed the same way.
We need a real man in the White House with the courage to stand up against the radical feminists. Which one of our aspiring Commanders-in-Chief will promise to overturn the feminist agenda and rebuild our once-great military into what it used to be: a fighting force that can defend America?
Filed Under: Defense, Feminism, Foreign Policy, The Phyllis Schlafly Report
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