Governors: Stop Partnering With Communist China’s State-Owned Corporations

Many U.S. governors are actively seeking to attract investment money from China’s state-owned corporations. In some cases they are using taxpayer-paid incentives to sweeten the deal. In order to expedite such investments, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton signed a Memorandum of Understanding with her counterpart from China on January 19, 2011 that established the U.S.-China Governors Forum. The first meeting of this forum was held July 15-17 in conjunction with the annual meeting of the National Governors Association in Salt Lake City. Some 20-30 U.S. governors took part in the forum. The next forum will be held in China in October.

The John Birch Society has taken a stand against the participation of American governors in the U.S.-China Governors Forum in particular and against our governors making business, educational, environmental, and energy agreements with state-owned and –controlled corporations in China in general.

To understand why the JBS has taken this position, read the open letter (PDF at right; text shown below) that JBS CEO Arthur R. Thompson sent to all 50 governors before the first U.S.-China Governors Forum held in Salt Lake City, July 15-17:

From the murder of John Birch, to the Cultural Revolution, to the Tiananmen Square Massacre, up to today when hundreds of thousands of Chinese all over China are in protest against the government and are being suppressed by the Peoples' Liberation Army, a reign of terror by the Chinese communist government has existed.

The official policy of the Peoples' Liberation Army is that America remains the enemy and it is their goal to defeat us.

Yet we see businessmen and politicians running to China for deals that, in the long run, hurt our economy and even threaten our freedom.

Money isn't everything.

Principle and truth are everything. They are the foundations of our nation and we have proven over and over again that when we do business with tyrants, they will take advantage of us and it often results in war.

We endorse the free exchange of people in a free atmosphere, but history has shown that such intercourse between governments leads to disaster for the more gullible and trusting.

Communism remains the style of government on mainland Asia. It is incompatible with truth and principle.

We prayerfully ask that you reject even the idea of meeting with the Chinese at the upcoming Governors' Conference in Salt Lake City.

You would not do business with people in your state who have connections with crime or are just plain dishonest. The same should hold true internationally.
Unsurprisingly, despite this open letter and thousands of emails with similar messages in opposition to the U.S.-China Governors Forum that were sent by grassroots Americans to all 50 governors, over thirty governors (according to China's press) and over twenty (according to our State Department) were reported to have participated in the forum in Salt Lake City, July 15-17.

Although there doesn’t appear to be an official list of governors that participated in the forum, here is a partial list of participants as revealed by news articles and official videos: Washington Governor Gregoire, Iowa Governor Branstad, Delaware Governor Markell, Utah Governor Herbert, Maryland Governor O'Malley, Connecticut Governor Malloy, Missouri Governor Nixon, Nebraska Governor Heineman, and Rhode Island Governor Chaffee.

For some of the details behind the JBS stand against U.S. governors forming partnerships and other cooperative initiatives with state-owned corporations in communist China, read “China: The New Investment Savior?” by William F. Jasper, TheNewAmerican.com, May 12, 2011.

For some specific examples of how the National Governors Association, the U.S. State Department, and individual governors have made a concerted effort to avoid the word “communist” when referring to the leading Chinese officials that participated in the U.S.-China Governors Forum, read “U.S.-China Governors Forum: Not All Sweetness & Harmony” by William F. Jasper, TheNewAmerican.com, June 25, 2011.

This issue is not going away. Many of our governors are already enthusiastic cheerleaders for partnering with communist China’s state-owned corporations as a growth strategy for their states. These governors are not sufficiently aware that “in China’s state-monopoly system of Leninist ‘capitalism,’ its corporations are instruments of national policy, fully integrated with, and subservient to, the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Peoples Liberation Army (PLA).”

Already the National Governors Association has adopted an opaque press strategy reminiscent of communist regimes by denying press credentials for the National Governors Association (NGA) Annual Conference and the concurrent U.S.-China Governors Forum, July 15-17, to William F. Jasper, Senior Editor for The New American magazine, while freely providing press credentials to government-employed and -controlled journalists from China. The NGA’s reason for barring Jasper, a veteran journalist who has covered international conferences around the world, was that The New American does not produce “unbiased” and “objective” reporting. This is laughable when you realize how biased the articles are from China’s journalists. You can read the details about this infringement of the freedom of the press at the taxpayer-funded NGA meeting in Jasper’s July 25 article, “National Governors Conference: China Sellout Begins With First Amendment.”

If you agree that our U.S. governors should not be partnering with communist China’s state-owned corporations, contact your governor (copies will automatically be sent to your lieutenant governor, attorney general, state senator, and state representative) and personally give him or her this message:

Regarding state initiatives to attract investment money from communist China’s state-owned corporations -- Money isn't everything. Principle and truth are everything.

Please do not participate in future U.S.-China Governors Forums and please do not pursue any cooperative initiatives with communist China’s state-owned corporations.
Thanks,

Your friends at The John Birch Society