China moves into Boston

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China Daily - China Ocean Shipping Company, or COSCO, the largest shipping group of China, has been recognized in Massachusetts for its contribution in helping the ailing US economy and job market.

The recognition comes a decade after the State-owned Chinese company opened a direct service between China and Boston, saving about 9,000 jobs in the New England area.

In March 2002, COSCO decided to open a direct vessel service to the Port of Boston after the Danish shipping giant Maersk Line, part of AP Moller-Maersk Group, closed its lines to the port.

Over the past 10 years, COSCO's cooperation with the Massachusetts Port Authority, known as the "COSCO-Massport model", has preserved more than 34,000 jobs, said David Mackey, the interim CEO of Massport.

Two years after opening the service, Premier Wen Jiabao visited Boston's Conley Terminal, where he praised the COSCO-Massport relationship as a model that other Chinese and US businesses should follow.

To acknowledge China's support, Massport and the International Longshoremen's Association, the largest union of maritime workers in North America, nominated Wen a "Best Friend of the American Worker" at an event to mark the 10th anniversary of the relationship.

Before COSCO, the Port of Boston only had a direct connection with Europe. However, COSCO's weekly service made it possible to connect the New England region with Asia and China - important emerging markets in the global economy.

When the service first started, fewer than 50 containers per week came into Boston from China and Asia. Now the average weekly number is more than 1,000.
 China was the third-largest export market for US goods in 2010, according to the Office of the US Trade Representative. In 2010 US exports of goods to China totaled $91.9 billion, equal to 7 percent of US exports that year and a rise of roughly 32 percent from 2009 and 890 percent from 1994.

Progressive Review, 1997 - Largely ignored by the major media, the administration is still supporting plans to lease an old Navy base in Long Beach CA to a Chinese firm called Cosco. 
Progressive Review, 1998 - The PRC has been stealthily moving into strategic western hemisphere investments using front companies. For example, Panamanian presidential candidate William Bright Marine has asked the U.S. Justice Department to investigate China's activities in that country. He wrote: "I have yet to speak to one single American who is not outraged at the fact that the Clinton administration has allowed Communist China to obtain control of U.S. ports, U.S. bases, and functions of the Panama Canal. They today, effectively control access to the Panama Canal." That may be a bit exaggerated but, as part of the turnover of the canal, Hutchinson-Whampoa Ltd. has been given rights to key former U.S. ports and military installations. A report by the Western Journalism Center notes that Senate staffers found that one of the company's subsidiaries (HIT) is ten percent owned by China Resources Enterprise, the commercial arm of China's trade and economic ministry. HIT also has been in business ventures with the China Sea Shipping Company or COSCO that has had its eye on at least one west coast American port.

Progressive Review, 1999 - The Clinton crowd, which almost caused a disaster in the Arkansas state pension fund in the mid-1980s by its risky investments, is at it again according to Investor's Business Daily and the American Spectator. The state teachers' fund has put large sums into four companies with strong links to Chinese intelligence and the People's Liberation Army, including the China Ocean Shipping Co., China North Industries, China Resources Enterprises and China Travel. Some of these firms are also linked to Indonesian Clinton crony Mochtar Riady. The system owns nearly $2 million worth of stock in a COSCO subsidiary.

A year ago a COSCO ship was found to have smuggled 2,000 automatic weapons into Oakland, destined for LA gang members. Even after publicity about the incident, the Arkansas pension fund made another half-million dollar investment. A COSCO representative once anted up to be near President Clinton during one of his radio shows, in a meeting arranged by Chicom bag man and Hillary Clinton associate Johnny Chung.

When Clinton was governor, he and Jackson Stephens caused a crisis in the state pension fund by making high risk investments with a brokerage firm that suddenly went belly up. Mochtar Riady, the Indonesian billionaire, saved both Clinton's political ambitions and Jackson Stephens' Worthen bank, by buying a sizable chunk of the institution over the next few months. 
Newsmax, 2006 - In 2001, COSCO ships carried 434,000 containers to the United States, representing 12.1 percent of all the goods shipped between China and the United States. Undoubtedly those numbers have increased in the last five years.