Harboring the enemy: while federal officials focus security measures on al-Qaeda and American citizens, Communist Chinese assets have free run of our ports, universities, and defense facilities.

China's Trojan Horses: Red Chinese Soldiers, Sailors, Students, Scientists and Spies Openly Occupy America's Homeland, by Dr. Roger Canfield, Sacramento, California: Military Magazine, 2002, 207 pages, paperback. Available for $15.00 plus shipping and handling from American Opinion Book Services, P.O. Box 8040, Appleton, WI 54912; by phone at 920-749-3783; or online at www.aobs-store.com.

On October 12, 2000, two terrorists in a rubber dinghy successfully attacked a $1 billion, high-tech, missile-equipped U.S. destroyer, the USS Cole, while it refueled at Aden, Yemen. Seventeen American sailors were killed and 39 injured in that attack, which also neutralized the Cole, one of America's most sophisticated warships. According to accounts of the incident, the terrorist "martyrs" in the dinghy smiled and waved to the American sailors as they motored alongside the Cole to detonate their deadly cargo at the designated spot.

Less than one year later, on September 11, 2001, terrorists struck again, with far more calamitous results, against civilian targets in New York City and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. Again, the attackers appeared to be friends, not enemies. Armed, apparently, only with box cutters, the 9-11 terrorists turned civilian airliners into deadly missiles.

Asymmetric Warfare

A rubber dinghy. Box cutters. These are prime examples of what strategists refer to as "asymmetric warfare," in which our militarily inferior enemies target a weak point--an Achilles Heel--rather than engaging our military forces in head-on, conventional battle.

In December 2000, the National Intelligence Council (NIC) issued a report, Global Trends 2015, identifying asymmetric threats, such as the Cole attack, as the wave of the future. "Such asymmetric approaches--whether undertaken by state or nonstate actors--will become the dominant characteristic of most threats to the U.S. homeland," said the report. "The goal of the adversary," the NIC report continued, "would be to move the weapon within striking distance by using short and medium-range missiles deployed on surface ships or covert missions using military special operations forces or state intelligence services."

In 1999, Communist China's People's Liberation Army published Unrestricted Warfare, a study detailing ways to defeat the United States through asymmetrical means. Authors Colonel Qiao Liang and Colonel Wang Xiangsui suggested that terrorism such as "a major explosion at the World Trade Center, or a bombing attack by bin Laden" could be employed to wage a new type of unrestricted war against America. This chilling scenario was proposed more than two years before the September 11th attacks. Coincidence? Days after the attacks, one of the authors, Col. Qiao Liang, penned a gloating article noting: "The first rule of unrestricted warfare is that there are no rules--nothing is forbidden." "There is nothing in the world today," he continued, "that cannot become a weapon."

The London Telegraph reported that China's leaders, contrary to their public statements of sympathy and support for the U.S., exulted in the humbling blow to America. And Beijing's propaganda ministry immediately churned out books, videos, and video games glorifying the terrorist acts.

Did China help sponsor the nonstate actors who carried out the 9-11 attacks and the attack on the USS Cole? We do not know, but it is certainly a plausible theory. China very definitely supports other state sponsors of terrorism: North Korea, Iran, Cuba, Syria, Libya. These regimes serve as proxies or subcontractors for Beijing. This fact alone makes the PRC a deadly threat to America, not an ally against terrorism. But, apart from the PRC's documented support for these state sponsors of terror, China on its own represents an asymmetric threat to America far greater than all of the "axis of evil" regimes (as President George W. Bush has called them) put together.

In China's Trojan Horses, Dr. Roger Canfield points out that while the danger from al-Qaeda-type terrorists who have infiltrated the U.S. is very real, it is paltry compared to the threat posed by China's agents, who have far greater access, assets, and capabilities. Canfield notes that "the Red Chinese may very well have placed thousands of potential agents in American universities, research centers, nuclear labs, silicon valleys, defense industries, and military bases. Already, Red Chinese agents, government officials, workers, students, and visitors have gained intimate knowledge of our technologies and our most critical infrastructures."

Dr. Canfield's book names names of Chinese officials and Chinese corporations and front companies now carrying forward Beijing's strategy of unrestricted warfare, on American soil, in American ports and waterways, and in strategic points worldwide. He also names American corporations, corporate leaders, current U.S. officials, and former officials serving as enablers and agents of influence for China's penetration and invasion of America.

Peril in Our Ports.

A major focus of China's Trojan Horses is the China Overseas Shipping Company (COSCO) and its shadow, the Orient Overseas Container Line (OOCL), whose ships freely sail in and out of U.S. harbors daily. "Although presented as a commercial entity," reported the House Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, "COSCO is actually an arm of the Chinese military establishment." In short, COSCO is a military asset of the People's Liberation Army (PLA). Ditto for the OOCL, run by Hong Kong's Tung family for the mainland Communists, the real owners of the shipping line.

COSCO's massive, global fleet of 600 ships includes about 100 that are always forward-deployed in U.S. waters. "One of COSCO's potential threats is its vessels commingling with U.S. Navy ships within the waterways and chokepoints of strategic U.S. seaports," Canfield warns. "COSCO ships in Seattle and Tacoma in Puget Sound lie just off the Straits of Georgia and Juan de Fuca." There COSCO ships sail amidst many warships of the U.S. Pacific fleet. "Similarly, COSCO also now sits in the middle of the U.S. Navy's Atlantic Fleet at Norfolk past Hampton Roads, the waterway entrance to Chesapeake Bay."

"Since men and women of the USS Cole are dead and wounded because of a mere rubber dinghy, it is prudent to watch the PLA deployment of COSCO's worldwide fleet of 600 vessels," notes Canfield, in a burst of understatement. "It is rational and. reasonable to improve security measures for vessels, facilities and citizens at American seaports where COSCO calls."

Rational, yes. In fact, anything less qualifies as official criminal negligence. But there is little rationality to be found when it comes to port security. Since the September 11th attacks, public officials from the president on down have been telling the American people that we must accept drastic new restrictions on our liberties in the "war on terror." We must welcome searches, surveillance, and routine invasion of our privacy. But officialdom has made no such attempt to inconvenience COSCO and other PLA assets endangering U.S. security.

As China's Trojan Horses points out, on-site surveys by the Interagency Commission on Crime and Security at U.S. seaports has found that only 2 percent of all trade cargo is physically inspected. Millions of cargo containers are brought into American ports each year uninspected. What do they contain, besides VCRs, GameBoys, cell phones, blenders, tennis shoes, and millions of other made-in-China products? Well, we do know that on at least a few occasions they have been found to contain drugs, illegal aliens, and even thousands of automatic weapons for California street gangs. Is it possible that many more of them contain similar contraband--or even worse? Is it possible that they may contain larger weapons, even biological or nuclear weapons? Is it possible for a rubber dinghy to take out a destroyer or a few guys with box cutters to take down the World Trade Center and the Pentagon?

Yes, it is not only possible, but plausible and probable. As Canfield points out, the PLA refers to COSCO ships as "zhanjian" or warships and boasted a few years ago that COSCO workers are and will be "ready for battle into the next century." Canfield quotes Chinese Communist publications bragging of military exercises in which container ships are quickly converted into heavily armed warships.

Long Beach, our country's largest port facility, became the focus of Republican concern during the Clinton Chinagate scandals, especially when the Clinton White House tried to give COSCO a 20-year lease to the former Long Beach Naval Station. But the same GOP congressional contingent and pundit claque breathes nary a word today about the ongoing COSCO and OOCL expansion projects at Long Beach, Los Angeles, and many other U.S. ports. China's Trojan Horses provides detailed information--including maps, photos, and diagrams--on the operations and facilities of COSCO, OOCL, and other Red fronts at Long Beach, Los Angeles, Oakland, Seattle, Portland, New York-New Jersey, Charleston, Norfolk, Houston, Savannah, and New Orleans.

Continuing Pro-China Policy

Canfield provides a useful recapitulation of the Chinagate dramatis personae: Bill Clinton, William Perry', Johnny Chung, John Huang, Charlie Trie, Loral, Hughes, McDonnell-Douglas, et al. He also provides important information on top guns in the Republican China lobby: Henry Kissinger, Al Haig, George Shultz, James A. Baker III, Lawrence Eagleburger, Howard Baker, Dick Cheney, Elaine Chao, and Andrew Card (President Bush's chief of staff).

In addition, China's Trojan Horses exposes the serious national security problem caused by Congress and the State Department in their inexcusably promiscuous granting of visas of all kinds--F-1, H-1 B, J, J-1, and L--to hundreds of thousands of Chinese students, scientists, and hightech workers. Who does background security checks on these people or conducts follow-up checks to see that they have left the country at their appointed times? In all too many cases, this security is lax to nonexistent. And what of those who enter illegally? The aforementioned Interagency Commission found illegal aliens being smuggled into 10 of 12 U.S. seaports surveyed. It also reported that U.S. immigration authorities have "no way of knowing whether manifested crews actually leave on the ship they arrive on ... or remain illegally in the United States." That should give cause for serious heartburn the next time you, an American citizen, are subjected to a humiliating search at the airport.

Roger Canfield has performed a very important service in sounding a timely and credible alarm about an imminent danger to which all too many American officials are willfully blind. China's Trojan Horses is a must read. To ignore its obvious warning is to invite future attacks that could dwarf the destruction, loss of life, and loss of liberty caused by the September 11th attacks.