The Post-Dispatch editorial “Trump fails Diplomacy 101” (Jan. 7) was spot-on in warning readers about the Chinese takeover of the Panama Canal. The only problem: This information is 20 years old. Also, the editorial board may have a spell-check program error that inserts “President Donald Trump” when it obviously means “President Bill Clinton.”
Phyllis Schlafly, and many others, detailed the Chinese takeover of Panama in 1999, shortly before ownership of the canal was transferred. Even the briefest bit of research shows that China wined, dined and bribed its way to unfair ownership of prime property at both ends of the canal. China gained military and economic supremacy over the canal directly from Panama’s Law No. 5 that passed on Jan. 16, 1997.
This should have been but predictably was not met with outrage from the Clinton administration, which didn’t lift a finger to stop Hong Kong-based Hutchison Whampoa from buying China’s way in. Law No. 5 blatantly violates many articles of the Panama Canal Neutrality Treaty. As Schlafly said, Jimmy Carter would never have succeeded “if the Senate in 1978 could have looked into the future and know that, when the U.S. flag is lowered on December 31, 1999, Red China would become its gatekeeper.”
Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch