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FrankRep
09-02-2012, 02:21 PM
http://www.thenewamerican.com/images/stories2012/10aMarch/romneyinbelmont-t-ap.001.jpg



Mitt Romney's controversial Bain Capital investments in China show his globalist sympathies, as does his connection to the Council on Foreign Relations.


Mitt Romney's China Investments -- The Story Behind the Story (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9280-romneys-china-investments-%E2%80%94-the-story-behind-the-story)


The New American
21 March 2012


Mitt Romney’s China investment controversy is far from over. A March 15 story in the New York Times concerning Romney’s family trust investments in a Chinese company that manufactures surveillance cameras used by the Communist Party-ruled police-state apparatus continues to cause waves and draw attention to U.S. policies vis-à-vis the People's Republic of China (PRC) that are immoral, as well as being harmful to our economy and harmful to the human rights of the Chinese people.

The Times piece reported that Bain Capital, the private equity firm founded by Romney, stands to profit from its buyout of Uniview Technologies, the Chinese company that is one of the largest providers of surveillance technology to the Beijing regime. Team Obama viewed the article as a godsend, providing an opportunity to counterattack Romney’s criticism (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204880404577225340763595570.html) of President Obama’s “weakness” on China and his administration’s failure to recognize that “the Chinese government continues to deny its people basic political freedoms and human rights.” Obama’s Deputy Campaign Manager Stephanie Cutter accused Romney of “hypocrisy” and of being "less than forthcoming" with his financial statements, especially as they relate to China.

In a press statement (http://www.politico.com/blogs/burns-haberman/2012/03/obama-camp-attacks-mitt-on-bains-china-investment-117710.html), Cutter said:



Now we know why Mitt Romney has been less than forthcoming about the details of his finances. Romney and his trustee claimed that he divested completely from Chinese-based companies. But today we learned that he continues to have a partnership interest worth hundreds of thousands of dollars in a Bain Capital fund that owns a Chinese video surveillance company. This revelation not only highlights Romney’s utter hypocrisy on China, but it also raises more questions about what his investments are and why he won’t reveal all of them.


The Times article reveals both less in the way of damning facts than Obama supporters would like us to believe, and more than Romney supporters would like to admit. The Times piece notes, for instance, that Romney had placed his stocks in blind trusts and had no control over the Chinese investments. It reported: "Mr. Romney has had no role in Bain’s operations since 1999 and had no say over the investment in China."

It noted further: "In a statement, R. Bradford Malt, who manages the Romneys’ trusts, noted that he had put trust assets into the fund before it bought Uniview. He said that the Romneys had no role in guiding their investments. He also said he had no control over the Asian fund’s choice of investments.”

Romney and his supporters have focused on the “blind trust” aspect of the Uniview Technologies stock, asserting that since he had no control over the purchase it represents no contradiction of his criticism of Obama’s China policy and no financial conflict of interest. They have also taken some solace from the report (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/election-2012/post/john-kerry-tied-to-controversial-bain-capital-investment/2012/03/16/gIQAlD2FHS_blog.html) by the Washington Post that Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, has a much larger stake than Romney in the Bain Capital Asia Fund that owns Uniview.

Uniview is a subsidiary of H3C Video Surveillance, which is listed as one of the stock investments owned by Bain Capital Asia (http://www.baincapitalasia.com/Investments/default.aspx?viewType=byalpha). The “H” in H3C stands for Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. (http://epoch-archive.com/a1/en/au/nnn/2011/06-June/Edition%20299/Edition%20299_p07.pdf), the Chinese telecommunications giant that is joined at the hip to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Liberation Army (PLA), and led by corporate president Ren Zhengfei, a dedicated CCP member and “retired” PLA officer.

But the Uniview/H3C investment is not the only troubling financial tie Romney and Bain have to Communist China. Bain Capital Asia also lists investments in Sinomedia Holding Limited (http://www.baincapitalasia.com/Investments/357/Sinomedia_Holding_Limited), which boasts, among other things, of being the major sales organization of advertising for China Central Televison (CCTV — better known as Communist China TV). Among the directors listed for Sinomedia is Mr. Lian Yuming. A profile of Mr. Yuming (http://markets.ft.com/research/Markets/Tearsheets/Directors-and-dealings?s=0623:DEU) in the Financial Times notes that he is a “researcher of the Research Center of National Conditions and Policies of the Party School of the Central Committee of Communist Party of China.”

Sinomedia’s other directors and officers are, apparently, more savvy; like many other corporate officers for Chinese companies these days, they have learned not to list their Party connections. However, CCTV, as China’s premier TV propaganda vehicle, is completely under Communist Party control, as has been documented in multiple studies, and as we reported last year in “Here Comes China’s Journalism (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9550-here-comes-chinas-journalism).”

We also reported last year that the CCP’s “Central Propaganda Department had issued new directives requiring all Chinese journalists to go through a new six-month program aimed at stamping out deviationist thought.” That would include, of course, the CCTV “journalists” who dispense the CCP-approved “news” that Romney/Bain and Sinomedia sell advertising for.

The Romney trusts also reportedly owned stock in other CCP/PLA-connected companies, such as Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, China Life Insurance, China Northshore Oil and China Merchants Holdings, and the China Fire and Security Group (http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/new-york-global-group-congratulates-china-fire--security-group-inc-on-the-completion-of-us265-million-merger-acquisition-returning-227-to-us-investors-133604133.html). There are also the similarly troubling Romney investments in Gazprom, the Russian state-owned company directed by Putin and his KGB-FSB mafiya cronies, and the Bain investments in Iran (http://theadvocate.com/home/1966862-125/romney-stock-trades-clash-with.html), through French banking giant BNP Paribas.

Although Romney can claim that the family trusts are “blind,” he reportedly gave his attorney, Mr. Malt, instructions to invest in only those companies that are in accord with his (Romney’s) beliefs and to divest from those that conflict with his values. If this is the case, it does not appear that Mr. Malt has performed as directed, yet there is no indication that Romney intends to replace him.

The disconnect between Romney’s rhetoric and performance on China is not his only disconnect problem. We see the same problem with regard to Romney’s stated position on stem cell research and the reality of his trust investments. Governor Romney was an avid supporter of the use of embryonic stem cells for research — until his alleged pro-life conversion in 2004. (Which conveniently coincided with his presidential aspirations and his recognition of the need to adopt a more conservative, pro-life stance in order to resonate nationally with GOP primary voters). However, as late as the end of 2010 Romney’s trusts still held stock in embryonic stem cell research companies Novo Nordisk, Teva Pharmaceutical (which also manufactures the abortifacient Plan B “morning after pill”) and Fresenius Medical Care (see here (http://theadvocate.com/home/1966862-125/romney-stock-trades-clash-with.html) and here (http://www.westernjournalism.com/warning-to-pro-life-voters-romney-on-abortion/).)).


Quadrennial Political Theater

In a February 18 opinion piece for the Epoch Times, Edward Gresser of the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization at Yale University chalks up Romney’s recent militancy on China to election year theatrics. Entitled, “In US, Every Four Years, Much Ado Over China (http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/opinion/in-us-every-four-years-much-ado-over-china-192603-all.html),” Gresser’s subtitle tells much of the story: “U.S. presidential candidates rail about China’s unfair trade practices—then backtrack once in power.”

Gresser observes:



It’s a familiar pattern in the United States: The party out of power runs against the China relationship, with an administration in power playing defense, making the best of an imperfect situation.

Whichever side wins, after the inaugural, U.S. policy remains essentially the same. Most dramatically, Ronald Reagan promised official relations with Taiwan after Jimmy Carter’s normalization of diplomatic relations with mainland China in 1979, and Bill Clinton proposed linking most-favored-nation tariffs to human rights in 1992.


After gaining the White House, however, both Reagan and Clinton backtracked. Why? “Once in office,” according to Gresser, “both presidents concluded that the big changes they had advocated would likely do more harm than good.”

Gresser, along with many other political analysts, attributes these reversals to the triumph of political realism over idealism. There is another more reasonable and more accurate explanation for these and many other recurring betrayals of campaign promises that also involve repeated betrayals of America, the Constitution, and our allies. Our disastrous China policies, like so many other foreign and domestic policies that are destroying our nation, have been designed and implemented by alternating Democrat and Republican teams from the Council on Foreign Relations (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/1213-council-on-foreign-relations) (CFR), the chief front for the one-world elitists who effectively carried out a stealth coup d'etat of our government long ago.

If Team Romney should succeed in replacing Team Obama, the difference will be little more than changing Tweedledum CFR Team A for Tweedledee CFR Team B. Of one thing we can be virtually certain: U.S. foreign policy vis-à-vis China under Romney would remain virtually unchanged, much as it has through Republican-to-Democrat/Democrat-to-Republican turnovers from Nixon to Obama. It was, after all, so-called Republican “elder statesman” (and uber-CFR “wise man” and David Rockefeller acolyte) Henry Kissinger (http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/10412-kissinger-sings-convergence-theme-with-chinas-red-song-choir) who masterminded our China betrayal four decades ago, and has shepherded the continuing bipartisan betrayal through one administration after another ever since. The New American repeatedly has pointed out that Barack Hussein Obama merely rotated the menu of CFR apparatchiks from previous administrations, replacing George W. Bush’s team of CFR advisors and cabinet members with his own CFR lineup (see here (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/foreign-policy/item/1213-council-on-foreign-relations), here (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/2970-obamas-debt-commission-means-more-spending-debt-and-deception) and here (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9753-romneys-advisors-are-leftist-elites)).

As we reported (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9245-romney-both-right--left-say-he%E2%80%99ll-flip-back-to-the-green-side) recently, Romney gives every indication of carrying on this CFR revolving door policy:



Romney has brought a very large contingent of globalists from the CFR roster onto his board of advisors, including Michael Hayden, Paula Dobriansky, Christopher Burnham, Eliot Cohen, Kim Holmes, Mitchell Reiss, Dov Zakheim, Kerry Healey, John Lehman, and Robert Kagan.


In addition, if there is one particularly striking feature of the CFR ruling elite, who own both the Democratic and Republican parties (especially at the national level), it is their representation among the Wall Street behemoths, as typified by Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase, Citibank, and the like. As the links below show, these Wall Street globalists — who are perfectly comfortable clinking champagne flutes with Red Chinese princelings, Russian Mafiya oligarchs, and tyrants of various stripes — have been showering both Romney and Obama with campaign cash.

Related articles:

Obama’s Wall Street Donors Turn to Mitt Romney (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9724-obamas-wall-street-donors-turn-to-mitt-romney)

Mitt Romney’s Advisors Are Leftist Elites (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9753-romneys-advisors-are-leftist-elites)

Wall Street Executives Support Mitt Romney (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9599-wall-street-executives-support-mitt-romney)

Mitt Romney's Skeletons: His Bain Capital Received Millions in Bailouts (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/10052-romneys-skeletons-his-bain-capital-received-millions-in-bailouts)

Here Comes China's Journalism (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9550-here-comes-chinas-journalism)

Kissinger Urges Obama to Build a "New World Order" (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/2493-kissinger-urges-obama-to-build-a-new-world-order)

Henry Kissinger: "The illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer." (http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/3492-kissinger-the-illegal-we-do-immediately-the-unconstitutional-takes-a-little-longer)

Henry Kissinger Sings Convergence Theme With China's "Red Song" Choir (http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/10412-kissinger-sings-convergence-theme-with-chinas-red-song-choir)


SOURCE:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/politics/item/9280-romneys-china-investments-%E2%80%94-the-story-behind-the-story

RDM
09-02-2012, 03:25 PM
From 2007:

Romney, Cheney in Deep with Iran Investments (http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000552.htm)
http://www.perrspectives.com/images/romney_cheney_iran.JPG
In a high profile effort to bolster his credibility on national security, 2008 Republican White House hopeful Mitt Romney (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/23/america/NA-POL-US-Romney-Iran.php) last week called on New York to divest its pension fund of any holdings in firms doing with business with Iran. But as it turns out, it is Mitt Romney's former employer with the ties to Tehran. And as you'd expect, Dick Cheney's Halliburton is in deep as well. Following the lead of former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2007/01/23/netanyahu_urges_new_england_states_to_divest_from_ iran/), Romney began his grandstanding on Iranian disinvestment by targeting the Democratic-controlled states of New York and Massachusetts. On February 22, Romney sent letters (http://www.mittromney.com/News/Press-Releases/Divestment_Iran) to New York Governor Eliot Spitzer, Senators Chuck Schumer and Hillary Clinton as well as state comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli urging a policy of "strategic disinvestment from companies linked to the Iranian regime." Romney's theatrics continued:

"With your new responsibilities overseeing one of America's largest pension funds, you have a unique opportunity to lead an effort to isolate Iran as it pursues nuclear armament. I request that you immediately launch a policy of strategic disinvestment from companies linked to the Iranian regime. Screening pension investments and divesting from companies providing financial support to the Iranian regime or linked to Iran's weapons programs and terrorist activities could have a powerful impact. New investments should be scrutinized as long as Iran's regime continues its current, dangerous course." As it turns out, scrutiny begins at home. As the AP detailed (http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/02/23/america/NA-POL-US-Romney-Iran.php), Romney's former employer and the company he founded have recent links to recent Iranian business deals:

Romney joined Boston-based Bain & Co., a management consulting firm, in 1978 and worked there until 1984. He was CEO of Bain Capital, a venture capital firm, from 1984 to 1999, despite a two-year return as Bain & Co.'s chief executive officer from 1991 to 1992. Bain & Co. Italy, described in company literature as "the Italian branch of Bain & Co.," received a $2.3 million contract from the National Iranian Oil Co., in September 2004. Its task was to develop a master plan so NIOC -- the state oil company of Iran -- could become one of the world's top oil companies, according to Iranian and U.S. news accounts of the deal.
Bain Capital, the venture capital firm that Romney started and made him a multimillionaire, teamed up with the Haier Group, a Chinese appliance maker that has a factory in Iran, in an unsuccessful 2005 buyout effort.
This is not the first time his former corporate home has proven to be the bane (pun intended) of Mitt Romney's political existence. During his failed 1994 Senate race and successful 2002 gubernatorial run, Romney was labeled a corporate raider (http://www.blueoregon.com/2006/10/mitt_happens_to.html) after revelations that a company Bain purchased in Indiana moved quickly to shed hundreds of workers and drop health care for many more.
But this time, Romney is playing dumb -- and blind. The former Massachusetts governor claims his investments are in Boston-managed blind trust beyond his control. And more importantly, Romney's declared that his new-found distrust of the Ahmadinejad regime in Tehran only applies going forward:

"This is something for now-forward. I wouldn't begin to say that people who, in the past, have been doing business with Iran, are subject to the same scrutiny as that which is going on from a prospective basis." Whether the Bill Frist defense (http://www.perrspectives.com/blog/archives/000256.htm) of the "blind trust that can see" will work for Mitt Romney on Iran remains to be seen. Vice President Dick Cheney for one seems to have mastered it.
In 2004, the CBS newsmagazine 60 Minutes (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/22/60minutes/main595214.shtml) detailed the Iranian business dealings of Cheney's former company, Halliburton. Despite the prohibitions signed into law by President Clinton with his 1995 executive order (http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iran/1995/950508-390469.htm) and the Iran and Libya Sanctions Act of 1996 (http://www.cnn.com/US/9608/05/clinton/), Halliburton continued to reap the profits of business with Iran through its non-U.S. subsidiaries. While U.S. law bans virtually all commerce with the rogue nations, Halliburton was able to jump through its major loophole: the rules do not apply to any foreign or offshore subsidiary so long as it is run by non-Americans. As CBS documented (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/01/22/60minutes/main595214.shtml):

That subsidiary, Halliburton Products and Services, Ltd., is wholly owned by the U.S.-based Halliburton and is registered in a building in the capital of the Cayman Islands -- a building owned by the local Calidonian Bank. Halliburton and other companies set up in this Caribbean Island, because of tax and secrecy laws that are corporate friendly. Halliburton is the company that Vice President Dick Cheney used to run. He was CEO from 1995 to 2000, during which time Halliburton Products and Services set up shop in Iran. Today, it sells about $40 million a year worth of oil field services to the Iranian government.
In the wake of the January 2004 60 Minutes piece, the company moved quickly (http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/2004/corpnws_012504.jsp) to declare that "Halliburton's business in Iran is clearly permissible under applicable laws and regulations" and cited its October 2003 disclosures (http://www.halliburton.com/news/archive/2004/report.jsp) to the New York City police and fire pension funds. Despite those assurances, Dick Cheney's old firm was subpoenaed by a U.S grand jury in June 2004. In early 2005 (http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2005/s299.html), Halliburton announced that it would end its business activities there when it fulfills its ongoing contracts, including a $35 million gas drilling project it had just won the previous month.
Though he does not benefit directly from the Iran contracts of Halliburton's foreign-based subsidiaries, Cheney continues to have (http://money.cnn.com/2003/09/25/news/companies/cheney/index.htm) financial ties to his former firm. Despite Cheney's assurances that "I've severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interest," a 2003 report (http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/09/26/politics/main575356.shtml) by the Congressional Research Service found that the Vice President retained 433,000 shares of Halliburton. In addition, Cheney received $162,392 and $205,298 in deferred payments in 2001 and 2002, respectively.
Given the stakes, it's no wonder Dick Cheney had a born-again experience on Iranian sanctions when he entered the Bush administration. While Vice President, Cheney in 2002 (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134836,00.html) denounced Iran as "the world's leading exporter of terror." But during his tenure as Halliburton CEO in the 1990's, Cheney strenuously argued against Clinton's sanctions regime and expanded Halliburton's business with Tehran. But in 1998, he complained that U.S. firms were "cut out of the action." And back in 1996, Cheney railed (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,134836,00.html) against the Clinton prohibitions on Iranian trade and financial activity for American firms:

"We seem to be sanction-happy as a government. The problem is that the good Lord didn't see fit to always put oil and gas resources where there are democratic governments." When it comes to disinvestment in Iran, Republicans like Mitt Romney and Dick Cheney shouldn't, to paraphrase then-candidate George W Bush (http://slate.msn.com/id/75530/), "take the high horse and then claim the low road." The task of decrying those who unwittingly provide aid and comfort to the Iranian regime is best left to those who are sincere about it, such as Oregon Senator Ron Wyden (http://wyden.senate.gov/media/index.html). In 2005, Wyden in reaction to the Halliburton's cozy relationship proposed a bill (http://www.fas.org/sgp/congress/2005/s299.html) to require the Treasury Department to publicly list both foreign firms doing business with Iran's energy interests as well as any U.S entities (http://wyden.senate.gov/media/2005/02042005_iran.html) holding more than a $100,000 stake in them. And just last month, Wyden introduced the "Stop Arming Iran Act (http://wyden.senate.gov/media/2007/01252007_F-14.htm)" to ensure that surplus parts and components from retired American F14 fighter jets are not auctioned off to arms dealers serving the government in Tehran.
But with campaign 2008 already underway, it is pretenders like Mitt Romney who have the microphone. His message: do as I say, not as I do.