Kerry Led Outsourcing Trade Mission to China
John Kerry, who has made opposition to corporate outsourcing of U.S. jobs to places like China a major part of his presidential campaign, appears to have had major involvement with a Boston, Massachusetts company specializing in outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing and jobs. . During the late 1990's, Kerry led at least one of the company's outsourcing trade missions to China, appearing for photos at a banquet in Beijing with representatives of Boston Capital & Technology and unidentified Chinese trade represent...
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Kerry Led Outsourcing Trade Mission to China. Ties to Boston Company Boasting Over 70 Outsourcing Projects
by Russell Betts - GoGov.com (August 15, 2004)
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John Kerry, who has made opposition to corporate outsourcing of U.S. jobs to places like China a major part of his presidential campaign, appears to have had major involvement with a Boston, Massachusetts company specializing in outsourcing of U.S. manufacturing and jobs.
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During the late 1990's, Kerry led at least one of the company's outsourcing trade missions to China, appearing for photos at a banquet in Beijing with representatives of Boston Capital & Technology and unidentified Chinese trade representatives. The exact date of the trip is not given on the company website but appears to have taken place between 1996 and 1998.
Some of the projects undertaken by Boston Capital & Technology include setting up tool & die manufacturing in China, high technology transfers to Chinese telecommunication companies and transfer of highly specialized commercial software utilized in computer aided manufacturing. The company also set up manufacturing in China for an infant gifts company with 12,000 U.S. retail outlets and manufacturing for a company supplying the US home healthcare market.
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John Kerry attending BCT banquet in Beijing, China.
It is not clear how many jobs previously held by U.S. citizens have been transferred to China through Boston Capital & Technology outsourcing projects or how many, if any Kerry's lead involvement at the Beijing meeting has had. In one event that could have long ranging effects in the battle with China over U.S. jobs, Boston Capital & Technology did hold a US/China Symposium at Tsinghua University, a university referred to as "The "M.I.T. of China".
President of Boston Capital & Technologies, Paul Marcus, declined to be interviewed. Marcus said "I am not doing an interview with you, and please don't call me again," when contacted by Insight On The News, an on line news source that first broke the the Kerry Outsourcing story.
Information obtained from the Boston Capital & Technology website, however, indicates that the company provides investment and advisory services to US companies wishing to establish or expand manufacturing operations in Mainland China.
The company has participated in what it calls significant U.S.-China investment, partnership, and technology transfer opportunities using both American and Chinese staff. The company has offices in Beijing and Shenzhen, China, in addition to its headquarters in Boston, Massachusetts. It provides local access in China and teaches Chinese companies in Western business practices. The company claims to have completed over 70 projects in China involving investment, manufacturing, set up of U.S. wholly owned enterprises in China, set up of U.S. and Chinese joint ventures and technology transfers to China.
Boston Capital & Technology President Paul Marcus lives with his Chinese-born wife in the Beacon Hill district of Boston, the same district where one of Kerry's mansions is located. The Kerry campaign refused to answer questions about Kerry's relationship to Marcus or the details on Kerry's trade mission to Beijing, China..
Chinese Kerry Out: John Kerry's Private Trade Trip to Beijing
Posted August 6, 2004
By Charles R. Smith
The Kerry campaign currently is struggling with recent photographs of the candidate, one dressed in a "bunny" suit at NASA and another on the bow of a ferry imitating a famous scene from the movie Titanic. However, a new photograph has emerged showing the Massachusetts senator in Beijing, People's Republic of China, working with a company associated with the Chinese military. The Kerry campaign and the Kerry Senate office both are refusing to comment on the Democratic presidential candidate's privately sponsored trade trip to China. Repeated phone calls both to Kerry's campaign headquarters and his Senate office were not returned.
During the late 1990s, John Kerry traveled on a "U.S. trade mission to the People's Republic of China organized and sponsored by a private corporation." The Kerry trip to Beijing was topped off with a "banquet in Beijing's legendary Great Hall of the People." To prove the trip was a success, the Massachusetts-based firm of Boston Capital & Technology photographed Kerry in the Beijing Great Hall of the People. The image and trip information appear at www.us-china.com, Boston Capital's Website
The photo shows Kerry, an unnamed Chinese government official and Paul Marcus, the head of Boston Capital & Technology. Marcus also refused to provide details of the China trip, including the time and date, whether the senator took money for his services, or the identity of the Chinese officials with whom Kerry met. "I am not doing an interview with you, and please don't call me again," Marcus declared.
The chief of Boston Capital and his Chinese-born wife, Moying Li, live in the same Beacon Hill district of Boston as Kerry, who used his half-interest in the family mansion to borrow $6.4 million to save his then-faltering presidential campaign.
While Marcus currently refuses to comment on the private trade trip to China, he does advertise his connection to Sen. Kerry on Boston Capital's Website, where Marcus claims that his firm was "China Advisor to U.S. Senator's commercial agenda for China." The Website goes on to says that Boston Capital: "Advised, assisted, and executed Minister-level commercial agenda for U.S. Senator. Advanced Senator in China for all Minister-level meetings, coordinated and acted as liaison to: The U.S. State Department, The U.S. Embassy in Beijing, The Department of Commerce, and all relevant Chinese authorities."
The Chinese Army Bank: In fact, Marcus is a business partner with the China International Trust and Investment Corp. (CITIC), a firm closely associated with the Chinese military and included on the Website a picture of himself meeting with CITIC officials in China. "Boston Capital & Technology is a bilateral contractual affiliate of both the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), China's largest trade organization, and the China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC), China's largest investment organization," the Website says.
CITIC is known as a front for the munitions manufacturer Poly Technologies Corp. According to a 1997 report prepared by the Rand Corporation, "Poly Technologies Ltd. was founded in 1984, ostensibly as a subsidiary of CITIC, although it was later exposed to be the primary commercial arm of the PLA [People's Liberation Army] General Staff Department's Equipment Sub-Department." The Rand report continues: "Throughout the 1980s, Poly sold hundreds of millions of dollars of largely surplus arms around the world, exporting to customers in Thailand, Burma, Iran, Pakistan and the United States. ... CITIC does enter into business partnerships with and provide logistical assistance to PLA and defense-industrial companies like Poly."
The Rand report notes that CITIC's Poly Group once tried to smuggle machine guns into the United States: "Poly's U.S. subsidiaries were abruptly closed in August 1996. Allegedly, Poly's representative, Robert Ma, conspired with China North Industries Corporation's (NORINCO) representative, Richard Chen, and a number of businessmen in California to illegally import 2,000 AK-47s into the United States."
Poly Technologies was run by international arms dealer Wang Jun and his "princeling" friend, the powerful He Ping, son-in-law of long-time Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The Rand Corporation noted that "Wang Jun is both director of CITIC and Chairman of Poly Group, the arms-trading company of the General Staff Department."
In 1996, Poly Chairman Wang Jun met with President Bill Clinton inside the White House with convicted Chinagate figure Charlie Trie, who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign from Red Chinese sources. The Democratic Party later returned much of this donated money.
Satellites for China: While CITIC is reported by U.S. military authorities to be involved in the international sale of illegal arms it also is interested in obtaining advanced U.S. technology. The Boston Capital Website notes that the firm has been involved with the transfer of advanced U.S. space technology to China. Such references are viewed in the arms trade to have missile applications.
According to the Boston Capital Website, the company acted as a China adviser for a "U.S. High Technology Corporation's technology-transfer efforts in the People's Republic of China. They were responsible for technology transfer for full-scale manufacturing in China of technologies in telecommunications and satellites. ... Each production package sells for $15 [million] to $20 million. The Corporation has successfully transferred these [satellite] technologies to several Chinese manufacturers now in production."
It should come as no surprise that Marcus' partner in Beijing, CITIC, also owns a controlling interest in the Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecom Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat). Founded in 1988, AsiaSat operates several communications satellites in the Far East bought from U.S. manufacturers including Hughes. According to Aviation Week and Space Technology, in addition to direct TV broadcasts, AsiaSat satellites regularly carry communications traffic for Chinese military units and Chinese military-owned companies.
Sweet Deal Turns Sour: Not all of the Marcus projects in Communist China have turned out so sweet. In 1998 the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave Marcus a $77,000 contract to produce a report on the cranberry market in China. By 2001, Marcus had spun the contract and report into a deal to put Massachusetts-based Ocean Spray in business with China's largest juice company, perhaps looking to find markets and perhaps outsourcing a traditional American industry.
According to an article published in March 2001 by the Beijing Business Wire, "Under an agreement with the Beijing Huiyuan Beverage Group, Ocean Spray, the number-one brand of canned and bottled juice drinks in the U.S., will grant a 10-year license to Huiyuan for the Ocean Spray brand and technology." The official Beijing business report stated that Ocean Spray "made its initial contact with Huiyuan through the consulting firm Boston Capital & Technology, which had a personal working relationship with its chairman, Zhu. Their rapport with Huiyuan management helped secure the agreement."
Critics of the Ocean Spray deal quickly warned that Huiyuan Beverage readily could become a global competitor. According to the Huiyuan Website, the Chinese beverage company imported more than 40 advanced sterile filling lines, and set up two juice-extracting plants and six filling factories. The cranberry deal with China turned sour. Today, Ocean Spray officials refuse to comment on the 2001 China deal with Huiyuan. Ocean Spray no longer lists Huiyuan as a partner or as an official outlet of its products. In fact, Ocean Spray does not list any outlet for its products in China, and China is a major producer of cranberries and a major juice competitor.
Many Faces, No Answers: Who Marcus was working for in the juice case is not entirely clear, but he has completed several other sweet deals. Marcus is the founder of a number of firms that do business with Beijing, including not only Boston Capital & Technology but Boston Business Consulting, Massachusetts-Guangdong Committee Inc. and China Development Holdings Ltd.
The Marcus business savvy also extends far beyond China. He once sold the Webpage name bbc.com to the British Broadcasting Corp. for about $350,000. The Boston-based consultant also has time for the arts. He and his wife are listed as founders of the nonprofit American Friends of the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, a lovely place notorious for hiding and laundering money.
John Kerry frequently has stated that he has had contacts with high-ranking officials of foreign governments. Yet, the Kerry campaign is refusing to answer any questions about the candidate's privately sponsored trade trip to China or his relationship with Marcus. But it would appear that the presidential candidate has many friends at high levels in Beijing. The Chinese official Internet news outlet of the People's Daily, official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, recently endorsed the senator from Massachusetts for president of the United States.
Charles R. Smith is an investigative reporter specializing in military and information technology.
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Kerry Outsourcing Mission to China
Chinese army into big business
by Charles Smith
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The Chinese Army is in business. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) draws great profits from business funding, commercial loans and outright sales in America. The profits eventually are used to support the PLA's main line of work -- that of killing people.
The Rand Corporation, a government sponsored think-tank, documented some of the profits drawn by the Chinese Army in a 1997 report on the red defense industry. The Clinton administration was forced to make the Rand report public by order of Federal Judge Robert Payne during a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
"For those who oppose any subsidization of the PLA, there is thus ample evidence that profits from PLA-affiliated enterprises directly benefit the main-line forces of the Chinese military," concludes the Rand report.
According to the Rand Corporation, "American companies in China sometimes seek to transfer dual-use technology to their Chinese partners, some of whom have military connections.
"The Chinese have even enlisted former government officials to help them. Retired General Richard Secord, a member of the Reagan national security team, helped COSTIND's Yuanwang Corporation to create Technology Selection Inc. in Mountain View, California, which plans to acquire dual use technology and ship it to China.
"Where do these profits go and what are they used for?" asks the Rand Report.
"Most analysts believe that military enterprises are permitted to keep a substantial proportion of their earnings. According to Tai Ming Cheung, the amount retained varies according to the type of military enterprises and the profitability of the operation, but they are generally able to retain 20-40 percent of their profits for reinvestment and other uses.
"The remaining monies are divided between the General Logistics Department (40-60%), regional and provincial military authorities (10-20%) and the local PLA unit that owns the enterprise (10-20%). The profits passed to the local PLA unit, in turn, are diverted to two general areas. Some of the money is used for training, as well as to improve the living standards of the troops, including barracks construction and repair, food subsidies, and medical coverage. Other funds, however, are used for more corrupt purposes, such as paying for lavish meals, expensive foreign luxury automobiles, and Swiss bank accounts."
The Rand report is not the only view inside the Chinese economy. There is more information on the Chinese military and illegal activities compiled by the former U.S. Defense attaché to Beijing, Lt. Colonel Dennis Blasko. Blasko wrote a report, called "An Introduction to the Chinese Defense Industry" in which he details where the money goes.
"According to one informed observer," wrote Blasko in his 1994 paper on China, "a large percentage of the foreign earnings of defense-industrial companies are repatriated back to the factory or group of factories in China, in order to reinvest at the firm level, purchase new technology or alleviate some of the social pressures currently drowning these factories in red ink, such as raising workers' wages and subsidizing other security burdens.
"The second major recipients are the traders themselves," noted Colonel Blasko, "who must pay for the foreign operations base and often reward themselves with large official and unofficial commissions from the transactions.
"The final group of recipients, the superior ministry ... may extract a tax from the factories, although this money is generally assumed to be a relatively small percentage of the overall pie. In the case of the ministry level receipts, these funds are believed to be used for a wide variety of legitimate and illegitimate purposes, ranging from modernization of industrial plants to the padding of the Swiss bank accounts of top ministry officials.
"From a western perspective," noted Blasko, "what the Chinese call defense 'conversion' might better be called 'diversification,' as new product lines are developed in separate areas while military production capability is retained.
"Some of the monetary profits which accrue from defense conversion undoubtedly have found their way back into the overall funds available for defense spending, whether officially listed as part of the budget or not. These additional funds naturally have given the military leadership greater options in how they spend the monies available.
"It is certain that some profits from defense conversion could be used to buy prohibited technology," concluded Blasko.
The failure of American trade with China is that many of the so-called "joint" business ventures have fallen apart, or worse, turned into fronts for the Chinese Army operations against America. For example, the U.S. Commerce Department documented exactly how a Chrysler "joint venture" in China to produce minivans backfired.
The January 1999 U.S. Commerce Dept. report on technology transfers to China states, "despite almost a decade of relative success in producing both the Jeep Cherokee and a wholly locally produced military style jeep (the BJ2020 series), by 1995 Chrysler had pulled out of its bid to build a new minivan joint venture in Shanghai out of complete frustration.
"Chrysler executives were expressly concerned over licit and illicit technology transfers. Chinese officials were demanding more advanced technology than seemed appropriate or necessary to Chrysler," noted the Commerce report.
"Chrysler's concerns were amplified when Chrysler CEO Robert Eton was made aware that knock-offs of Chrysler's Jeep Cherokee had been seen on the streets of Beijing. When complaining about this to Chinese officials, he reportedly was told that this (the ability to copy Chrysler's Jeep Cherokee) was a good sign of progress in China's auto industry, about which he should be pleased. Apparently, he was not, and Chrysler soon canceled plans to go ahead with the Shanghai plant."
The debate about trade with China has split the U.S. commercial community and the Republican Party into two factions. Representative of the two factions, two Virginia Republicans squared off this week and the subject was permanent "Favored" trade with China. The two are seeking to replace retiring House Commerce Committee Chairman, Representative Thomas Bliley, R-Va.
"I do not support automatic renewal of most-favored nation status annually," stated State Senator Steve Martin. "Anyone who kicks his dog, beats his wife, and maintains constant threat to his neighbors should not expect to have normal relations with us."
Republican Delegate Eric Cantor disagrees. "I am for opening trade lines to make sure that we have access to trade with China. ... In fact, the more we trade with China the more likelihood there will be freedom and opportunity and consumer choice," said Cantor.
Cantor's argument, that continued trade with China brings "freedom and opportunity and consumer choice" is one shared by top national Republican leaders, including former President Bush. Chinese dissident Harry Wu does, however, not share Cantor's view.
"Freedom is not defined by having more choices of toothpaste," stated Harry Wu flatly during a personal interview.
Harry Wu spent a good portion of his adult life in a political concentration camp in China. Communist China maintains a system of so-called prison camps called "Lo Gai." Harry dug coal for 13 years under the People's Armed Police guards for speaking his mind, before the communists finally exiled him from his nation.
Harry Wu told me of his dangerous attempt to re-enter China in 1995, through the remote border with Kazakhstan. Once inside China, he was quickly identified by the Chinese Ministry of State Security, picked up and taken to a local station under arrest.
The remote border Security police station had no phone lines. However, the State Security officers were in real time contact with the main police computers in Beijing, using an American satellite uplink. The Chinese Security officers used American computers to search a centralized data bank in Beijing, pulling his complete dossier, photograph and fingerprints.
Harry Wu's capture and processing on U.S. made equipment is a simple illustration of how American trade with China can be perverted into a tool of oppression. The cost can take years to accumulate but it is paid eventually. Corporate executives should note that survivors of World War II death camps have won in court against international suppliers such as Ford and very large Swiss banks.
For those who oppose any subsidization of the Chinese Army, there is abundant evidence that profits from U.S. trade directly benefit the main-line forces of the Chinese military. It's time to put the People's Liberation Army out of business.
Virginia State Senator Steve Martin is right. Anyone who kicks his dog, beats his wife, and maintains constant threat to his neighbors should not expect to have normal relations.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Charles Smith is a national security and defense reporter for WorldNetDaily.
Chinese army into big business
by Charles Smith
The Chinese Army is in business. The People's Liberation Army (PLA) draws great profits from business funding, commercial loans and outright sales in America. The profits eventually are used to support the PLA's main line of work -- that of killing people.
The Rand Corporation, a government sponsored think-tank, documented some of the profits drawn by the Chinese Army in a 1997 report on the red defense industry. The Clinton administration was forced to make the Rand report public by order of Federal Judge Robert Payne during a Freedom of Information lawsuit.
"For those who oppose any subsidization of the PLA, there is thus ample evidence that profits from PLA-affiliated enterprises directly benefit the main-line forces of the Chinese military," concludes the Rand report.
According to the Rand Corporation, "American companies in China sometimes seek to transfer dual-use technology to their Chinese partners, some of whom have military connections.
"The Chinese have even enlisted former government officials to help them. Retired General Richard Secord, a member of the Reagan national security team, helped COSTIND's Yuanwang Corporation to create Technology Selection Inc. in Mountain View, California, which plans to acquire dual use technology and ship it to China.
"Where do these profits go and what are they used for?" asks the Rand Report.
"Most analysts believe that military enterprises are permitted to keep a substantial proportion of their earnings. According to Tai Ming Cheung, the amount retained varies according to the type of military enterprises and the profitability of the operation, but they are generally able to retain 20-40 percent of their profits for reinvestment and other uses.
"The remaining monies are divided between the General Logistics Department (40-60%), regional and provincial military authorities (10-20%) and the local PLA unit that owns the enterprise (10-20%). The profits passed to the local PLA unit, in turn, are diverted to two general areas. Some of the money is used for training, as well as to improve the living standards of the troops, including barracks construction and repair, food subsidies, and medical coverage. Other funds, however, are used for more corrupt purposes, such as paying for lavish meals, expensive foreign luxury automobiles, and Swiss bank accounts."
The Rand report is not the only view inside the Chinese economy. There is more information on the Chinese military and illegal activities compiled by the former U.S. Defense attaché to Beijing, Lt. Colonel Dennis Blasko. Blasko wrote a report, called "An Introduction to the Chinese Defense Industry" in which he details where the money goes.
Excellent blog. I enjoy commercial re-financing
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