=Elaine Chao Reportedly Behind Firing Of Heritage Foundation Analyst Opposed To Bill Clinton’s Scheme To Close US Navy Base In Long Beach, CA And Lease It To China’s COSCO Shipping
Elaine Chao initially served as a fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, between 1996 and 2001, after previously serving as Chair of the Federal Maritime Commission from 1988 to 1989 and Deputy Secretary of Transportation from 1989 to 1991.
Around the same time, or shortly before, Chao began working at Heritage, President Bill Clinton, between 1995 and 1996, schemed to hand over the former Long Beach Naval Shipyard and Long Beach Naval Station in Long Beach, California to communist Chinese state-owned shipping company COSCO via a lease from the City of Long Beach.
COSCO’s lease went through, but the deal was eventually cancelled via Congressional action in 1998.
On April 15, 1997, California Republican Representative Duke Cunningham was recognized for 60 minutes to speak on the floor of Congress about the topic of “COSCO: A COMMUNIST CHINESE-OWNED COMPANY (C-SPAN VIDEO). According to the Congressional Record, Representative Cunningham stated:
Mr. Speaker, President Clinton took a personal role in promoting the interests of COSCO. At the same time he was cutting over 100 warships from the U.S. fleet, drawn up by the Bush administration, a 23 percent cut. The symbolism could not be anymore stark.
Richard Fisher, senior policy analyst with the Asian Studies Center of the Heritage Foundation, noted the real security concerns of Long Beach Steel in a Washington Times column on April 13. His main point is given below.
If it so desires, the Chinese leadership can direct that COSCO assets be put at the disposal of the People’s Liberation Army, the PLA, or the main espionage organ, the Ministry of State Security, the MSS. Do we really want a subsidiary of the People’s Republic of China, a future superpower, to have such large presence at a port on our own coast, one of the only two West Coast ports with a dry dock large enough to repair our aircraft carriers?
Mr. Speaker, I would say that we do not. It is one of the reasons that the gentleman from California [Mr. Duncan Hunter] and I offered a bill to stop this takeover by a Communist power of U.S. territory.
Paul Sperry, in a June 16, 2001 article at World Net Daily titled “Chao’s pro-China coup at Heritage, reported:
A Heritage Foundation military analyst who sounded warnings about Chinese threats to U.S. security was shown the door after Elaine L. Chao, the conservative think tank’s top Asian studies adviser, complained about his policy writings, WorldNetDaily has learned.
Chao’s views on China have come under closer scrutiny after President-elect Bush picked her to head the Labor Department. As a Cabinet member, she would have top-secret clearance and be in regular contact with national security officials…
…Some reports by the ousted Heritage analyst — 16-year veteran Richard Fisher Jr. — were footnoted in the declassified version of the bipartisan Cox Report, which documented Chinese espionage at U.S. defense labs, while warning of the CMC’s goal of modernizing the People’s Liberation Army to project power out past the mainland’s waters, targeting U.S. allies like Taiwan and even the U.S.
The Cox Report also rankled Chao, Heritage insiders say.
“Elaine Chao was part of the deal that got Rick Fisher fired from Heritage,” said a congressional aide who’s worked with him on China matters. “She pushed him out not because of free-trade issues, but because he raised national security concerns over China.”
A Heritage insider agreed: “She was not supportive of any of his writings on the Chinese military.”
China State Shipbuilding is constructing advanced warships for the People’s Liberation Army Navy.
https://archive.is/Ui71n