John Kerry's Private Trade Trip To Beijing Chinese Kerry-Out

John Kerry's Private
Trade Trip To Beijing Chinese Kerry-Out

By Charles R. Smith
8-9-4  

John Kerry took time to pose in Beijing's Great Hall of the People. The Kerry campaign currently is struggling with recent photographs of the candidate, one dressed in a "bunny" suit at NASA and another on the bow of a ferry imitating a famous scene from the movie Titanic. However, a new photograph has emerged showing the Massachusetts senator in Beijing, People's Republic of China, working with a company associated with the Chinese military. The Kerry campaign and the Kerry Senate office both are refusing to comment on the Democratic presidential candidate's privately sponsored trade trip to China. Repeated phone calls both to Kerry's campaign headquarters and his Senate office were not returned.   During the late 1990s, John Kerry traveled on a "U.S. trade mission to the People's Republic of China organized and sponsored by a private corporation." The Kerry trip to Beijing was topped off with a "banquet in Beijing's legendary Great Hall of the People." To prove the trip was a success, the Massachusetts-based firm of Boston Capital & Technology photographed Kerry in the Beijing Great Hall of the People. The image and trip information appear at www.us-china.com, Boston Capital's Website   The photo shows Kerry, an unnamed Chinese government official and Paul Marcus, the head of Boston Capital & Technology. Marcus also refused to provide details of the China trip, including the time and date, whether the senator took money for his services, or the identity of the Chinese officials with whom Kerry met. "I am not doing an interview with you, and please don't call me again," Marcus declared.   The chief of Boston Capital and his Chinese-born wife, Moying Li, live in the same Beacon Hill district of Boston as Kerry, who used his half-interest in the family mansion to borrow $6.4 million to save his then-faltering presidential campaign.   While Marcus currently refuses to comment on the private trade trip to China, he does advertise his connection to Sen. Kerry on Boston Capital's Website, where Marcus claims that his firm was "China Advisor to U.S. Senator's commercial agenda for China." The Website goes on to says that Boston Capital: "Advised, assisted, and executed Minister-level commercial agenda for U.S. Senator. Advanced Senator in China for all Minister-level meetings, coordinated and acted as liaison to: The U.S. State Department, The U.S. Embassy in Beijing, The Department of Commerce, and all relevant Chinese authorities."   The Chinese Army Bank: In fact, Marcus is a business partner with the China International Trust and Investment Corp. (CITIC), a firm closely associated with the Chinese military and included on the Website a picture of himself meeting with CITIC officials in China. "Boston Capital & Technology is a bilateral contractual affiliate of both the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), China's largest trade organization, and the China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC), China's largest investment organization," the Website says.   CITIC is known as a front for the munitions manufacturer Poly Technologies Corp. According to a 1997 report prepared by the Rand Corporation, "Poly Technologies Ltd. was founded in 1984, ostensibly as a subsidiary of CITIC, although it was later exposed to be the primary commercial arm of the PLA [People's Liberation Army] General Staff Department's Equipment Sub-Department." The Rand report continues: "Throughout the 1980s, Poly sold hundreds of millions of dollars of largely surplus arms around the world, exporting to customers in Thailand, Burma, Iran, Pakistan and the United States. ... CITIC does enter into business partnerships with and provide logistical assistance to PLA and defense-industrial companies like Poly."   The Rand report notes that CITIC's Poly Group once tried to smuggle machine guns into the United States: "Poly's U.S. subsidiaries were abruptly closed in August 1996. Allegedly, Poly's representative, Robert Ma, conspired with China North Industries Corporation's (NORINCO) representative, Richard Chen, and a number of businessmen in California to illegally import 2,000 AK-47s into the United States."   Poly Technologies was run by international arms dealer Wang Jun and his "princeling" friend, the powerful He Ping, son-in-law of long-time Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. The Rand Corporation noted that "Wang Jun is both director of CITIC and Chairman of Poly Group, the arms-trading company of the General Staff Department."   In 1996, Poly Chairman Wang Jun met with President Bill Clinton inside the White House with convicted Chinagate figure Charlie Trie, who donated hundreds of thousands of dollars to the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign from Red Chinese sources. The Democratic Party later returned much of this donated money.   Satellites for China: While CITIC is reported by U.S. military authorities to be involved in the international sale of illegal arms it also is interested in obtaining advanced U.S. technology. The Boston Capital Website notes that the firm has been involved with the transfer of advanced U.S. space technology to China. Such references are viewed in the arms trade to have missile applications.   According to the Boston Capital Website, the company acted as a China adviser for a "U.S. High Technology Corporation's technology-transfer efforts in the People's Republic of China. They were responsible for technology transfer for full-scale manufacturing in China of technologies in telecommunications and satellites. ... Each production package sells for $15 [million] to $20 million. The Corporation has successfully transferred these [satellite] technologies to several Chinese manufacturers now in production."   It should come as no surprise that Marcus' partner in Beijing, CITIC, also owns a controlling interest in the Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecom Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat). Founded in 1988, AsiaSat operates several communications satellites in the Far East bought from U.S. manufacturers including Hughes. According to Aviation Week and Space Technology, in addition to direct TV broadcasts, AsiaSat satellites regularly carry communications traffic for Chinese military units and Chinese military-owned companies.   Sweet Deal Turns Sour: Not all of the Marcus projects in Communist China have turned out so sweet. In 1998 the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave Marcus a $77,000 contract to produce a report on the cranberry market in China. By 2001, Marcus had spun the contract and report into a deal to put Massachusetts-based Ocean Spray in business with China's largest juice company, perhaps looking to find markets and perhaps outsourcing a traditional American industry.   According to an article published in March 2001 by the Beijing Business Wire, "Under an agreement with the Beijing Huiyuan Beverage Group, Ocean Spray, the number-one brand of canned and bottled juice drinks in the U.S., will grant a 10-year license to Huiyuan for the Ocean Spray brand and technology." The official Beijing business report stated that Ocean Spray "made its initial contact with Huiyuan through the consulting firm Boston Capital & Technology, which had a personal working relationship with its chairman, Zhu. Their rapport with Huiyuan management helped secure the agreement."   Critics of the Ocean Spray deal quickly warned that Huiyuan Beverage readily could become a global competitor. According to the Huiyuan Website, the Chinese beverage company imported more than 40 advanced sterile filling lines, and set up two juice-extracting plants and six filling factories. The cranberry deal with China turned sour. Today, Ocean Spray officials refuse to comment on the 2001 China deal with Huiyuan. Ocean Spray no longer lists Huiyuan as a partner or as an official outlet of its products. In fact, Ocean Spray does not list any outlet for its products in China, and China is a major producer of cranberries and a major juice competitor.   Many Faces, No Answers: Who Marcus was working for in the juice case is not entirely clear, but he has completed several other sweet deals. Marcus is the founder of a number of firms that do business with Beijing, including not only Boston Capital & Technology but Boston Business Consulting, Massachusetts-Guangdong Committee Inc. and China Development Holdings Ltd.   The Marcus business savvy also extends far beyond China. He once sold the Webpage name bbc.com to the British Broadcasting Corp. for about $350,000. The Boston-based consultant also has time for the arts. He and his wife are listed as founders of the nonprofit American Friends of the National Gallery of the Cayman Islands, a lovely place notorious for hiding and laundering money.   John Kerry frequently has stated that he has had contacts with high-ranking officials of foreign governments. Yet, the Kerry campaign is refusing to answer any questions about the candidate's privately sponsored trade trip to China or his relationship with Marcus. But it would appear that the presidential candidate has many friends at high levels in Beijing. The Chinese official Internet news outlet of the People's Daily, official newspaper of the Communist Party of China, recently endorsed the senator from Massachusetts for president of the United States.   Charles R. Smith is an investigative reporter specializing in military and information technology.