As previously described in The Trilaterals Grand Chessboard, the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) organization was founded in 1989 during the administration of President George H.W. Bush. The U.S. Trade Representative was Robert Zoellick.
In 1993, Mexico joined. They must have joined after President Bill Clinton’s Blake Island meeting with APEC leaders because Mexico did not have representatives at the meeting.
APEC-PECC and Trade Facilitation and Investment
The output from the Blake Island meeting which was attended by Bill Clinton, a Leaders Declaration was published. The following are significant excerpts from the Declaration:
- +Blake Island Leaders Declaration
We are a vast Asia Pacific market of two billion people where dynamic economic growth continues, contributing to an expanding world economy and supporting an open international trading system;
Improved education and training produce rising literacy rates, provide the skills for maintaining economic growth and encourage the sharing of ideas that contribute to the arts and sciences;
Advances in telecommunications and transportation shrink time and distance barriers in our region and link our economies so that goods and people move quickly and efficiently;
We welcome the challenge presented to us in the report of the APEC Eminent Persons Group to achieve free trade in the Asia Pacific, advance global trade liberalization and launch concrete programs to move us toward those long-term goals…
We agree to convene a meeting of APEC Finance Ministers to consult on broad economic issues including macroeconomic developments and capital flows. We believe such discussions will help us address some of the challenges facing the region, including ensuring non-inflationary regional growth, financing investment and infrastructure development, and promoting capital market development.
We agree to make an investment in our future generations by establishing an APEC Education Program to develop regional cooperation in higher education, study key regional economic issues, improve worker skills, facilitate cultural and intellectual exchanges, enhance labor mobility and foster understanding of the diversity of our region. We agree to establish an APEC Business Volunteer Program to promote cooperation among us in the areas of human resource development and the exchange of management skills and techniques.
In the Initiatives section of the Blake Island Leaders Declaration, the following was listed as a step for the Pacific Business Forum to launch:
Pacific Business Forum – establish a forum comprised of two private sector representatives (including one representing small and medium business) from each APEC member to identify issues APEC should address to facilitate trade and investment in the region. The forum should present its report in 1994.
It should be noted that facilitation of trade means telecommunications and connected information systems for commerce.
Open Regionalism
The next meeting was held in Kuala Lampur in 1994. At that meeting, the Pacific Economic Cooperation Council (PECC) defined their agenda in a Concord. The following are significant excerpts:
We in PECC commit ourselves to becoming, quickly and effectively, a forceful movement for open regionalism. Such a commitment would constitute, in large part, a return to our roots:
When the PECC movement was launched in Canberra in 1980, the concept of an “open region” was not only an inspiration but also a cornerstone of the movement itself.
Prime Minister Masayoshi Ohira of Japan said:
“For the first time in history, the vast and broad Pacific Basin region has come to meet the pre-requisites for making possible the creation of a regional community.”
We must establish, he said, “open regional cooperation befitting the age of the global community”.
Pacific Rim APEC Members
In 1994, APEC leaders met in Bogor, Indonesia. The output of that meeting was the APEC Economic Leaders’ Declaration of Common Resolve. The following are very important excerpts that explain why Clinton gave technology to the Communist Chinese because China joined APEC in 1991:
- +Bogor Declaration of Common Resolve
2. A year ago on Blake Island in Seattle, USA, we recognized that our diverse economies are becoming more interdependent and are moving toward a community of Asia-Pacific economies. We have issued a vision statement in which we pledged:
— to ensure that our people share the benefits of economic growth, improve education and training, link our economies through advances in telecommunications and transportation, and use our resources sustainably.
3. The Asia-Pacific industrialized economies will provide opportunities for developing economies to increase further their economic growth and their level of development. At the same time developing economies will strive to maintain high growth rates with the aim of attaining the level of prosperity now enjoyed by the newly industrializing economies. The approach will be coherent and comprehensive, embracing the three pillars of sustainable growth, equitable development and national stability.
7. To complement and support this substantial process of liberalization, we decide to expand and accelerate APEC’S trade and investment facilitation programs. This will promote further the flow of goods, services, and capital among APEC economies by eliminating administrative and other impediments to trade and investment.
We emphasize the importance of trade facilitation because trade liberalization efforts alone are insufficient to generate trade expansion. Efforts at facilitating trade are important if the benefits of trade are to be truly enjoyed by both business and consumers. Trade facilitation has also a pertinent role in furthering our goal of achieving the fullest liberalization within the global context.
In 1995, the APEC meeting was in Osaka, Japan. In preparation for that meeting the PECC held a trade policy forum in Chinese Taipei. A report titled 1995: Implementing the APEC Bogor Declaration was produced. The report has an interesting statement in it that deserves explanation:
Responding to this invitation, PECC wishes to input its view formed through its unique tripartite participation of academic, business and government, all in their private capacity.
How does government meet anywhere in their private capacity? In normal circumstances, that statement could be dismissed as simply an error but since privatization of government was the objective since the Reagan Administration, it causes this writer to wonder if our government became a public facade for a private global governing system for multinational corporations and international institutions. The question that comes to mind is: Is that what Hillary Clinton was doing with her private server? Do public officials have the authority to act in a private capacity while holding public office? One persona for the American public and one for trade and economic development dealings? Would the later be the communist persona hidden from the American public?
One other significant thing happened in 1993 and 1994. In a timeline of U.S. Customs and Border Protection,
Mexico
In 1995, the Mexican government decided to privatize the nation’s seaport operations creating the possibility for 100 percent foreign investment in terminal ownership and up to 49-percent foreign investment in Port Authority Administration.
“Hutchison Port Holdings Ltd., is in the midst of a $290 million 20-year program to expand terminals operations in Lazaro Cardenas, Michoacan”.
Communist Chinese Military
In an article titled, Chinese Company Continues to Encircle the World written by Phil Brennan for NewsMax in June of 2001, he revealed that Hutchison Port Holdings had become the largest seaport operator in the world “embedding itself in strategic seaports all across the globe”. He sited a policy paper written by the American Foreign Policy Council:
“Hutchison Whampoa, through its Hutchison International Terminals subsidiary or Panama Ports Company, has substantial links to the Chinese communist government and the People’s Liberation Army“.
“The Panama Ports Company is 10 percent owned by China Resources Enterprise [CRE], which is the commercial arm of China’s Ministry of Trade and Economic Co-operation. In its investigation into China’s attempts to influence the 1996 U.S. presidential campaign, the U.S. Senate Government Affairs Committee identified CRE as a conduit for espionage – economic, political and military – for China. Committee Chairman Senator Fred Thompson said that CRE has geopolitical purposes. Kind of like a smiling tiger; it might look friendly, but it’s very dangerous.”
Sen. Trent Lott has described the Hong Kong firm as “an arm of the People’s Liberation Army.”
“Li has served as a middle man for PLA business dealings with the West. For example, Li financed several satellite deals between the U.S. Hughes Corporation and China Hong Kong Satellite [CHINASAT], a company owned by the People’s Liberation Army. In 1997 Li Ka-Shing and the Chinese Navy nearly obtained four huge roll-on/roll-off container ships, which can be used for transporting military cargo, in a deal that would have been financed by U.S. taxpayers.
The source for the information on Mexico’s economic development plan came from a brochure posted on the Kansas City SmartPort website.
From Southern Mexico northward, the plan was for a network of inland ports (See GATT, Article 5). The technology plan for this facilitation of Asian-Pacific trade was found on the North American International Trade Corridor Partnership (NAITCP) website. NAITCP merged into NASCO in 2005 but not before the Concept Draft of the Trans-Pacific Multimodal Security System (TPMSS) was captured.
The following are several significant points from the plan:
- +Trans-Pacific Multimodal Security System (TPMSS)
Cargo generation programs, customs modernization, infrastructure enhancements, operational improvements and the use of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) will help justify frequent maritime service between Mexico and Asia.
The essence of the TPMSS is to build additional transportation capacity in APEC region, realize operational improvements, implementation of innovative security and customs protocols while providing Mexican businesses with direct access to globally competitive multimodal systems.
The project proposes the development of a secure and agile transportation system to increase current capacity and, in the initial stages, will utilize the Kansas City SmartPort as its strategically located inland port in North America.
APEC Principles advanced by the project:
• Trade facilitation & capacity building
• Full participation of smaller economies and SME´s
• Public/private partnerships
• Enhanced security through customs coordination & technological innovationFounded on basic APEC principles, the TPMSS proposes to serve as an APEC Pathfinder risk management initiative for the trans-Pacific movement of cargo. The 2002 ABAC Chair Javier Prieto has proposed that several APEC economies create a public/private working group that would jointly develop the TPMSS as a pilot project for the key security programs such as the Business Anti-Smuggling and Security Coalition (BASC), the Container Security Initiative (CSI), the U.S.-Mexico Smart Border plan and the U.S. Customs – Trade Partnership Against Terrorism.
Most significantly is the “Counter Terrorism Strategy – promoting enhanced security” combined with the Shanghai Counter-Terrorism Declaration and the programs defined to meet the security demands of APEC:
“APEC Leaders have called for the implementation of enhanced customs communication networks and the development of a global integrated electronic customs network“
In October 2001, the APEC Leaders called for the implementation of projects designed to strengthen activities in the area of critical sector protection, including telecommunications, transportation, health and energy.
It appears to this writer that what we have been experiencing is war through the back door cloaked as trade and development.
