California Take-Out
Timmerman, Kenneth R.
34 October 1998 • The American Spectator CHINA'S LARGEST AEROSPACE COMPANY, CATIC, HAS BECOME QUITE THE CALIFORNIA CONGLOMERATE, DEALING IN EVERYTHING FROM AUTO PARTS TO MISSILE PARTS—WHILE U.S....
...He has been working with CATIC over the past year or so, buying large volumes of special wire-form clips manufactured in China...
...Third is that neither Mr...
...We have cooperated for nearly three and half years," CATIC wrote...
...Despite this, she had nothing but praise for Mr...
...defense production gear by purchasing $190,075 worth of "scrap" from a closed F-4 plant in Glen Arm, Maryland ("While America Sleeps," TAS, June 1997...
...CIA and defense intelligence analysts confirm that the Chinese have been successfully integrating American GPS technology in cruise missiles, ballistic missiles, and new generation military jets, and that some of this technology is being shipped to Iran...
...The only documentation of the shipment was the booking between Morrison Express and CATIC subsidiary Tal Industries, which sources in California have made available to TAS...
...Castle, debiting CATIC's account (#5051-4023226-00 with the Bank of China's New York branch office $34,462.50 in favor of A.M...
...The cargo was a single crate containing five TNL moo I/O Global Positioning Satellite navigation systems, built by Trimble Navigation of Sunnyvale, California...
...In 1993, for instance, CATIC shipped 11 containers to Mastercraft, worth $406,007.02—all of which were paid...
...They told me point blank that they could not—because the risks to civilian air traffic would be unacceptable...
...CATIC became the primary Chinese partner of McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) in the construction of MD-82 Trunkliner aircraft at factories in Xian and Shanghai...
...CRUISE MISSILE GUIDANCE Late one Friday afternoon last June, a Chinese national named Quang Li called a friend at Morrison Express, a freight forwarder based near the headquarters of Hughes Aircraft Corporation in El Segundo, California...
...SUE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO PAY That's what Inglewood freight forwarder Deltamax thought when CATIC appointed them as their primary agent in March 1995 to ship parts and materials for McDonnell Douglas MD-8z airliners to China from Long Beach...
...Yet the Clinton administration has lifted all licensing requirements for the sale of GPS systems to China, so U.S...
...Ruan later applied for a California state real-estate license, and changed his company's legal address to the CATIC headquarters on Telstar...
...Bush extended the residence visas of all Chinese then working or studying in the United States out of concerns that many would be arrested if they were forced to return to China...
...Stephen," CATIC Guangzhou notified Mastercraft that they still owed $16o,000 on total 1994 purchases worth $223,706.49...
...James Chao...this intention never came to fruition ....The company at which Mr...
...Morrison is run by a Chinese-American, Allen Chang...
...office for China BIAM Group, a manufacturer of titanium aerospace parts and watch faces...
...First is the lateness of the booking...
...exporters by the Department of Commerce, which failed to object when McDonnell Douglas informed it of the impending China sale...
...He means what he says and his payments are always on time...
...Who actually benefits from these transactions is unclear...
...So far Ms...
...The American Spectator October 1998 35 The changes are perhaps most dramatic in the outer reaches of the new Chinese empire, just off the Santa Monica Freeway in El Monte, California...
...Castle "doesn't know the end-use or the end-user" of the parts...
...EMIIH1111111 TAKE-OUT * KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN * hina's rulers aren't what they used to be, as Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin demonstrated during their Peking summit in June...
...This particular shipment went off without a hitch, arriving in Peking on schedule the next day...
...According to the PIERS database on imports to the United States maintained by the Journal of Commerce, from April 1, 1997, through March 31, 1998, CATIC imported seventeen tons of "construction and building equipment" into Long Beach on board cargo ships owned by the China Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO), and another six tons of "lamps and parts," also on COSCO ships...
...And the very commercial importance of GPS enhances its value as a weapon...
...They also brought in another 40 tons of "miscellaneous hardware," and some 25 tons of "sheets, towels, and blankets"—not the type of commodity one would expect from China's largest military aerospace conglomerate...
...In March, Daocai Wang began selling off condominiums at 400 E. Broadway in San Gabriel, just across the freeway from CATIC headquarters, in a new complex owned by another CATIC-controlled investment company, Evergreen Broadway Corporation...
...Indeed, CATIC's involvement in illegal machine-tool purchases in the U.S...
...Other shipments in 1995 included container-loads of dust masks, if cutting wheels,18-, 20-, 22-, and 26-inch hand saws, and combination wrench sets...
...Thomas Relth of Blue Line Machinery, a privately held firm in Anaheim, still complains about the 20-percent interest rate Cadalong has been charging him on a $250,000 loan he took out a few years ago...
...But starting in January 1997, CATIC said it had opened a Los Angeles freight office, and instructed Deltamax to arrange the shipments and payments through them...
...The only common element is a rocket-like logo...
...GPS manufacturers, including Trimble, insist that their commercial products do not work at altitudes higher than 6o,000 feet or at pressures greater than 4g, disqualifying them as guidance systems for military jet fighters or ballistic missiles...
...This led to voluminous correspondence between the two...
...They described Cadalong as a division of CATIC," Relth said...
...but starting in 1993, Bill Clinton quietly instructed U.S...
...Another chunk of CATIC's U.S...
...And as the lead producer of China's F-8 fighter-bomber, CATIC negotiated with Northrup Grumman and other U.S...
...When in July we inquired at CATIC headquarters about the possibility of speaking with Ms...
...Los Angeles is simply too big for this type of coincidence...
...Within a year, they struck two major deals...
...sued her for not making payments on a $1.6 million loan she had taken out to buy a 24-unit apartment comWest in San Diego...
...County assessor's office, the properties are valued fortax purposes at nearly $6 million—not a bad return on a $2.6 million investment...
...Lew, we were told that she was in San Diego, where she runs a series of other China-related companies and associations, including the San-Diego-Yantai Friendship Society, Siu Lum Kung, Yantai International Trade and Investment Corp., Convoy-Aero Inc., and Vicasia Enterprises...
...Documents obtained by TAS from sources close to CATIC in California show how extensive CATIC's trade in this area has been...
...Last year, TAS uncovered evidence that CATIC was again trawling for sophisticated U.S...
...As we shall see, CATIC does not favor all of its suppliers with the same consideration...
...from Peking on July 15, no doubt carrying new investment orders from his CATIC bosses...
...James Chao...
...Over the past two years, CATIC has set up a U.S...
...CATIC's lawyers went on to assert that Deltamax had failed to establish a link between CIFF and CATIC FREIGHT in China...
...36 October 1998 • The American Spectator A perfectly innocent shipment...
...Scenting trouble when we showed up at her office in July, Ms...
...and for channeling the returns discretely back to China...
...Relth believes his story is typical of how CATIC operates...
...So far, they have been very reliable," he says, "and have delivered several prototypes...
...One of CATIC's current suppliers, A.M...
...As our company's business expands, I'm planning to let this company take care of all the business in Northern America eventually...
...Air Force back in 1983 whether they could shut down the civilian GPS channel in the event of war," says former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense Stephen D. Bryen...
...Reno has not replied...
...800,000), on Rosewell Avenue in nearby Chino...
...But his initial filing is telling: Beta First is the U.S...
...intelligence analysts have no idea how many of these systems are going out the door...
...Li nor Morrison Express filed any export documents for the shipment, not even a cursory Shipper's Export Declaration, required for all exports valued at greater than $2,500...
...Their destination: the China National Aero-Technology Corp...
...sic] CATIC added that Mastercraft "should carry out our Agreement which signed between us in Guangzhou, China...
...Starting in 1994 CATIC Guangzhou began importing huge quantities of screwdrivers and other handtools into Los Angeles, selling them primarily to Mastercraft Tools, Inc., in Paramount, California...
...The Chinese are targeting companies that have relations in China and are trying to cripple them, to drive them out of business, so they can take them over with Chinese money," he said...
...The President of Tal Industries, Runqiu Zhao, also heads CATIC United Procurement Inc., another front company based at the Telstar Avenue building...
...Lew wants to get to CATIC, at least until their joint investment in the Temple City properties gets out of the red...
...Directly and through cut-outs, they control another seventeen corporations at other California locations, and have invested in a dozen more...
...Cadalong was borrowing money from the Bank of China at 3 percent, then told us they had borrowed it from themselves at 11 percent," he told TAS...
...Much of the money Cadalong has brought in from China has been invested in real estate...
...This administration's rapid decontrol of strategic exports convinced CATIC managers back in Peking and their masters on the State Council that a California outpost could do more than simply manage U.S...
...Cheng went on to introduce the General Manager of CIFF's Los Angeles office, Mr...
...Only five months later, once Deltamax had filed suit, Cheng changed his tune, and in an affidavit presented to the Los Angeles court through his U.S...
...We do hope that both of us should cooperate and help each other with truth...
...Inc.' is not owned by, nor does it share common ownership, either in whole or in part, with CATIC FREIGHT...
...Los Angeles law-enforcement sources tell TAS that there is a lesser-known side to Beta First...
...and a second company, General Titanium, Mr...
...Delta-max has filed suit in China for the freight charges, but has little hope it will prevail, given CATIC's hand-in-glove relationship to the Chinese government...
...He went on to claim that the U.S...
...Less than two years into Clinton's first term, CATIC managed to buy production tooling for the U.S...
...Calac is run by Susan Lew, a Chinese-American woman working out of an office suite at 3707 Convoy Street, between downtown San Diego and the desert, in a strip mall she developed prior to her association with CATIC...
...Lew to develop the Convoy Street strip mall...
...Before the high-security Columbus, Ohio facility closed in 1994, victim of the post–Cold War defense build-down, a Chinese buying team strolled down the production line, even taking video footage of highly classified sealed-off areas, picking and choosing the most exotic machines for use in a bomber plant back home...
...Heading BIAM's operation in El Monte is Xiaodong Liu, who calls himself Daniel Liu with Americans...
...and lending it back to Peking, or investing it in the U.S., with the proceeds going to CATIC managers...
...Customs office and the Commerce Department's Office of Export Enforcement about the shipment last year, they said they had no knowledge of it nor any idea of how many The American Spectator • October 1998 37 others like it may have taken place...
...If you want to do plastics, it's one company...
...Many U.S...
...One of them was Genyuan Lin, Vice President and Chief Engineer of CATIC's huge aircraft manufacturing facility in Xian...
...PROMOTING CHINESE EXPORTS CATIC is also in the business of promoting the sale of Chinese products in the United States, including—perhaps—ChiThe American Spectator • October 199 8 39 nese prison labor goods...
...its registered agent, Alan Klein, represents a number of Chinese government-owned entities, while its lawyers, Latham and Watkins, also work for CATIC and a number of associated entities...
...Two years later it was the turn of the East- West Bank, which sued for payment on notes worth $3.8 million used by Ms...
...There weren't exactly threats, but they insisted I sign a personal guaranty for the loan—which I refused...
...It was the heaviest press of its kind in the world, and Xian was offering to build it if we could design it and market it overseas...
...Invoice #GE952371, dated October 9, 1995, shows a container loaded with 18,308 kilograms of screwdrivers and handpumps bound for Los Angeles, billed to Mastercraft for $16,050.40...
...According to public records at the L.A...
...They just didn't pay," said Deltamax President Jack Kao...
...I don't know how many times we have subpoenaed documents from Morrison Express," the same Customs investigator says...
...Indeed, the distinctive rocket-like logo is used by CATIC in the U.S...
...But they can be used in cruise missiles, such as the C-8o2 systems China has been exporting to Iran, which the U.S...
...SHADY INVESTMENTS CATIC has been buying into U.S...
...CATIC told him that the factory where they would make his wire clips was also making binoculars for the Chinese military...
...Last-minute scheduling is a technique frequently used for illicit shipments," said one Customs investigator...
...attorney, he claimed that CATIC Freight "has never been incorporated in California nor does it have any property, office or employees in California...
...In July 1993, Northeast Savings F.A...
...partners are happy about the relationship...
...And much of it appears to be self-dealing, shuffling money back and forth between China and the U.S., borrowing money from Chinese banks in the U.S...
...All that is offered is a business card and a photograph of a storefront," they said...
...He was surprised when told that Chinese dissident Harry Wu has described passing by Laogai vineyards which produced the grapes used for Dynasty wines in his recent book, Troublemaker...
...Many Laogai plants manufacture hardware and tools —the type one might buy at Walmart or K-Mart...
...the next day...
...Henry Hyde and Tillie Fowler to write Attorney General Janet Reno on June 11,1997, demanding that she open a Justice Department investigation into the Chinese company's U.S...
...In an unsigned fax dated September 28, 1994, and addressed to "Mr...
...business is a $1 million loan to Cadalong International Investment Corp., a front company headquartered at the Telstar Avenue building...
...But if Peking were seeking to establish an American beachhead for more nefarious activities, such as intelligence gathering and high-technology purchases, then the CATIC network with its self-financing investments would appear to be perfectly suited...
...Navy says pose a threat to its ships in the Persian Gulf...
...38 October 1998 • The American Spectator One of CATIC's most interesting real-estate deals has been orchestrated by Daocai Wang, a CATIC vice president and frequent traveler on China Eastern Airlines Flight 583 to Los Angeles...
...In the end, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Enrique Romero agreed with the Chinese and threw the case out...
...Since then, U.S...
...headquarters of China's largest state-owned aerospace company, CATIC, workers can no longer head down to the company canteen for a subsidized lunch...
...outlet of China North Industries (NORINCO), China's top weapons producer and a major exporter of weapons to countries such as Iran...
...The records show that CATIC constantly pressed Master-craft for payment, keeping careful track of the huge container traffic in hand-written ledgers...
...on Friday, well after most California offices close for the weekend...
...Ronald Rubenack is a California entrepreneur who runs a company called Global Connection out of his home in Fountain 40 October 1998 • The American Spectator Valley...
...Through Cadalong, CATIC owns condominiums in nearby Alhambra, some apparently used by visiting corporate officers from China, and a loo-unit condo complex in upscale Costa Mesa...
...CATIC and its officers own and operate twenty separate companies out of the Telstar Avenue building...
...Deltamax flagged details of the shipment to Zhang Dong at CIFF, Wang Zhi Yun in Shanghai, Jerry Hills at Boeing's Long Beach office, and to Xin-Gang Shi at CATIC in Los Angeles...
...We see CATIC buying up property all over Los Angeles," one law enforcement official says...
...During the early part of the relationship, Deltamax got paid for its services directly by CATIC International Freight Forwarding Ltd...
...intelligence analysts argue that the United States should require strict export controls on all GPS systems, because China and other potential military adversaries can upgrade commercial GPS with minimal technical expertise...
...If you're wondering who was spying on whom, we think we know," one of the sources said...
...and Cillee Inc., a front company operating out of an Alhambra condo owned by Cadalong...
...But a July 1994 accounting shows another nine containers valued at $316,188.78 which remained unpaid...
...I'm very happy to let you know that our company in Los Angeles has officially started business on September 1,1997," he wrote...
...Andrew and Mr...
...And we do hope that we can cooperate in near future...
...CATIC PROVIDES THE CHINESE GOVERNMENT WITH A tremendous base in the U.S...
...7,1994 accounting showed Mastercraft with a balance due CATIC of $639,869.39...
...Second is the choice of shipping agent...
...Cathy Kaliszewski, a purchasing agent for International Sources Inc., in Chesterland, Ohio, is happy she found Mr...
...companies as well, using Cadalong to loan money, often at exorbitant rates...
...A SMALL EMPIRE A year-long TAS investigation has found that Tal Industries and CATIC United Procurement are only two parts of CATIC's California empire, whose activities range from military procurement to the U.S...
...Yao, and has never once asked him whether the rubber boots and oil seals she purchases wholesale from Uniphos were the product of Laogai camps...
...But along with the new tunes come other, more painful changes, such as massive unemployment as the "new China" closes down huge make-work factories that used to employ hundreds of thousands of workers in the days when Father Mao cared for all of China's children (or at least those who accepted Communist rule) and cared less about the quality of what they produced...
...The only problem was that Relth was short of cash...
...The June 21, 1997 shipment of the Trimble Navigation GPS systems is curious in several other particulars...
...Castle & Company in Franklin Park, Illinois, has been sending specialty steel parts, aerospace alloys, and corrosion-resistant alloys to CATIC in China...
...Now they order Chinese take-out, often from the nearby Panda Express, and split the check among themselves...
...Despite this, Jack Kao acknowledged that his company was taking on new business from CATIC, for a follow-on contract by McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) to build an additional 20 MD-90 aircraft in China, a contract announced during the Clinton-Jiang summit in June...
...That led to a project with Xian Aircraft to design a special die-cutting press, to cut exotic plastics and nonferrous metals...
...After the $4 million office building on Telstar Avenue, the single largest entry in CATIC's ledger is an investment valued at $2,618,043 in a company known both as Calac Management and Consulting, Inc...
...When those bills remained unpaid, Deltamax ultimately filed suit against CIFF on October 17,1997...
...The American Spectator • October 199 8 41...
...You can get a lot of clips into a container...
...aerospace industry...
...There was President Jiang, Communist supremo of more than i billion Chinese, leading the People's Liberation Army band in a Mandarin version of "Sing Along With Mitch," to the endless delight ofArkansas Billy...
...employees, paid salaries averaging less than $z,000 per month...
...in Peking...
...Among the debtors: Tokuda International Corp...
...After a while, [Cadalong] started telling me how to run my business...
...Unlike the earlier shipments, however, this one was prepaid...
...Although CATIC Freight had previously considered opening an office in Los Angeles, California and to employ Mr...
...Through Biam Inc...
...I don't have a problem with prison labor per se, if that's what it is...
...Trading & Tech., Inc., is so new its president Ming Liu had not yet filed papers for it as we went to press...
...I remember asking the U.S...
...Customs investigators say they have been exploring a vast military aircraft spare parts pipeline to Iran, which includes a number of Chinese middlemen, among them CATIC...
...Perhaps...
...Then they harassed us to get payment...
...But he believes CATIC had an ulterior motive...
...But if you've ever been to their building, you see the CATIC name everywhere, so no one should really have any doubt about who they are...
...Not all of Cadalong's U.S...
...We've known him for three or four years and have never had any problems...
...CATIC Freight President A-Gan Cheng sent Deltamax a letter on September 3,1997, warmly recommending that they continue using the CIFF branch office in Los Angeles for their mutual business...
...assets as of March 1996, according to an accounting ledger obtained by TAS, Cadalong is certainly the most highly capitalized vehicle used by the CATIC group for investing in the U.S...
...Li had an unusual request: he needed to book space on a flight leaving Los Angeles International airport for Peking at one p.m...
...One of the smallest entries in CATIC's books—a mere $195,26o — is earmarked "Other Receivable—Seattle...
...But invoices obtained by TAS from sources close to CATIC tell a different story: that of highly sensitive parts going directly to a military aircraft plant in Xian...
...Liu has been hard at work marketing aircraft parts to Lucas Aerospace, and high-tech titanium coatings using vacuum deposition to companies in Switzerland...
...With its network now exposed, CATIC is likely to use the experience it has gained in recent years and its extensive commercial contacts to establish new companies at different addresses, to make it even more difficult for federal investigators to piece together the puzzle of Communist China's largest procurement operation in the United States...
...Cadalong is run by CATIC officers Runyuan Zhao and Sun Zhongqi, with the assistance of an American named Kadie de Sena, who plunked down her $300 to become a California Notary Public more than two years ago and has been setting her seal on corporate documents ever since...
...activities...
...in Peking, CATIC's state-owned parent corporation...
...There may be a darker side to CATIC's business in the U.S., which U.S...
...So what is CATIC (USA) doing to justify an 8,000-square-foot headquarters complex, twenty corporate entities, and some 40- odd employees in El Monte...
...Among the curious sleight-of-hand operations performed by Cadalong: a $5.5 million loan taken from CATIC's Financial Center in Peking, set off against a $2 million credit extended to CATIC's Peking corporate office, another $400,000 to CATIC Shenzhen, $363,368 credited back to the CATIC Financial Center directly, and an additional $3.5 million in unspecified foreign real estate...
...Then your company has topay us not less than the Balance due of USD $160,000 before December 3o, 1994...
...aerospace manufacturers to upgrade that aircraft with U.S...
...Rubenack is not a newcomer to China, and says that a few years back he tried importing Chinese white wine under the Dynasty label into California, without success...
...If it's auto parts you want, then CATIC has another subcompany called Uniphos, run by Yuanyuan Yao since May 1994 out of the Telstar building...
...Look, CATIC has a lot of corporate names," he said...
...Relth is now in litigation with Cadalong over the loan (and he is not the only Cadalong debtor seeking relief in the California courts...
...The short answer is: wheeling and dealing...
...But as they say, then was then and now is now...
...CUSTOMS STANDS BY HELPLESSLY...
...Cadalong is a work of art, as far as funneling money is concerned...
...Yao past-due invoices for her services...
...A separate Feb...
...And that's when the problems began...
...Yao is a very reliable person," she said...
...Adaptive Investments Corp., of Newport Beach (another $800,000...
...I know there are problems in China, and I intend to visit the factory before we actually start importing the clips into the U.S.," he says...
...The address he gave in the incorporation documents—Suite 665, 18000 Studebaker Road in Cerritos, California—happened to be the office of another state-owned Chinese company, Beta First...
...Li called Morrison Express shortly before six p.m...
...The "Peace Pearl" project, as the F-8 upgrade was dubbed, was suspended by President Bush to protest the June 1989 Tiananmen massacre...
...For two years, at least, the CIA didn't even know who Beta First was...
...Please let him have all the support...
...sales of Chinese-made auto parts and titanium watch faces, branching out into such apparently far-flung activities as real estate investment, currency speculation, and money-lendingoften at usurious rates...
...CATIC seems to have gotten out of the tool business—at least with Mastercraft, whose telephone number has been assigned to a local dry cleaners...
...If they tell you they're going to ship, they do—even if it takes several months to get here," she says...
...Castle's account with the Bank of America in Chicago...
...San Diego may be as close as Ms...
...Iran is the only country outside the United States that operates the F-4, so it makes no sense for China to purchase such equipment for its own use...
...Rachel Liang-Tan is a certified public accountant in Rowland Heights, California, who does the accounts for Uniphos, and regularly sends Mr...
...government-approved deals...
...and Calac Investment, which owns developments at 8847 Las Tunas Drive and 8913 Elm Avenue in the Temple City-area of Los Angeles...
...Among the equipment were machine-tool dies and jigs specially designed to make F14 wing spars and other F-4 parts...
...Sena made sure her bosses were not available to answer any questions for this article, even though CATIC president Mingqi Zhao was lunching on Chinese takeout in the conference room down the hall, as we were told by one of his associates...
...law enforcement officials admit they are only beginning to understand...
...Now I'm just waiting for my customer to get his finances together, so we can purchase an entire container load...
...Biam also imports specialty parts from companies in Japan, such as OEL International Inc., in Osaka...
...In response to a commercial survey last year, Tal Industries listed its main activity as "purchasing," with China as its sole market...
...James Chao is being employed is [sic] `CIFF Transportation (U.S.A...
...Yao when we called her in early August...
...In their push for market share, they have been incredibly disloyal to the people who helped them, making secondary relationships behind your back...
...He will be in charge of my company's expansion in North America," he wrote...
...We buy nearly 2o percent of our products from Uniphos and sell them to automotive parts remanufacturers...
...Over the next eight months, Delta-max sent thirty-eight separate shipments to China for the Trunk-liner program, billing CIFF Freight Forwarding USA some $228,322.51...
...But I do have a problem with slave camps, starving them to death, and beating them to death...
...In August 1996, CATIC officer Yiwei Ruan registered a new company, CATIC (USA) Real Estate Inc...
...When we asked international sales representative Jim Mullin about the shipments, he claimed that A.M...
...The latest CATIC corporate addition, BJI Intl...
...avionics, guidance kits, and weapons systems...
...By using shell companies with different names, CATIC so far has managed to avoid drawing the attention of federal investigators and Customs agents...
...And indeed, on July 7, Deltamax loaded 14 crates of aerospace parts made by Boeing's Douglas Products Division in Long Beach, totaling 6,973 kilograms, on board the AL Wisdom, for shipment on the 14th to the Shanghai Aviation Industrial Corporation, one of CATIC's main plants...
...Ice Wear Inc., of Whittier ($35,000...
...court had no jurisdiction in the case, and requested it be moved to Peking...
...auto parts, it's another...
...Uniphos could also be a vehicle for Laogai shipments to the U.S., since the type of rubber seals, head gaskets, and transmission boots it is marketing in the U.S...
...headquarters at 9645 Telstar Avenue in El Monte, California...
...Perhaps by coincidence, all the registered purchasers were either Chinese nationals or Chinese-Americans...
...The China Aero-Technology Import Export Company (CATIC) first came to America in 1987, as the Reagan administration sought to play its "China card" against a still powerful Soviet Union...
...With $25.5 million in U.S...
...They seem to get in the middle of a lot of questionable deals...
...Separate from the Boeing contract, CATIC's entire U.S...
...CATIC has never been sanctioned, and is still considered a legitimate partner for U.S...
...Relth has been going to China on business since 1988, but says he has had enough...
...If Peking's interest were merely to manage a commercial airliner contract, such as the one with Boeing, it would have no need for the extensive network of front companies and subsidiaries CATIC has setup...
...Recently, Daniel Liu has been seeking new markets for Biam products in Singapore and even in Taiwan...
...The AFL-CIO, along with Chinese dissident Harry Wu and his Laogai Foundation, have been tracking the import of Chinese prison labor goods into the United States, and have had their eye on CATIC for several years...
...Because of his work in China, Relth became known to top managers in the company...
...They have no honor, no sense of honesty, no patience, and no understanding...
...This company sits directly over a CIA liaison office used to maintain contact with the U.S...
...So Xian Vice President Lin pointed him to his former college roommate, Sun Zhongqi, who was now conveniently installed in Southern California running Cadalong...
...I hired this employee to do one thing, and very soon he convinced me to do something else," Relth recalled...
...Neither had they heard of Tal Industries, even though the company is based at CATIC's U.S...
...Commerce also failed to act when McDonnell Douglas later warned that CATIC had diverted the machines to a military production facility...
...has already led to a grand jury investigation...in which, oddly, federal prosecutors have pointedly avoided probing CATIC's activities...
...Yet she has already begun prospecting business under that name from the CATIC office...
...When TAS queried the Los Angeles-area U.S...
...CATIC immediately wired payment to A.M...
...would seem a far cry from CATIC's core aerospace and nonferrous metals businesses...
...She said she was unaware of his connection to CATIC, despite the fact that Uniphos operates out of the CATIC building...
...Since Bill Clinton came to the White House, CATIC's deals have gotten bigger...
...sales are given at just over a half-million dollars, since most of the Trunkliner contract actually appears on the books of their Chinese parent...
...KENNETH R. TIMMERMAN, publisher of Iran Brief, is a frequent contributor to TAS...
...The case, first revealed by this magazine ("China Shops," TAS, March 1995), remains the subject of a Grand Jury investigation in Washington, D.C., where the alleged guilty party is none other than McDonnell Douglas...
...and in China...
...Many Cadalong properties are controlled through Kahala Holding (also known as Kahala Management), into which Cadalong has pumped more than $1 million...
...In the early 199os, apparently at Lin's instigation, Relth hired a former CATIC employee in the United States who had been laid off from his job with McDonnell Douglas but had managed to stay in the U.S., thanks to the presidential visa waiver granted by President Bush after the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre...
...A copy of CATIC's corporate balance sheet for 1997, obtained by TAS, reveals some of the breadth of these activities, while showing the apparent selflessness of CATIC's U.S...
...This refers to what one would have thought CATIC's main commercial activity, purchases by Boeing relating to the construction of MD-82 Trunkliner aircraft in China...
...manufacturers to complete deliveries on this and other blocked weapons deals with China, a move which surprised Congress when the Government Accounting Office reported it earlier this year...
...Wang most recently returned to the U.S...
...There, at the U.S...
...Air Force B-1 bomber—a far sight more sophisticated than China's own F-8—from McDonnell Douglas...
...CATIC's involvement in procuring military hardware in the United States prompted Reps...
...Motiv Sports Inc., of Tustin ($1 million...
Vol. 31 • October 1998 • No. 10
