American Port Security

by Jonathon Moseley

Remarks at the November 11, 2009 Freedom Leadership Conference, by Jonathon Moseley, Executive Director, American Border Control (formerly U.S. Seaport Commission), a project of United States Public Policy Council (USPPC).  Moseley is a practicing attorney serving clients in Northern Virginia and Richmond, VA.  He is a past Executive Director of the Legal Affairs Council and is serving his second term as a member of the USPPC Board of Directors, which has been the main organizer of this Freedom Leadership Conference for the past ten years.

• American Border Control, previously called the US Seaport Commission, has been focusing on the threat to our nation’s security from the communist Chinese controlling Pier J at the Port of Long Beach in California.
• We are concerned about security at all of our nation’s seaports and border crossings against terrorism, crime, drug violence, and illegal immigration.
• However, the situation at Pier J in Long Beach, California is so disturbing and egregious that if we cannot get our government to address this security breach, then we cannot expect serious solutions on much of anything. So we have made Pier J a showcase for improving our nation’s border security.
• First, let me explain what we want. America’s seaports are the sovereign BORDERS of the United States. These are legal ports of entry, a core Constitutional government function. This is where the United States decides who and what will come into our nation.
• No matter where you stand on foreign imports, we can all agree that China does not need to have a base on U.S. soil simply to import products into the U.S.A.
• Imports from China can arrive on Chinese ships. They can be unloaded by American longshoreman, supervised by Americans, using American cargo-handling equipment, onto American controlled and operated piers.
• There is absolutely no reason why a foreign trading partner needs to physically control land on U.S. soil just to sell us products. We buy products from lots of other countries and their ships are unloaded by Americans at American run piers.
• In fact, COSCO subcontracts some of its cargo-handling work to SSA Marine, a stevedore company based in Seattle, Washington. Pier J should be handed over to SSA Marine 100%. COSCO should be cut out of the loop, and let only Americans operate this American seaport on American soil.
• Long Beach is the 2nd busiest port in the United States, the 17th busiest in the world. 6,487,816 shipping containers moved through the Port of Long Beach in 2008.
• The Chinese Overseas Shipping Company or COSCO holds a 20 year lease only 5 miles across Los Angeles harbor from the city of Los Angeles. Over 30 massive COSCO ships dock each week at Pier J.
• Communist China has also infiltrated ports at Seattle, Washington, Oakland, California; Baltimore, Galveston, Texas, Miami, Florida, New Orleans, Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina.
• The Chinese Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO) presents itself as just a business. But it has only one shareholder – the communist government of the People’s Republic of China. We saw at Tienneman Square that in communist China, everyone must do what the government commands, or else.
• COSCO is the world’s fourth largest shipping company, with 600 ships. However, it is actually under the control of the Chinese Communist government. COSCO is officially under the Chinese Ministry of Communications, under the State Counsel, which is led by Communist Party Politburo member and Premier, Li Peng. U.S. intelligence authorities report, however, that COSCO is actually controlled secretly by and is an arm of China’s People’s Liberation Army.
• If a surprise attack were ever used to open a war, COSCO’s ships could carry weapons, even military helicopters and jets, and even nuclear bombs. Artillery unpacked from a COSCO ship could fire nuclear bombs into the city of Los Angeles from Pier J. Nuclear warheads can be delivered as a large artillery shell. Jets smuggled in on Chinese ships could also reach San Diego’s major naval base.
• We hope there will never be war with China, but if we make it easy we encourage it. If we lock our doors and windows, we make it harder for China to achieve a knock-out first strike.
• On September 10, 2001, no one believed that foreign terrorists either could or would attack the USA on US soil. But they surprised us by finding several cracks in our defenses we weren’t paying attention to. We did not realize that they were moving among us and we had left the gun cabinet unlocked.
• At Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, no one believed Japan either could or would attack, despite lots of warning signs.
• Our military was so sure that torpedo planes could never attack Pearl Harbor, because the torpedoes would smash into the mud. The harbor is only 25-30 feet deep outside the shipping channels. So it could never happen. That’s why all the ships were bunched up together. Because we “KNEW” that airplanes could not attack our ships at Pearl Harbor.
• But the Japanese came up with a new way of doing things, making torpedoes that worked in a shallow harbor. But we didn’t know about it. We only discovered this when our ships were exploding.
• Today, we think we know what our enemies like China can and cannot do. But we won’t really know until they surprise us with new tricks.
• Pier J is essentially a 147 acre naval base on U.S. soil controlled by a subsidiary of China’s military, led by Captain Wei Jiafu. Both Ron Wilcox and I have conducted investigations on site at Pier J over the last few years. COSCO has stacked up a line of shipping containers 2 and 3 layers high, all along the highway, blocking the view of what they are doing in there. In other places, high fences hide China’s activities inside Pier J.
• Now, American Border Control is warning Americans that things are going to get worse. Our investigation has obtained a document called the Port of Long Beach’s Facilities Master Plan.
• The Port of Long Beach harbor Commissioners have approved a controversial expansion project that will turn Pier J into a massive 385-acre megaterminal. Under the 20 year lease, Communist China will control this 385 acre site in Los Angeles Harbor. However, the City of Long Beach will pay for the expansion.
• I confirmed this just yesterday with the Engineering Department of the Port of Long Beach, with Ms. Conley there. Within a year or two, Long Beach will add another 54 acres then another 115 acres. The Port will build more land where there is now ocean by dredging the harbor, adding giant boulders, and extending the land further out into the sea. This is how the current Pier J was created. A Pier J expansion of 120 acres was completed in the early 1990s.
• So, while the US economy is struggling and American factories are dying, we will vastly expand imports from China.
• Are cargo ships owned and operated by China’s military a threat?
• People don’t understand that as the operator of Pier J, China sits around the table developing the security plans for Los Angeles harbor. Not only do they get to see America’s secret security plans because they operate Pier J, but they actually help WRITE those plans. China could tell a terrorist enemy exactly how to defeat America’s security defenses.
• If they did not control Pier J, they would just pull their ships up to the dock. But because they run Pier J, they participate in developing the detailed security plans for the Port of Long Beach. The process has all the stakeholders get together and implement the general guidelines of the law.
• “COSCO has a very long and troubling record of shipping both weapons and components of mass destruction around the world,” said California Congressman Duncan Hunter, adding: “[T]hey carry the cargo of the Chinese military upon command and without question. We do not need to increase their access to American soil.”
• In April 2008, then CIA chief Michael Hayden charged that China was beefing up its military with “remarkable speed and scope,” calling the buildup “troubling.”
The Communist Chinese, Hayden said, had studied America’s military tactics in Iraq and have fully absorbed the lessons of both Gulf wars. China has developed and integrated advanced weaponry into a modern military force, after watching America’s military in action.
• Just 2 weeks ago, on October 30, 2009 a U.S. Navy admiral expressed new concern over China’s military buildup. China’s military is growing at an “unprecedented rate,” Rear Adm. Kevin Donegan told reporters on a visit to the Chinese territory of Hong Kong. “I am absolutely concerned,” Admiral Donegan said.
• Donegan is commander of the USS George Washington aircraft carrier strike group, a key part of the U.S. Pacific Fleet.
• Donegan warned about China’s expanded weaponry. The Admiral’s warnings echoed the concerns of other U.S. military leaders who have said the growth in China’s military spending raises questions about Beijing’s intentions. China’s military spending has jumped almost 15 percent in the 2009 budget.
• China has boosted military spending by more than 10 percent EVERY YEAR for almost two decades. And these official figures for China’s defense spending are believed by many analysts to represent only a fraction of China’s real total military budget. China is hiding most of its budget.
• China has been adding sophisticated new warships, submarines, fighter jets and other weapons systems to its arsenal.
• In April 2006, a Chinese-American was convicted in Los Angeles of trying to smuggle 200 CHINESE-made QW-2 shoulder-fired missiles into the United States, says the FBI’s Los Angeles office.
• These 200 anti-aircraft missiles are like American ‘stingers.’ These portable, shoulder-fired missiles can shoot down and destroy civilian passenger jets, or B-52’s or B-1 bombers taking off during a military crisis. A guerrilla or terrorist could jump out of a car near an airport, pull the missile off the car seat, put it on his shoulder, shoot down an airplane, and then zoom away in a speeding car before anyone realized what was happening.
• Passenger jets taking off or landing at US airports could be shot out of the sky to spread chaos and economic panic in the United States.
• The FBI uncovered the plot during their “Operation Smoking Dragon.” The proposal was to sell 24 shipping containers. That is, the missiles were packed for shipping on COSCO ships through Pier J in Long Beach, controlled by COSCO as an arm of the Chinese government.
• Chinese General Wang and a Chinese government-run company named Xinshidai were behind the missile-smuggling conspiracy, reports Bill Gertz of the Washington Times.
• COSCO was also caught transporting 2,000 AK-47 fully-automatic assault rifles destined for Los Angeles Chinese street gangs. The Empress Phoenix, a COSCO ship, was boarded by U.S. Customs agents. The guns were manufactured by China’s Poly Technologies. That means the plan had the Chinese government’s full approval, according to liberal Democratic Senator Charles Schumer, in a 2001 press release (then a Congressman).
• Yet weeks after that incident, the Chinese president of Poly Technologies, Chairman Wang Jun, was having coffee in the White House with President Bill Clinton. The White House clearly knew about the Customs raid on the ship.
• Hong Kong’s Cheng Ming newspaper quoted Chinese Defense Minister Chi Haotian as saying war with the United States is inevitable. He said: “The issue is that the Chinese armed forces must control the initiative in this war. . . . We must be prepared to fight for one year, two years, three years or even longer.”
• A report prepared by top Chinese foreign and military specialists declares the United States as China’s main enemy.
• Chinese Gen. Xiong Guang Kai threatened to ‘rain nuclear bombs on Los Angeles.’
• In July 2005, Major General Zhu Cehghu threatened a nuclear attack against the United States in a speech to an official meeting of journalists organized by the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Gen. Zhu explained at length that China must rescind its “no first use” policy because China could not defeat America in a conventional war, and therefore must resort to nuclear weapons.
• Curiously, these Generals have not been fired, indicating that they were speaking with official Chinese approval to threaten Americans.
• The US military has seen COSCO’s merchant ships sometimes participating in naval war games, in the Chinese military’s amphibious assault exercises.
• During a period of high tensions, a COSCO merchant shipped was used as a platform to fire rocket artillery during naval exercises to intimidate Taiwan.
• During the Vietnam War, U.S. pilots experienced anti-aircraft fire from Chinese ‘merchant’ ships.
• COSCO’s ‘Haifeng’ container ships have large stern elevators that can launch tanks and armored vehicles onto beachheads. The large roll-on ships could rapidly unload all kinds of tanks, military jets, and armored personnel carriers onto US soil at Pier J.
• Ming Pao reported that some of COSCO’s ‘merchant’ ships can be fitted with guided missile launchers, large caliber artillery and multi-barrel rocket launchers, as well as medium and small-caliber anti-aircraft guns. Some COSCO ships can be equipped with large-caliber and multiple-tube rocket launchers, medium-sized and small caliber anti-aircraft guns, and heavy anti-tank missiles and shoulder-fired air defense guided missiles. COSCO ships can be used for laying anti-ship mines and anti-submarine warfare.
• Yet I can’t think of when America ever been so cozy with a threatening enemy. Today, American politicians fall all over themselves to kowtow to China.
• In past years, we have flooded Congress with petitions demanding action and supporting legislation that would address this problem.
• However, things have gone from bad to worse. This year, when we looked at legislative proposals in Congress, we saw almost nothing we really liked to kick the Chinese communists out of US seaports.
• Therefore, we did the only thing left. We wrote our own legislative proposal, the Seaport Security Act.
• Now, we need every concerned American to help us get the Seaport Security Act introduced in Congress. We are asking every American to contact their Member of Congress and ask them to support this bill.
• The Seaport Security Act would require that only American companies can own and operate critical American infrastructure such as seaports.
• Remember these are ports of entry into the United States. They are border crossings.
• While foreign ships are welcome to import products into the United States, American companies and workers should supervise what gets in. A copy of the bill is available on our website www.AmericanBorderControl.org
• To make this happen, we need every concerned American to sign our petition to Congress. And we will need the ammunition of money from donations in order to fight back.
• Also, we will be reviewing the lease between COSCO and the Port of Long Beach. Even though the lease runs until 2022, you know that if you lease a house or apartment, and you smuggle 2,000 AK-47’s through the place, your landlord would have grounds to cancel the lease. We will be sending petitions directly to the Board members of the Port of Long Beach and to its security chief pointing out any violation of the terms of the lease. We will urge Long Beach to cancel the lease with COSCO, and allow SSA Marine to take over exclusive operation of Pier J.

   Send article as PDF