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Strategies & Market Trends : HONG KONG -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom who wrote (2732)	3/16/1999 7:06:00 PM
From: Dayuhan	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 2951

Ah yes, Hutchison-Whampoa, that notorious bastion of communism. Wouldn't you say that describing HWI as a front for the Red Navy is a bit of a stretch? Perhaps Adm. Moorer saw the color red on their website, or suffers from the illusion that anyone with slanted eyes is necessarily a devotee of Mao. HWI's bid to operate the Subic container terminal - not the entire freeport zone - was scrapped not for security reasons, but because ICTI, a Manila-based company with a majority Filipino ownership, raised hell when HWI won the bidding process. ICTI claimed that priority should be given to domestic firms, and convinced a substantial number of legislators to agree. The whole episode was widely regarded as a backward step for foreign investment and the development of a free market economy. Many Filipinos are a bit paranoid about the economic influence of the overseas Chinese community, but Communism is not the issue. You'd be hard pressed to find any group anywhere that is as thoroughly anti-Communist as the overseas Chinese in Asia. Adm. Moorer's analysis touches on many areas that are not within my expertise. In the one area in which it is well within my expertise, it contains wild exaggerations and outright falsehoods. This does not lead me to dismiss the entire piece: I have my own misgivings about Chinese intentions in the region. But I am certainly going to adopt it as gospel truth. One bad apple doesn't spoil the whole barrel, but if the first apple you see is rotten, you'd be well advised to inspect each one carefully before buying. Moorer proceeds from an exclusively military viewpoint. Anyone interested in overall policy development has to give at least equal consideration to political and economic factors: the military view is only one side of the picture. I have to wonder if Moorer is still drawing his share of the DoD budget as a consultant, as so many former top brass are?