Letter: Remove ?communist? terminal owner at Long Beach port

Letter: Remove ôcommunistö terminal owner at Long Beach port A petition being circulated throughout the communities surrounding the San Pedro Bay ports claims that a Long Beach port tenant is part of a plot by China to attack the United States.
   The Fairfax, Va.-based U.S. Seaports Commission, a staunch opponent to foreign investment in U.S. port facilities, is circulating the letter, which also seeks donations.
   The group's Executive Director Jon Moseley said in a similar letter to Congress last year, 'The U.S. Seaports Commission has been warning for years about Pier J in Los Angeles harbor being controlled by an arm of the Chinese military, COSCO. We have warned about a front company controlled by Communist China having control of the entrance/exit ports of the Panama Canal.'
   The current letter, being aimed at elderly residents, says the “Red Chinese Army has steamed across the Pacific, dropped anchor in Pier J in the Port of Long Beach and started converting it into what looks like a Chinese military base.'
   The 256-acre Pacific Container Terminal in question, located on the Port of Long Beach's Pier J South, is operated by a partnership between COSCO and Seattle, Wash.-based SSA Marine. The terminal, with COSCO as a 51 percent majority lease holder, has been in operation for more than two decades.
   The letter is an elaboration on a series of solicitation that circulated through the port area during the late-1990s reuse process of the Long Beach Naval Base and Shipyard, located within the port. The base ultimately was rebuilt as the Pier T container terminal. Original plans to move COSCO to the 350-acre facility were squashed by Congress following a public outcry over the Chinese ownership of the firm. The controversy delayed the construction of the new facility and ultimately cost Long Beach its largest tenant, ocean carrier Maersk. The Danish shipping firm, a second choice to move into the delayed terminal, chose instead to move to the neighboring Port of Los Angeles who was building a new 400-acre terminal at the same time. South Korean ocean carrier Hanjin now occupies the Pier T terminal.
   “People need to know this terminal is American property owned by the city of Long Beach and leased to a private operator, which is a partnership between an American company and a Chinese company,” a port spokesman told the Long Beach Press-Telegram.
   “These are not Chinese military cargo vessels. They’re bringing in toys and furniture and all kinds of products that U.S. Customs officers inspect and check. If there was any wrongdoing, you can be sure they would know about it.”
   A 1996 U.S. Customs seizure of 2,000 AK-47s, the largest seizure of illegally imported automatic weapons to that date, was carried aboard a COSCO container vessel bound for Long Beach. The U.S. government charged, among others, upper level executives of two Chinese-government munitions manufacturers.
   Like many countries, China uses vessels of its national carrier — in this case COSCO — as part of its military planning.