Chinese Kerry Out: John Kerry's Private Trade Trip to Beijing

The Kerry campaign currently is struggling with recent photographs of the
candidate, one dressed in a "bunny" suit at NASA and another on the bow of a
ferry imitating a famous scene from the movie Titanic. However, a new
photograph has emerged showing the Massachusetts senator in Beijing,
People's Republic of China, working with a company associated with the
Chinese military. The Kerry campaign and the Kerry Senate office both are
refusing to comment on the Democratic presidential candidate's privately
sponsored trade trip to China. Repeated phone calls both to Kerry's campaign
headquarters and his Senate office were not returned.

During the late 1990s, John Kerry traveled on a "U.S. trade mission to the
People's Republic of China organized and sponsored by a private
corporation." The Kerry trip to Beijing was topped off with a "banquet in
Beijing's legendary Great Hall of the People." To prove the trip was a
success, the Massachusetts-based firm of Boston Capital & Technology
photographed Kerry in the Beijing Great Hall of the People. The image and
trip information appear at www.us-china.com, Boston Capital's Website

The photo shows Kerry, an unnamed Chinese government official and Paul
Marcus, the head of Boston Capital & Technology. Marcus also refused to
provide details of the China trip, including the time and date, whether the
senator took money for his services, or the identity of the Chinese
officials with whom Kerry met. "I am not doing an interview with you, and
please don't call me again," Marcus declared.

The chief of Boston Capital and his Chinese-born wife, Moying Li, live in
the same Beacon Hill district of Boston as Kerry, who used his half-interest
in the family mansion to borrow $6.4 million to save his then-faltering
presidential campaign.

While Marcus currently refuses to comment on the private trade trip to
China, he does advertise his connection to Sen. Kerry on Boston Capital's
Website, where Marcus claims that his firm was "China Advisor to U.S.
Senator's commercial agenda for China." The Website goes on to says that
Boston Capital: "Advised, assisted, and executed Minister-level commercial
agenda for U.S. Senator. Advanced Senator in China for all Minister-level
meetings, coordinated and acted as liaison to: The U.S. State Department,
The U.S. Embassy in Beijing, The Department of Commerce, and all relevant
Chinese authorities."

The Chinese Army Bank: In fact, Marcus is a business partner with the China
International Trust and Investment Corp. (CITIC), a firm closely associated
with the Chinese military and included on the Website a picture of himself
meeting with CITIC officials in China. "Boston Capital & Technology is a
bilateral contractual affiliate of both the China Council for the Promotion
of International Trade (CCPIT), China's largest trade organization, and the
China International Trust and Investment Corporation (CITIC), China's
largest investment organization," the Website says.

CITIC is known as a front for the munitions manufacturer Poly Technologies
Corp. According to a 1997 report prepared by the Rand Corporation, "Poly
Technologies Ltd. was founded in 1984, ostensibly as a subsidiary of CITIC,
although it was later exposed to be the primary commercial arm of the PLA
[People's Liberation Army] General Staff Department's Equipment
Sub-Department." The Rand report continues: "Throughout the 1980s, Poly sold
hundreds of millions of dollars of largely surplus arms around the world,
exporting to customers in Thailand, Burma, Iran, Pakistan and the United
States. ... CITIC does enter into business partnerships with and provide
logistical assistance to PLA and defense-industrial companies like Poly."

The Rand report notes that CITIC's Poly Group once tried to smuggle machine
guns into the United States: "Poly's U.S. subsidiaries were abruptly closed
in August 1996. Allegedly, Poly's representative, Robert Ma, conspired with
China North Industries Corporation's (NORINCO) representative, Richard Chen,
and a number of businessmen in California to illegally import 2,000 AK-47s
into the United States."

Poly Technologies was run by international arms dealer Wang Jun and his
"princeling" friend, the powerful He Ping, son-in-law of long-time Chinese
leader Deng Xiaoping. The Rand Corporation noted that "Wang Jun is both
director of CITIC and Chairman of Poly Group, the arms-trading company of
the General Staff Department."

In 1996, Poly Chairman Wang Jun met with President Bill Clinton inside the
White House with convicted Chinagate figure Charlie Trie, who donated
hundreds of thousands of dollars to the 1996 Clinton/Gore campaign from Red
Chinese sources. The Democratic Party later returned much of this donated
money.

Satellites for China: While CITIC is reported by U.S. military authorities
to be involved in the international sale of illegal arms it also is
interested in obtaining advanced U.S. technology. The Boston Capital Website
notes that the firm has been involved with the transfer of advanced U.S.
space technology to China. Such references are viewed in the arms trade to
have missile applications.

According to the Boston Capital Website, the company acted as a China
adviser for a "U.S. High Technology Corporation's technology-transfer
efforts in the People's Republic of China. They were responsible for
technology transfer for full-scale manufacturing in China of technologies in
telecommunications and satellites. ... Each production package sells for $15
[million] to $20 million. The Corporation has successfully transferred these
[satellite] technologies to several Chinese manufacturers now in
production."

It should come as no surprise that Marcus' partner in Beijing, CITIC, also
owns a controlling interest in the Hong Kong-based Asia Satellite Telecom
Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat). Founded in 1988, AsiaSat operates several communications
satellites in the Far East bought from U.S. manufacturers including Hughes.
According to Aviation Week and Space Technology, in addition to direct TV
broadcasts, AsiaSat satellites regularly carry communications traffic for
Chinese military units and Chinese military-owned companies.

Sweet Deal Turns Sour: Not all of the Marcus projects in Communist China
have turned out so sweet. In 1998 the U.S. Department of Agriculture gave
Marcus a $77,000 contract to produce a report on the cranberry market in
China. By 2001, Marcus had spun the contract and report into a deal to put
Massachusetts-based Ocean Spray in business with China's largest juice
company, perhaps looking to find markets and perhaps outsourcing a
traditional American industry.

According to an article published in March 2001 by the Beijing Business
Wire, "Under an agreement with the Beijing Huiyuan Beverage Group, Ocean
Spray, the number-one brand of canned and bottled juice drinks in the U.S.,
will grant a 10-year license to Huiyuan for the Ocean Spray brand and
technology." The official Beijing business report stated that Ocean Spray
"made its initial contact with Huiyuan through the consulting firm Boston
Capital & Technology, which had a personal working relationship with its
chairman, Zhu. Their rapport with Huiyuan management helped secure the
agreement."

Critics of the Ocean Spray deal quickly warned that Huiyuan Beverage readily
could become a global competitor. According to the Huiyuan Website, the
Chinese beverage company imported more than 40 advanced sterile filling
lines, and set up two juice-extracting plants and six filling factories. The
cranberry deal with China turned sour. Today, Ocean Spray officials refuse
to comment on the 2001 China deal with Huiyuan. Ocean Spray no longer lists
Huiyuan as a partner or as an official outlet of its products. In fact,
Ocean Spray does not list any outlet for its products in China, and China is
a major producer of cranberries and a major juice competitor.

Many Faces, No Answers: Who Marcus was working for in the juice case is not
entirely clear, but he has completed several other sweet deals. Marcus is
the founder of a number of firms that do business with Beijing, including
not only Boston Capital & Technology but Boston Business Consulting,
Massachusetts-Guangdong Committee Inc. and China Development Holdings Ltd.

The Marcus business savvy also extends far beyond China. He once sold the
Webpage name bbc.com to the British Broadcasting Corp. for about $350,000.
The Boston-based consultant also has time for the arts. He and his wife are
listed as founders of the nonprofit American Friends of the National Gallery
of the Cayman Islands, a lovely place notorious for hiding and laundering
money.

John Kerry frequently has stated that he has had contacts with high-ranking
officials of foreign governments. Yet, the Kerry campaign is refusing to
answer any questions about the candidate's privately sponsored trade trip to
China or his relationship with Marcus. But it would appear that the
presidential candidate has many friends at high levels in Beijing. The
Chinese official Internet news outlet of the People's Daily, official
newspaper of the Communist Party of China, recently endorsed the senator
from Massachusetts for president of the United States.

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