China's presence in Latin America.

It was a sight tragically typical of recent Haitian history. Fourteen people were wounded and a teenager was killed last December 15 in Cite Soleil, one of the largest slums in downtown Port-au-Prince, after armed thugs calling themselves "Chimeras" shot up the streets and set fire to a local hotel. Eruptions of street violence have been common in Haiti since the departure of Jean-Bertrand Aristide, the psychotic Marxist who ruled the island nation until February 29 of last year.

After Aristide fled the country, the UN Security Council created a multinational "peacekeeping" force, called the UN Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH), to restore "order" in the troubled island nation. When the Chimeras rioted on December 15, MINUSTAH, under the command of the Brazilian army, mounted a major operation intended to establish "a permanent presence" and "the rule of law" in the shanty town, according to spokesman Damian Anses Cardona.

The "military-police operation" was carried out "by land, air and sea," and included the use of armored vehicles, Cardona told France's AFP news service. Military personnel from Brazil, Jordan, and Sri Lanka were deployed, with support from elements of the Chilean air force. Much of the hands-on work of detention and interrogation, noted the AFP, was conducted by "special police units from Jordan and China, as well as Haitian national police."

The estimated 125 Chinese military police assigned to the UN's mission in Haiti are "the first Chinese troops to be deployed to the Western Hemisphere," observed a December 12 report by Communist China's Xinhua News Agency. Obviously negligible in number and offensive capability, the Chinese detachment constitutes a significant symbolic foothold in the Americas. More importantly, China's participation in multinational "peacekeeping" illustrates the extent to which Beijing is cultivating multilateral links--including military ties--with Latin America.

While the recent two-week Latin American tour by Chinese President Hu dealt primarily with trade, China's economic policy has inescapable strategic consequences. Captain Kenneth Puckett, U.S. Army (ret.), who served as Panama Canal port captain from 1994-1996, describes China's trade and shipping policy as "commercial encirclement."

Through Hutchison Whampoa, a Hong Kong-based company effectively controlled by Beijing, China now controls the "anchor ports" at both ends of the Panama Canal. Hutchison partners with the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO), which has more than 600 merchant ships described in the literature of China's People's Liberation Army as zhanjian--"warships."

"Because of trade surpluses ... Beijing has a lot of money to invest, and business interests all across North America are literally falling over each other trying to strike deals with Hutchison," Captain Puckett pointed out in a 2001 interview with The New American. Last December, after returning from a business trip to Managua, Nicaragua, Puckett confirmed that China has been diligently planting its assets in the region. "The Chinese are building ports and facilities all over the place, including, obviously, the Panama Canal Zone--which they now control," he told The New American.

China's entrenchment in the Canal Zone is critically important, warned Captain Puckett in congressional testimony in 1999, because "whoever operates the Panama Canal ... holds the switch that ultimately regulates world commerce." Almost 200 million tons of cargo pass through the canal each year. Shutting down the canal and re-routing even a portion of its traffic would virtually shut down American harbors, highways, and railroads.

This is why the canal remains a very tempting terrorist target--and one reason, among many, why China's growing ties to anti-American regimes and movements poses a significant strategic threat.