FPI / March 22, 2020

Corporate WATCH

By Joe Schaeffer

After our economy and everyday national life is through being completely turned upside down and Americans stop dying from the coronavirus, prominent U.S. globalist companies are relishing the idea of getting back to business as usual vis-a-vis their cozy working ties with China's communist regime.

Alan Beebe, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China, an NGO whose stated "mission" is to "help American companies succeed in China through advocacy, information, networking, and business support services," has already said as much.

“The way I interpret that is, while they're taking a hit short term, there's no fundamental change in outlook," Beebe told CNBC on March 25, referencing a chamber survey on revenue declines by U.S. companies in China amid the pandemic.

"This indicates both patience and confidence that eventually business will return back to normal in China and this wouldn't lead to any abrupt changes in long term strategy," Beebe went on to say.

For those who have been awakened to the very real national threat posed by profit-driven U.S. big business collaboration with China, this is not a comforting thought.

Dr. Ramin Oskoui, CEO of Foxhall Cardiology, explained to listeners of The Sara Carter Show on March 12 the disastrous situation our country has been placed in due to having the vast majority of our pharmaceuticals manufactured in China:

"I think we need to have an open strong conversation not behind the scenes, not behind closed doors, but openly about drug companies re-shoring, making medications in the United States," Dr. Oskoui said. "It's unacceptable that the Chinese have us by the throat and make 95 percent of our antibiotics. And that's the critical thing that's got to change soon… actually make it a priority."

"The United States of America should never be in that position," he continued. "I think we need to turn to people we know that worked for Pfizer, worked for Merck, work for Amgen, work for Gilead, worked for Bristol-Myers Squibb the U.S. drug companies and say 'you know we understand that you have a few share obligations to your shareholders but you also have an obligation to your fellow Americans, as American citizens as an American drug companies' you need to start making it here just because you can make huge profits abroad we shouldn't be vulnerable to economic and political blackmail and vulnerable to the medical downside of these drugs being manufactured off our shores."

Such warnings are in direct conflict with the profit-obsessed goals of the American Chamber. An event billed as the "11th China Business Conference" is scheduled to be held in Washington soon, if it is not canceled by the China Virus, that is. Jointly hosted by the American Chamber and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's China Center, the conference boasts that it "provides business executives with unparalleled networking opportunities on China…." One of the three listed corporate sponsors for the 9th China Business Conference in 2018 was U.S. pharmaceutical giant Pfizer.

The Board of Governors for the American Chamber of Commerce in China features an interesting array of powerful companies. An executive from Boeing, one of the biggest benefactors of the corporate bailout included in the recently passed congressional coronavirus relief spending bill, is a member, as are execs from Dow Chemical, General Motors, IBM and Microsoft. Greg Gilligan of pro golf's PGA Tour China is chairman.

Another board member is Fernando Vallina, CEO of ExxonMobilChina. He is profiled in the most recent issue of the organization's "AmChamChina Quarterly" magazine posted on the group's website. In the publication, Vallina positively gushes that a tyrannical communist regime makes for ideal working conditions for a globalist capitalist company in today's business world.

"One of the things that is great about doing business in China is that, unlike many other places, the government priorities are very clearly spelled out," Vallina says in the piece. "You have a five-year plan that gets translated into industry plans. All you have to do is read what the priorities are for China."

Yes, there is that horrid human rights record, but if you just accept these people as they are, you can complete some very satisfactory transactions:

"I've never seen my role as looking for China to change and do things the way we do in other parts of the world," Vallina continued. "I've always seen my job as trying to find the fit between what China wants, whatever their model is, and what my company can offer – finding those areas of commonality and finding investment opportunities in it."

A scroll at the bottom of its website lists the many corporate partners in the American Chamber family. Included are Conoco Phillips, Dell Technology, Honeywell, Intel and pharmaceutical megacorporation Merck.

Other U.S. pharmaceutical companies listed in the group's membership directory include Eli Lilly, Gilead and Johnson & Johnson.

And then there is the National Committee on US-China Relations, another organization whose "mission" of fostering "constructive relations for the benefit of both countries and the global community" just so happens to coincide with lucrative business deals for multinational corporations. Some 30+ members of the group were signatories on a July 3, 2019 "Open Letter" published in The Washington Post titled "China Is Not an Enemy." Here is an excerpt from that letter:

"We do not believe that Beijing is an economic enemy or an existential national security threat that must be confronted in every sphere; nor is China a monolith, or the views of its leaders set in stone. Although its rapid economic and military growth has led Beijing toward a more assertive international role, many Chinese officials and other elites know that a moderate, pragmatic, and genuinely cooperative approach with the West serves China’s interests. Washington’s adversarial stance toward Beijing weakens the influence of those voices in favor of assertive nationalists. With the right balance of competition and cooperation, American actions can strengthen those Chinese leaders who want China to play a constructive role in world affairs."

Board members of the National Committee include Henry Kissinger and the head of the leftist globalist Ford Foundation's China office, as well as numerous CEOs and retired elected officials.

The organization's president, Stephen A. Orlins, was interviewed in January, right before the coronavirus hit America hard, by People's Daily Online West USA, a subsidiary of the Chinese communist regime's official People's Daily Online media outlet. Featuring Orlins as part of its "A Story Spanning 40 Years" special series, People's Daily Online West USA is not even concealing the fact that the longtime global business exec is being used as a useful tool for Chinese communist propaganda.

"The United States put out a national security strategy which I thought was fundamentally flawed," Orlins states in the interview. "It calls China a strategic rival and a revisionist power, and that's just not right and it's not good for America. At that point I felt I was the only person opposing that policy.... Now it's building. The opposition to these kinds of policies is growing in the United States. It's not shrinking. It's not disappearing."

"Corporate and Institutional Supporters" to the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations are once again too numerous to mention. A list can be found here. Included are BlackBerry, Chevron, Qualcomm, PayPal, United Airlines, the Walt Disney Company and Walmart.

Also in January, as part of the same "A Story Spanning 40 Years" series, the bloodstained communist regime's Western media organ interviewed Neil Bush, who shadily made millions in China while his brother George W. was president. He is now chairman of the George H. W. Bush Foundation for US-China Relations.

"The more I get criticized for my position on U.S.-China relations, the more strength I get from that, the more emboldened I get, the more I'm gonna speak up, the more active I'm gonna be through the Bush China Foundation," Bush assured the Chicoms.

In a July 2019 speech in Hong Kong, which is now the site of heroic demonstrations by freedom-seeking protesters, Bush parroted the "Open Letter" published in The Washington Post to a startling degree.

“China is not an economic enemy or existential national security threat to the United States … The demonization of China is being fuelled by a rising nationalism in the US that is manifested in anti-immigrant, anti-Chinese, pro-America-first rhetoric,” Bush said, the South China Morning Post reported.

Here's some background on Neil Bush. In 2002 he struck a deal that would see him earn $2 million in stock to serve as a "consultant" for Grace Semiconductor Manufacturing Corp., a Chinese firm tied to the son of former Chinese president Jiang Zemin. Australia’s Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reports Neil Bush being asked in a 2013 divorce deposition, “You have absolutely no educational background in semiconductors do you?” “That’s correct,” Bush responded.

At a time when patriotic Americans are now more amenable than ever to a Made in China boycott for health reasons on top of the already strong moral revulsion factor, and as our citizens become aware of the urgent necessity to bring our manufacturing back to this nation, know that there is a tightly bound network of leading globalist business entities that is bound and determined to keep its lovefest with the Asian communist tyranny running hot and heavy, no matter how much it may hurt America and endanger its people in the long run.

Joe Schaeffer is the former Managing Editor of The Washington Times National Weekly Edition. His columns appear at WorldTribune.com, LibertyNation.com and FreePressInternational.org.

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