China's growing influence in Panama

On Nov. 30, 1999, President Clinton told an assembly of reporters in
the Oval Office that the communist Chinese would soon run the most
important strategic and commercial waterway in the world.

"I think the Chinese will in fact be bending over backwards to make
sure that they run it in a competent and able and fair manner," Clinton
said, acknowledging the reality that a communist Chinese company would
soon control the canal after the scheduled end-of-year pullout of U.S.
forces.

"They'll want to demonstrate to a distant part of the world that
they can be a responsible partner," the president said. "And I would be
very surprised if any adverse consequences flowed from the Chinese
running the canal."

Within a day or two, the president retracted his explosive admission.

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One month later, on Dec. 31, 1999, the United States relinquished
control of the American-built multi-billion-dollar Panama Canal,
fulfilling the controversial 1978 treaty signed by President Jimmy
Carter and Panamanian dictator Omar Torrijos. Despite lawsuits,
congressional challenges, and dire warnings from the former chairman of
the joint chiefs of staff, Adm. Thomas Moorer, the canal was turned over
to the corrupt and militarily weak Panamanian government. As a result,
de facto control over the Canal Zone and its operations is widely
believed to be China's, due to its control over ports at both ends of
the canal.

The question now is, what will really happen in Panama, now that the
U.S. troops are gone, and how will it affect American security?

John F. McManus has a unique perspective on the military and economic
issues involved. He is president of the John Birch Society -- a favorite
target of liberals and conservatives alike. Indeed, for years the JBS
has been scoffed at by many as a paranoid, conspiratorial,
"sky-is-falling" hard-right organization.

Except that very often, the John Birch Society has proven to be right
on target. In "The 40-year gun grab,"
for instance, WorldNetDaily documented conclusively that the Birch
Society's decades-old claims -- long ridiculed as ludicrous -- that the
U.S. government's infamous "Document 7277" represented a "blueprint" for
disarming Americans, were actually true.

According to its website, the John Birch
Society is primarily an educational organization, formed to "restore and
preserve freedom under the United States Constitution, expose and rout
those forces working to enslave mankind, and then to inspire others
throughout the world to follow the example of America's newly recovered
freedoms."

In this Sunday's edition of WorldNetDaily, reporter Geoff Metcalf
talks to John McManus about China's increasing influence, not only in
Panama, but in other Western Hemisphere locations as well.