China's 22nd Province
Timmerman, Kenneth R.
China's 22nd Province THE CLINTON YEARS HAVE SEEN CALIFORNIA BECOME A HAVEN FOR MAINLAND CHINESE INVESTORS. BUT WHY DO SO MANY OF THEIR COMPANIES NOT EVEN LIST TELEPHONE NUMBERS? WHY ARE SOME OF...
...The most avid perpetrators are "transplanted" Chinese from the PRC as well as Hong Kong and Taiwan...
...More importantly, some of China's most notorious defense companies operate in the area as well, though always under different names...
...they even have their own banks...
...Basso told TAS he feels the decontrols have "leveled the playing field, so American companies can now compete freely against the Europeans and the Japanese...
...The Chinese argument was repeated ten days later in a statement issued in Washington by "USA*Engage," an anti-sanctions lobbying group composed of Fortune 500 companies trading in China...
...of PLA-produced consumer goods, building materials, and frozen fish...
...The Chinese see our technology as key for their industry," Basso said, "since until now they have had no capability to manufacture these raw materials themselves...
...business interests, SAMCO lists "export of new or used machineries to China from USA, Europe, Russia, etc...
...Basso's machines interest the Chinese for good reason: they manufacture composite "prepregs," sheets of resin-coated fibers that are the building blocks for the most advanced uses in the aerospace and defense business...
...Primary among these companies is CATIC, the China National Aero Technology Import-Export Company...
...According to one of the lawyers, David Su, who has incorporated dozens of these companies, "There are a few thousand Chinese companies in the Los Angeles area...
...hope to wipe out China's huge trade surplus with the U.S., which the Commerce Department estimated at $40 billion for 1996...
...We are way behind the curve," said one Commerce 1 KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN is the publisher of Iran Brief...
...The tubes, which cost $68,000 apiece to manufacture, were sold to a broker for $163 each and shipped to China as scrap electronics...
...national security...
...California state records show that an additional loo incorporated companies list 9300 Flair Drive as their business address...
...As part of Aviation Industries Corporation of China, CATIC is owned by the Chinese state and takes orders from Communist China's highest governing body, the State Council...
...But smaller companies have also started getting into the game in recent years—especially, small high-tech firms in California...
...Although the lobby directory lists only a half dozen companies as having offices on the sixth floor, a quick elevator trip reveals that more than forty companies have actually hung name plates on that floor—all of them Chinese...
...lawyers taking fat commissions on business ventures with the PRC...
...TAS has learned that U.S...
...Nor is there anything intrinsically improper about the operations of Communist China's two major shipping lines, COSCO and the Overseas China Shipping Line, which operate out of Long Beach—even though COSCO has been involved in numerous weapons shipments on behalf of the Chinese government and is known by U.S...
...Shun Fa USA Inc., which moved from 9300 Flair to nearby West Covina, California, was run by Chinese national Jie Cai, who described himself as a textile wholesaler who imported some $5 million in Chinese fabrics per year...
...The FBI tracks it, but it is very hard to follow," Lilley said...
...Los Angeles County court documents list GLNIC as an importer of PLA-produced clothing, but both companies may also be engaged in financial operations on behalf of Xinxing directors and the purchase of U.S...
...Chen, he said, was in mainland China on business...
...Xinxing operates several other PLA companies in the area...
...The U.S...
...Before Clinton, only three PLA companies had set up shop in California, and they were not known to be actively engaged in business here...
...Former U.S...
...Said Fiedler: "We knew the PLA had become a major factor in China's domestic economy, and was establishing an economic beachhead in the United States, and the U.S...
...And these are cases where Customs got lucky, having been tipped off by a former Pentagon employee turned whistle-blower who was himself investigating abuses at the Defense Logistics Agency, which is in charge of disposing of surplus weaponry...
...If one were a military planner, this would be a terrific defensive position: empty lots border both sides of the site and there is only one road approaching from the front, while the culvert separating the plant from the freeway makes surprise attack from the rear virtually impossible...
...They can carry out every aspect of an illegal transaction without ever having to use an American, and this is what makes it so hard to penetrate their networks...
...consumer-electronics firms, "since we have a lot of connections with Chinese factories," a Catronics employee said...
...nuclear energy industry has the safest, most environmentally sound technology available...
...Many other PLA organizations and military regions export consumer goods directly to retailers in the United States, the AFL-CIO study found...
...they can make them safely, and quietly, at home...
...And we know it...
...Among his clients is the materials research laboratory of Peking University, which is a major R&D center for the Chinese military...
...Americans are doing it too...
...Another PAP company, China Anhua Development Corporation, brings in bamboo baskets and rattan products...
...Although Su wouldn't comment on why they had established the companies in the first place, mailbox companies are frequently used as fronts for illicit business by high-tech bandits and arms dealers, or, more mundanely, by individuals keen on disguising the origins of their wealth...
...are marketed by an auto parts warehouse in Benicia...
...with kickbacks stemming from their relationship to top leaders in Peking, have been bringing large amounts of cash to America from a variety of state-owned enterprises back in China...
...counter-intelligence officials to operate electronic espionage ships off the U.S...
...They have their own procurement fronts, their own shipping companies and freight forwarders...
...But if one is engaged in trade, even as a wholesaler, the isolation is a bit curious...
...machine tools and computerized production gear is NORINCO, the PLA's principal weapons manufacturer, which was implicated last year in a scheme to ship AK-47 assault rifles to L.A...
...They also imported furniture, investment castings, and nearly one million pounds of men's pants," Fiedler said...
...In another case, brokers working for the PRC snatched an astonishing z6,000 fully operational "encryption devices," including computer disk drives loaded with Top Secret technical documents—all considered U.S...
...China Songhai Industrial Corporation of Los Angeles is run by the PLA Navy and imports ski gloves and bicycle gloves...
...Customs in Los Angeles is currently working on ten separate cases involving illegal Chinese textile imports...
...Another purchaser of U.S...
...California has never been more PLAfriendly than under the Clinton administration...
...government, while thousands more front companies have sprung up in recent years controlled either by Chinese nationals working with Peking, or by cooperative U.S...
...Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky...
...Back in China, Xinxing operates more than 3,000 PLA factories, with a workforce of more than loo,000...
...EL MONTE CENTRAL And in California, the first place to look is El Monte, a modest suburb some ten miles east of downtown Los Angeles...
...Further complicating matters, Customs investigators said, is their belief that the Chinese are using their ability to operate undetected in the U.S...
...Customs officials familiar with the investigation told TAS they've noticed a surprising number of F-4 parts sales to companies located in China or controlled by Chinese nationals in California...
...In one six-floor office building just around the corner at 9300 Flair Drive, at least 15o Chinese trading Since 1993 there's been an explosion in the number of California companies owned and operated by the People's Liberation Army and exploited by Chinese intelligence...
...CNA International, which actually occupies an office suite on the sixth floor, is run by a Chinese national named Shunxuai Song...
...has become a major importer into the U.S...
...But Su also described a new development he's observed for the past few years: private Chinese investors seeking to expand business back in China by setting up shop in the Chinese suburbs of Los Angeles...
...Indeed, when Clinton welcomes Pang to Washington—the first presidential visit since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre—the Chinese will press him to loosen strategic export controls even further to allow for nuclear deals...
...In L.A.'s more modest suburbs, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) and Chinese defense industrial companies have set up hundreds of direct subsidiaries and operating companies, most of them completely unknown to the U.S...
...These are the ones committing the fraud," Waultney said...
...Customs agents know they're virtually helpless when it comes to monitoring the thousands of shipments handled each month by the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) and its sister company, the Overseas Chinese Shipping Line, from the sprawling ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach...
...Among its U.S...
...in Monterey Park, there's C U Transport Inc., a subsidiary of the China National Foreign Trade Transport Beijing Company...
...Fifty-five of these operate out of Suite 6o6, which turns out to be the law office of two Chinese-American attorneys...
...Although Customs has not disclosed the names of the Chinese companies involved in these particular cases, since they are still before a grand jury and are based on sealed indictments, investigators were clear about one thing: California is the place to look...
...In Rosemead they might choose North China Cargo Service, which does a thriving import-export trade (all of it with China, according to the Journal ofCommerce...
...In one case, a Chinese front company purchased thirty-seven guidance kits for F-117A stealth fighters from a Defense Department depot, and shipped them to China as "scrap...
...The American Spectator • October 1997 According to attorney David Su, the most common pattern has been for the California branches of mainland Chinese companies to "import textiles into the United States, and purchase machinery, computers, and medicines for sale in China...
...These "princelings" take degrees at Stanford and Caltech, then migrate to Los Angeles, where the most fortunate among them (such as Deng Xiaoping's daughter, Deng Ro) buy multi-million dollar estates to host private business deals...
...CHINA CARGO Companies seeking to send high-tech goods to China can turn to a variety of freight forwarders in the area, which are also Chinese-controlled...
...So what is it doing in El Monte, California...
...government investigators tearing at their hair...
...This raises the question whether the Chinese are trying to reverse-engineer the F-4, or whether they are serving as a conduit for sales to Iran," one Customs agent said...
...Most of them were set up by individuals with management positions back in China, and are controlled by Chinese state-owned companies...
...According to Dave Barrington, a former Defense Department criminal investigator, these purchases have included containers loaded with F-4 parts and even several complete aircraft from a U.S...
...Boeing, McDonnell Douglas, and Rockwell have all struck major deals with the Chinese Communist state, as have scores of other Fortune Soo companies...
...government was finding it "difficult to isolate products produced by factories owned or operated by the PLA...
...SHOULD THEY BE OBTAINING F-14 PARTS AND SELLING THEM TO IRAN...
...Last year alone they imported well over a million pounds of fish fillet, making them the largest importers of fast food fish into the United States...
...According to Jeff Fiedler, who spearheaded the AFL-CIO research team that investigated the PLA presence in the U.S., the answer is simple: making money to fund PLA operations back in China...
...Its parent company in China has been investigated by the Commerce Department and the Government Accounting Office over its involvement with CATIC in the illicit purchase of production gear from a former B-1 bomber plant in Columbus, Ohio...
...With so many firms in such a small area as Southern California, the Chinese appear to have erected a fire wall between the political apparatus and their arms smuggling and high-tech embargo-busting operations...
...The American Spectator • October 19 9 7Department agent in California trying to prevent technology leakage to China...
...Under the Shah, Iran purchased seventy-nine F-4's in the late 197o's, the only foreign country ever allowed to purchase the aircraft...
...altogether...
...Our partners are all The American Spectator • October 1997 state-owned companies," Basso said...
...In San Gabriel, the People's Armed Police (responsible for law and order and daily repression back in China) has established a branch of its trading company, the China Jing An Import and Export Corporation, which imports everything from sport rifles to toys...
...Since late 1993, the removal of strategic export controls by the Clinton administration has opened the door to the sale of sensitive technology to Chinese state entities with known ties to the military...
...Composites technology has been strictly controlled until just recently precisely because of its inherent military usefulness...
...The PLA's General Staff Department operates the Zhihua Corporation USA and Bintao Corporation USA, which share offices in nearby Alhambra...
...Su acknowledged that many of the companies listing his office suite as their address had no visible operations...
...The Chinese told me they were also interested in aerospace applications," Basso acknowledged...
...With Basso's machinery in place, the Chinese will no longer have to procure key products on the world market for their ballistic missile projects...
...40 October 1997 • The American Spectator companies have set up shop, most of them evidently little more than mailbox entities...
...The AFL-CIO's 31-page report on PLA activities in the United States is the first to document the extent of the PLA's commercial penetration of the U.S...
...42 October 19 9 7 The American Spectator a TAS review of FEC records found no trace of political contributions by any of the high-tech procurement fronts or Chinese state-owned trading companies found to be operating in California...
...Customs agents in Los Angeles occasionally get glimpses of the seamy side of the trade, but feel hamstrung by export regulations—relaxed dramatically under Clinton—that impose virtually no criminal penalties for illicit high-tech exports, even when they go directly to companies controlled by the Chinese military...
...In many cases, Su said, he had not seen the owners since they'd filed the initial incorporation papers and returned to China...
...But prison-made trousers and silk blouses aside, Customs investigators and their counterparts at the Commerce Depart39 ment's Office of Export Enforcement are well aware of a far more dangerous traffic they have virtually no means of controlling: the huge quantities of state-of-the-art American technology shipped daily to China via California front companies...
...Of course, as Customs officials hasten to point out, there is nothing illegal about a Chinese national establishing a freight-forwarding service in California...
...Other California subsidiaries of the Chinese parent company include Jia Hua, located in Baldwin Park, and Minmetals, a trading company nearby in the City of Industry...
...in Compton, there's China Interocean Transport Inc., a subsidiary of the China National Foreign Trade Transportation Corporation...
...Eastern Eagle International, which billed itself as a travel agency, is run by Chinese national Jason Chen, whose associate Ma Qi said they were also in the import-export trade...
...FBI investigators told the Senate campaign finance hearings that the Bank of China was used to wire funds to Charlie Trie, who contributed them to President Clinton's Legal Defense Fund and to the DNC, and to Ted Sioeng, an L.A...
...The state-run publication argued that only by removing controls on high-technology goods could the U.S...
...Without a source inside the company that is violating the law, we are virtually helpless," one Customs investigator said...
...CATIC has its own neat, well-landscaped building at 9645 Telstar Avenue, just a few minutes from the freeway...
...But only since the Clinton administration decontrolled some of the technology—and failed to enforce controls on the rest—has he been able to get down to business...
...indeed, Clinton administration officials argue it is a sign of China's coming of age and the democratization of the way it does business...
...The People's Republic of China is all over this state," one California-based U.S...
...Ted Sioeng, for instance, has no known involvement in any area except politics...
...In El Monte CATIC buys paper pulp to be shipped to China for recycling, and imports bicycles, electrical parts, and hardware for sale in the U.S...
...military technology, including aircraft spare parts and possibly even entire aircraft, to Iran," adding that until now the Clinton administration has successfully prevented the story from leaking out by classifying all information on the subject Top Secret...
...Or invite it to further develop its holdings in California, and throughout the U.S...
...And he is negotiating for more...
...government was just turning a blind eye...
...If they need to inspect freight prior to shipment, or to survey damaged cargo, they might turn to CCIC North America Inc., a West Covina subsidiary of the China National Import and Export Commodities Inspection Corporation...
...Most of these are small, family businesses for now," Su said, "but we are already seeing some midsized companies owned by private Chinese coming to California...
...In July 1994 she had told the House Ways and Means Committee that the U.S...
...to purchase military spare parts for Iran, a rogue state that has been barred from buying U.S...
...But of course, this will allow them to make other things...
...Until now this has been the least documented aspect of Chinese investment in the United States, since federal prosecutors have been unwilling to investigate money-laundering cases involving Chinese officials, for fear of endangering U.S.-Sino relations...
...Robert Basso has been trying to sell his custom-built composites manufacturing machines to the Chinese for twelve years...
...Morrison's president Allen Chang works closely with a Los Angeles lawyer named Alan M. Klein, who is the registered agent of many other Chinese companies in the area, including two freight forwarders handling the Chinese trade: Sino Tiger Group, in Long Beach, and Haha Inc., near LAX...
...BY KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN C alifornia, which has been known to Americans for many things, may soon come to be viewed as well as the nand province of the People's Republic of China...
...Navy museum in Pensacola, Florida...
...technology overseas...
...But the sheer volume of Chinese government operations in the United States, and especially in California, where smuggling rings and procurement fronts enjoy free rein, has U.S...
...The subsequent U.S...
...goods for export to the PLA...
...This is an army that kills its students, invades Tibet, shoots missiles off over Taiwan, denies basic freedoms to its citizens, and then we go on and do business with them," Fiedler remarked...
...Catronics is the California branch of the China National Electronics Import-Export Corporation, a company that manufactures radars, communications gear, and cryptography systems for the Chinese military and for export to rogue states such as Iran and Iraq...
...DEFICIT THINKING When Bill Clinton meets with Chinese President Jiang Zemin in Washington this October, he's not likely to raise the issue of PLA companies or front organizations operating in the United States...
...in December 1994...
...government investigator told TAS...
...An employee said it imports textiles from mainland China...
...it's the ability to manufacture prepregs that is the tricky part, industry analysts say...
...U.S...
...This commingling of the legitimate with the illicit poses a whole new type of threat to U.S...
...This doesn't make sense to me as a Customs agent or as a taxpayer...
...Just across the freeway from CATIC, on the edge of a modest residential neighborhood, the China Xinxing Import and Export Corporation has purchased a pair of large warehouses, overlooking a broad culvert...
...Its three-person office in San Dimas specializes in finding cheap production facilities in China for U.S...
...policy toward China or smuggling U.S...
...they even have their own banks...
...sanctions...
...According to a recent study by the AFL-CIO, which in June launched a high-profile campaign to "kick the PLA out of the USA," Xinxing's parent organization is responsible for "the transfer of funds from the military commercial activities, defense-industrial organizations, civilian support services and the national defense accounts...
...But what people should find shocking is not the fact that two like-minded Americans can make common cause on an issue, but that American capitalists should be supporting Chinese Communists...
...A recent study completed for the administration by the Rand Corporation, while recognizing the dangers of PLA arms smuggling and high-tech thievery, recommended against any crackdowns...
...military technology out of the country, Chinese firms are bringing in products to finance their military back home...
...Not only are mainland companies engaging in direct and legitimate business in California on an unprecedented scale, but since 1993 there's been an explosion in the number of California companies owned and operated by the PLA or exploited by Chinese intelligence—companies that help steal American high-tech and fund Chinese military operations...
...This form of investment will make the task of identifying which Chinese companies are involved in illicit business that much more difficult...
...Buildings with particularly large numbers of "invisible" Chinese companies included 9460 and 9480 Telstar Avenue, just across the street from CATIC, and 9550 Flair Drive, which also houses a popular Chinese take-out and a branch of the East-West Bank...
...Never mind...
...9480 Telstar), didn't answer their phones or respond to visitors at the door...
...The Chinese have sought to purchase this technology, but by banning these sales, the United States has forced China to purchase its equipment from Russia, France and Canada," said Frank Kittredge, a spokesman for the group...
...Despite the serious national security concerns they raise," the author of the report, James Mulvenon, argued, "...Chinese military and defense-industrial enterprises should be allowed to operate within the United States on the grounds that problems related to these companies do not appear sufficiently large to warrant the damage to Sino-U.S...
...Bill Clinton appears to have already made his choice...
...relations that would result from banning them...
...The Chinese military is in the business of making money and acquiring technology for the battlefield, and often these things get blurred...
...It was put together, Fiedler said, in response to comments by U.S...
...Similarly, They have their own procurement fronts, their own shipping companies and freight forwarders...
...In San Diego, just a two-hour drive from Los Angeles, the president of a small private company called Century Design is a resolute Sinophile...
...government "scrap...
...Kick the PLA out of the USA...
...So we are on something of a roll...
...His recent articles for TAS include "All Roads Lead to China" (March) and 'While America Sleeps" (June...
...does a $40 million business importing Chinese raw materials and purchasing American production machinery and scrap for export to China...
...Coincidence: Sioeng's two companies, the Miexian Association of Southern California, and CAL Friends Enterprises, are both located in Monterey Park, just a few minutes drive from the CATIC offices in El Monte...
...Indeed, a number of these firms are owned by the People's Liberation Army itself...
...Once you find one, they keep popping up...
...There is a 'shortcut' to quickly enlarge bilateral trade," the China Daily Business Weekly opined on August 17: "That is to eliminate the exports sanctions towards China...
...MA DIRECT When not busy trying to affect U.S...
...China Great Wall Industry Corp., whose nuclear-capable ballistic missiles have been sold to Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, has established an office in Torrance known as GW Aerospace Inc., to sell satellite-launch services...
...Through front companies such as these, they may be able to hide the origins of the cash from authorities back home as well...
...and South Spirits, Inc...
...And besides, as the Clinton administration has shown time and again, it will go to great lengths to avoid angering Peking, even if it means turning a blind eye to obvious misdeeds...
...44 October 1997 • The American Spectator Tact Sane International in El Monte, while the notorious Poly Technologies is selling aircraft parts and chemical products through California outlets in La Verne and Inglewood...
...embargo has forced the Islamic Republic to rely on the black market to keep its prize aircraft intact...
...CHINESE EMMAUS In El Monte we visited other office buildings that, according to the State of California corporate registry, are home to hundreds of Chinese-owned and operated businesses—although again, few have listed telephones or appear to occupy office space...
...Ironically, it's only because of laws barring the import of prison labor goods that the feds have had any success cracking Chinese smuggling rings...
...Over in Baldwin Park the Xian Aircraft Company, which manufactures military transport aircraft for the Chinese army as well as parts for Boeing 737's and 757's, has set up a company called Mei An Industry Corporation, which purchases machine tools for Chinese aerospace...
...It's like a stand of mushrooms out there," said Mark Waultney, who is heading these investigations...
...Xinxing (USA) Inc...
...SAN DIEGO FREEWAY And it isn't just the Chinese who are shipping U.S...
...For discreet shipments by air they could turn to Morrison Express of El Segundo, conveniently located just south of the Los Angeles International Airport, which counts CATIC among its clients, company officials said...
...In another case, Customs in Los Angeles seized Soo electron tubes used in F-4 weapons systems...
...Government officials in Washington said they have seen intelligence reports over the past two years that document "a pattern of Chinese transshipments of U.S...
...But it also purchases aerospace systems, which it ships back to China clandestinely for use in military projects...
...street gangs...
...The town has few distinguishing characteristics: a municipal bus station, a small strip mall, and terrific access to the L.A...
...The satellite business in Asia is booming," a company representative said, "and since most of the commercial communications satellites 41 are built in the U.S., this is where we do our business...
...The company is also known as Everglow Toys Manufacturer Inc...
...In early August, the AFL-CIO Executive Council called on President Clinton to revoke all visas for PLA companies because of their nefarious activities, and it is asking Congress to ban PLA companies from operating in the U.S...
...Customs officials say that many of the weapons purchased clandestinely by Chinese fronts in the United States are shipped as "scrap" to Hong Kong and then taken by barge to the mainland...
...coast...
...That's an astonishing commercial penetration for a company which only started doing business in the U.S...
...In Alhambra, just west of El Monte, they might turn to Pan Ocean Line, a major shipper of scrap and metal-working machinery to China and Hong Kong...
...U.S...
...Of the twelve PLA companies currently operating in the U.S., eleven are registered in California...
...For China's princelings, California has become a financial safe haven...
...NORINCO operates out of an office at 16958 Shady Meadow Drive in Hacienda Heights as SWC Business International USA Inc...
...In many cases, he had not seen the owners since they'd returned to China...
...It distributes PLA toys via Orient Trading International in Los Angeles, and raingear via K-Mart...
...The same goes for the East-West Bank in El Monte, which is used by CATIC, or the Bank of China, which has branches throughout the Los Angeles area that conduct thoroughly legitimate business, despite the discovery by FBI investigators that the Bank of China was used to funnel illegal campaign contributions to both Republican and Democratic candidates as part of a lobbying campaign set in motion by top echelons of the Chinese Communist leadership...
...China Tiancheng, which is controlled by the PLA General Political Department, sells bearings to a company in Monterey Park, magnets to Cycle Battery Supply in Sante Fe Springs, and plastic brushes to a company in San Francisco...
...Because of its missile business, China Great Wall has periodically faced U.S...
...The Clinton years have seen California become a "must" resort stop and education center for the Mercedes-driving sons and daughters of China's Communist leaders...
...Certainly that's the way China has begun to treat the state...
...CATIC is not the only mainland Chinese company operating in El Monte...
...Companies with listed numbers, such as Everglow Trading Inc...
...Just down the road it runs the GLNIC Corporation of America, and in neighboring Arcadia, the Best International Group Inc...
...freeway system...
...The same resin-coated prepregs can be shaped into a golf shaft or a rocket nozzle, without changing the basic material...
...In its pro-democracy China campaign, the pro-Clinton union has joined forces with Gary Bauer's conservative Family Research Council, a marriage that Fiedler admits has caused heartburn at the White House and within the union itself...
...The PLA General Logistic Department has a real estate company in Inglewood, and a pharmaceuticals and spirits import office in Milbrae, known as 999 Nan Fang (USA) Inc...
...China Xinxing is wholly owned by the People's Liberation Army General Logistics Department, which is responsible for the daily supply and distribution system of the PLA, and its California headquarters was inaugurated by a top general from Peking...
...ambassador to China James Lilley sees a deeper problem in the proliferation of Chinese fronts...
...They tell us they want our manufacturing capability so they can make sporting goods, everything from tennis rackets to golf shafts...
...Down the road in Monterey Park is the U.S...
...But now the political climate is much better," the company representative said...
...Here are companies with names such as Affirm Well Management, Bo Cheng International, Chang Da International, Chinauto, Guanxin Enterprise (USA), Hailicheng Trading (USA), Hairui International (USA), Hongteng International Corp., Jintime Comfort, Lirong (USA), Pan-China Investment, Plenty Fame (USA), Sang International Trading Ltd., Xin Yu International, and many more...
...And COSTIND, the all-powerful Commission of Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense, operates a branch of its own trading company, Xin Shi Dai (USA), out of an office suite on West Main Street in Alhambra...
...Ever-glow's registered agent in California is a Chinese national named Xi-Pion Zhu...
...It also has a high concentration of mainland Chinese companies, all operating out of a light industrial area on either side of the San Bernardino-Santa Monica freeway that also includes the towns of Alhambra, Monterey Park, Arcadia, Rosemead, San Gabriel, Baldwin Park, and La Puenta...
...It is very hard to penetrate their networks...
...Now, the only other country in the world that uses the F-4 is Iran," Customs agent Lee Dolan told a Senate hearing on July 8. "So we're pumping out parts that have one market and one market only...
...WHY ARE SOME OF THEM OWNED AND OPERATED BY THE PEOPLE'S LIBERATION ARMY...
...CNNC American Group Inc...
...45...
...Since the decontrols, he has concluded four joint-venture agreements with Chinese state-owned companies, to build turnkey facilities for manufacturing composite materials...
...In Gardena, the innocuous-sounding SAMCO Machine Tool Corporation is actually a subsidiary of the China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation, which, according to the Defense Intelligence Agency, is a manufacturer of armored vehicles, military trucks, and "special use" vehicles for the Chinese military...
...businessman who contributed $250,000 to the DNC via his daughter, Jessica Elnitiarta, after Sioeng sat next to Bill Clinton at a California fund-raiser in July 1996...
...We called on some of these companies...
...Because the business is all within the family, it can be kept quiet...
...These have already resulted in sealed grand jury indictments, and Customs expects dozens more such cases to crop up...
...Back home CATIC owns factories that develop fighter aircraft and remotely piloted vehicles, and contributes to cruise missile development...
...The Shenyang military region's Northeast Jincheng Industries distributes PLA-made sandals and slippers through Su acknowledged that many of the companies listing his office as their address had no visible operations...
...The vast majority of this business appears to be entirely legal...
...Tex-Mex restaurants in California might better be called Sino-Tex, since much of the hot pepper they use for chili and tacos actually comes from farms run by the PLA and is marketed by the Peking military region through a Los Angeles company called New World Trading...
...As TAS reported in June, Chinese Communist princelings, seeking to build a nest egg in the U.S...
...And today, nearly every branch of the PLA is represented...
...None of these companies has listed phone numbers—odd, indeed, for companies engaged in legitimate trade...
...The problem is that the Chinese government views any Chinese entity operating in the United States as a potential asset that can be used when discreet—and possibly illegal — services are required...
...Spices from the Jinan military region are distributed by companies in Pasadena and the City of Industry, while car radiators built in the Chengdu military region by Southwest Great Wall Economic Development Corp...
...branch of the China National Nonferrous Metal Industry Corporation, a sprawling state enterprise that controls 7o to 8o percent of China's copper, nickel, and tin industries, according to the head of its California operations, Quan Sheng Zhang...
...arms since 1980...
Vol. 30 • October 1997 • No. 10
