Media silence on Panama Canal

Uh-oh.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this Panama Canal deal.

No, it’s not just that the butchers of Beijing are on the verge of
taking over the most strategic and valuable piece of real estate in the
Western Hemisphere. That would be bad, of course.

But what really worries me is that Americans remain asleep to the
dangers this development portends for them. They are asleep because the
media dare not awake them.

Worse yet, though, it’s not just poor news judgment, I fear, that
keeps the press silent — even in the face of President Clinton’s
admission last week that the Chinese will run the canal operations
beginning next month. No, there’s much more. There’s lots of money at
stake. Many key economic interests stand to profit from this deal.

I’ve been telling you that Hutchison Whampoa is much more than a
successful port operations company. I’ve documented over the last two
years that the shipping giant is chaired by Li Ka-shing. His name
doesn’t just sound like a cash register opening. It really is. He is a
board member of the Chinese government’s main investment arm, the China
International Trust and Investment Corp., or CITIC, run by official
People’s Liberation Army marketer and smuggler Wang Jun.

In other words, Hutchison Whampoa may be a very profitable company,
but it is nevertheless under the control and guidance of the Chinese
military and espionage establishment.

But that’s old news. I’ve made some recent discoveries about
Hutchison Whampoa that, I suspect, can shed light on why the U.S. media
establishment has been so quiet on this epic tragedy unfolding in
Panama.

It turns out Hutchison Whampoa is connected beyond Beijing as well.
It has joint venture relationships with network mega-media buyers like
Procter & Gamble. Subsidiary companies involved in telecommunications
have been capitalized by partners such as Rupert Murdoch, who runs the
Fox empire. So, if you were wondering why the “fair and balanced” Fox
News Network wasn’t jumping on the story, now you have a clue. But don’t
turn on MSNBC in hopes of seeing the scandal unraveled there. No,
Microsoft, too, is in bed with Hutchison Whampoa.

I’m afraid the whole sad story, for anyone interested enough in
searching, is pretty well laid out in the company’s annual reports and
public communications over the last two years. Most of it is even posted
on the company’s official public website.

These guys are not only well-armed thugs, creeps and criminals. They
are, like it or not, part of the new global political and economic
establishment. They wear business suits. They hire political prostitutes
like Henry Kissinger and Al Haig. They dine with heads of state. And, as
we know, they make large contributions to political campaigns —
sometimes enough to swing a presidential contest in a major western
power.

So, it looks like Matt Drudge was right last week in his rant about
establishment media coverage of the Seattle disturbances. It was a
non-event because the big press has interests to protect — global
financial interests. They’re not about to let a coalition of militia
types and neo-hippies spoil their party. There’s money to be made in
these trade deals.

National security be damned. The fix is in. Don’t expect Congress to
hear your cries and protests, America. When Bill Gates, Rupert Murdoch,
P&G and the largest standing army in the world today all agree that
Beijing should run the Panama Canal, it’s a done deal.

But don’t worry. Remember, Bill Clinton says the Chinese will bend
over backwards to ensure they run the canal responsibly. We can trust
them, he says. Clinton’s sure they wouldn’t behave badly. They don’t
want any negative publicity. It’s bad for business.

Of course, they needn’t worry about that possibility. It’s not only
our toys, clothes and other goods that are made in China, these days.
We’ve got a Manchurian President and a yellow U.S. press that couldn’t
be more controlled if they operated within totalitarian mainland China.