Three Must-Reads on China

As China's President visits America, it might be worthwhile to consider who the President is dealing with.

At FrontPage Magazine is this general overview of China's extensive and growing sphere of worldwide influence. Given our current nuclear confrontation with Iran, our long-running game of "six-party appeasement talk tag" with North Korea, and Iran's cozy relationship with Venezuela, three paragraphs are of particular interest. Here they are, in order:

(1) In the volatile Middle East, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Iran have become close energy partners with Beijing. In December, Kuwait, an important regional U.S. ally, signed a multi-billion dollar energy agreement with China to invest in the country's refinery and petrochemical infrastructure. At approximately the same time, Beijing began high-level discussions with OPEC to secure energy supplies from the organization's suppliers. Another U.S. ally, Saudi Prince Abdullah, visited China in January and signed several bilateral agreements to assist China in the development of its strategic reserves and refinery capacity.

Of particular concern to the West is China's close relationship with a nuclear obsessed Iran, borne from China's need for energy to run its growing economy and Iran's need for cheap manufactured goods for its young, Western-leaning population. With a $100 billion, 25-year investment by China's state-run energy enterprise Sinopec and an agreement to develop Iran's lucrative Yadavaran oil field, Beijing's continued presence in the country is virtually assured.

(2) ... Beijing continues to support a nuclear North Korea without hesitation or regret. The country's leadership role in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), comprised of member states Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, has raised fears among Western observers that the arrangement is a modern day "Warsaw Pact." The announcement this month by SCO secretary general Zhang Deguang that Mongolia, India, Pakistan and Iran would become permanent members in the near future has heightened concern.

(3) ... Venezuela's leftist agitator Hugo Chavez has become a close ally of China, regularly visiting Beijing and hosting high-level dignitaries from the country. "China offers the best option for breaking 100 years of U.S. domination," Chavez noted last year. In its haste to gain Beijing's favor, Caracas pledged to ship 300,000 barrels of crude a day to China in February, placing U.S.-Venezuela relations in a state of severe disrepair. Last month, U.S. Army General Bantz J. Craddock told a Senate Armed Services Committee, "More and more Chinese non-lethal equipment has been seen in Latin America and military officers from the region have become frequent students of Chinese military training."

And China's actions have not been limited to countries foreign to the United States. In addition to China's operating an extensive espionage network here, and possibly attacking an American citizen in his own home, its military has recently been implicated in a missile-smuggling case!

Wu told the undercover agent that the plan for getting the missiles out of China involved the help of a "corrupt customs broker" in China and falsified export papers, the statement said. The deal involved a "Gen. Wang" in China who was to supply the weapons.

China's military has been linked to past illicit arms deals, including the attempted sale of AK-47 assault rifles to Los Angeles street gangs.

This isn't that surprising to me. What surprises and disappoints me is that this is the first I've heard about the Chinese military attempting to sell weapons to our criminal element!

And finally, via TIA Daily, is an article whose title says it all: "Confront China's Support for Iran's Nuclear Weapons".

-- CAV