Conversations with Intelligence Operatives

The GOLDEN TRIANGLE (transcribed from tape)


After the war with Vietnam, when China found herself in need of military modernization, she turned to America and to other friends for help. In order to generate profits for the purchase of expensive state-of-the-art weapons systems, Poly Technologies was founded in 1983. Poly sold arms from PLA stockpiles and from China's manufacturers, and then used the profits over to purchase newer and more modern weapons. The Chinese also turned to the exploitation on a large scale of a natural resource of Yunnan province and the Golden Triangle region of Burma and Laos --poppies. Profits generated from the sale of heroin, made from the poppies, also was used to upgrade weapons systems and to pamper some of the highest PLA officials and their families.

You must understand that in China, the PLA is like a state unto itself. It is independent when it wishes to be. It is closed from the rest of society, from some of those in the government, and certainly from the foreigners and from the mass media. We tell others what we think they should know about our military. But we never tell them much. Sometimes we feed them misinformation and they believe that as much as they do truth. But always we are careful. Always, this is a sacred institution, the finest result of the Revolution. It made the revolution possible, liberated the country, serves the people, rules the people, protects the country, punishes enemies.
The army is a state to itself. The army now has its own plantations where it cultivates and processes poppies in Yunnan province. For profit, of course. And their products are sold throughout the world. But not officially, of course. Believe me, some of the finest drugs sold on the streets of Washington, D. C., near the White House, is for sure a product not only of China but of the PLA. It is if it is good. If it is not of high quality, it is probably from somewhere else.
China successfully used family ties and experience and labor of the people in the Golden Triangle in order to influence and infiltrate the structure of the world drug trafficking. This was done following the Vietnam war in order to raise foreign exchange currency, huge profits, which in turn would be used to purchased high technology and weapons system from abroad, and that would be also from the United States. So the experience of the Vietnam war brought not only close American cooperation and help in the future, but it also helped China become a customer of the US and a supplier, in turn, of drugs to the US.
China played her American card. Many KMT officers and men escaped from China in 1949, across the border into Burma. They left relatives and family behind, in some cases. China capitalizing on the Chinese who worked and controlled the Golden Triangle but who left their families behind in China, in the mainland. The people in the Golden Triangle, they realized still need to rely on China. And the people there, a lot of them Chinese, they provide them with advanced processing techniques, with laboratories, they provided them with equipment. China served as their logistical supply base before that time. All the Chinese knew that, but in the West they don't seem to know this. Few people know this in China, and there has never been wide exposure of this in China, of course.
It is one of those issues that never comes before the public. And even it was, it was decided already politically and so there is no room for debate on this. This is serious, and it generates profit. When something is not that serious, not that central, then the Party throws it out for individuals to debate in a silly way -- a sort of bone for the dogs. But the issue is never that serious. Zhao Ziyang and Deng Xiaoping of course were informed of this, and had access to this information, but they never bother themselves wit the details. Never. As long as the profits are generated, and as long as you guys take care of yourselves, then you guys are all right no matter what you do. Whatever means are required, you do it yourselves. Your defense is short, we are going to cut you, so whatever means you use to make money is all right. You just figure it out yourselves. They provided logistics, processing techniques, in order to be more competitive in the international markets. That is why a lot of things were shipped through Chinese continent. Thailand and Indochina, that is a very nice route. And now China maintains a very good relationship with Burma(Myanmar) the military regime. I still have the article in my suitcase, very fantastic. Now they are building a road, building another one. From Kunming down into the Golden Triangle, just like the one that we built linking Lhasa and Sichuan. The PLA lost thousands of soldiers lives during the building of that road. Due to the extremely severe weather. And actually on the way the PLA advanced into Tibet, it was built bit by bit. That is a road out of no road, out of no natural route, and the road conditions on that road are very tough.
The plantations in the South that grow poppies. That explains why much of the heroin of the world is trafficked through China. But China is now under more and more pressure to stop this. They say that they have arrested hundreds of people and executed those traffickers. Who were these individuals. There are always civilian drug dealers, but they were nothing in the international traffic. And among the hundreds of people arrested in China and shot dead, the business goes on. And it is run by the PLA and the government. I doubt that many individuals within the government know about it. The PLA is run by people at the top and they know, but many people in the middle don't know. Zhao Ziyang and Deng Xiaoping of course should know. But the question is do they really care, does it really make any difference to them.
The problem is that they had no money for the PLA and so they had asked these individuals to make their own money, we know longer have enough money to give you. And that is why the PLA had its own plantations and its own factories. This is why they would have an aircraft factory also turning out motorcycles. Domestic CIVILIAN production comes out of military production, and radar production facilities produce color televisions. They are capable of doing that. The submarine plants turn out motorcycles, too. Which turn out to be very successful, actually. The PLA was forced into that by the need for money and particularly for foreign currency. But the people at the top, they never really want to know much about that. They simply look at printouts of production and they want to know what the profits are. You know they don't care about where the money comes from. And if the Yunnan district comes up with millions in profits, that is good. But do you think they really care where the profit comes from. They know that the PLA generates enough revenue for the defense modernization. And so the conclusion drawn is that the PLA is capable of taking care of itself. The leaders, Deng and Zhao, they were really pleased with what the army had accomplished. That was a big reduction of the burden on their shoulders. Now they no longer have to worry about generating money for the army.
When they get their annual report, they get a report that says, in Kunming military region, for example, we have generated how many US dollars in revenue due to front line production, which we are always encouraged to do. That is hugely profitable. They never question that business.
Unlike the arms sales in the Middle East, which also generate profits, unlike when it comes to ballistic missile sales or nuclear materials technology, then the Generals in the PLA know that they can no longer be responsible for this and they must include it in their reports.
I know personally the reporting echelon from Poly to the Politburo, or to the CMC, they report that directly. When I was working in Poly, almost daily I saw the signatures from Li Peng and Zhao Ziyang, they just signed off on our business. That is the funny part about the business. The funny part about the Chinese arms sales business to international market is that those people who are in the position, like if you are the premier or the general secretary of the party, you must sign the documents. Because tomorrow, at 8 in the morning, the first thing you see on your desk is a report from Poly or from the General Staff, saying that we want to buy or to sell something from the Middle East or from the West, and now we need your signature. These people What they are concerned about at that time, is that they want to stay at their post for as long as they can. They do not want ever to offend the military, they know that the military is always powerful in China.
When it comes to official reports, nobody is going to stop them. If you are Zhao Ziyang you have to sign. Even though you might not be entirely sure as to what is going on. Although you know so little about what is going on. The people who really know the business, who come up with the ideas of what to do, they were always behind the scenes and there is no way you can stop them. When it comes to the official report, no one is going to stop them. You sign, even though you know so little about what is going on. Behind the scenes are the people who really formulate policy, and there is no way -- believe me -- that you can stop them.
Tobacco making factory in Yuxi, where they produce cigarettes from tobacco, a well known plant. They produce different brands of cigarettes there. It is the most famous one in Yunnan province, and it is famous for tobacco because of the weather there.
After the civil war, in the late 1949, the troops marched toward the Southwest to conquer the so-called leftovers from the KMT. And these troops dispatched a force, and this was a force that marched into Tibet. This is the second Field Army, that belongs to Deng Xiaoping. They occupied three provinces, and later on they invaded Tibet That was in 1950. They had a collision at that time with the Dali Lama, who fled Tibet, in 1955. Ya Dong county, this belongs to China, and this is a military path over here.(showing me on the map). It is here where the biggest concentration of listening posts is, northeast of Sikkim. So they this is the big place, geographical location.
So, the Kunming military region was the command post for the overall operations then, while all the military, Long Wu and Dao Shan, these are military district, what we call Fun Chu, these two were heavily engaged in heroine processing and logistical support purposes. And for the people inside here. So we had a policy toward individuals in the Golden Triangle who were still in the mainland. And so we began giving them special treatment. Before that time, after 1970, everyone knew before that time that they were relatives of the former KMT, during the Cultural Revolution.
The turning point for them became 1976, when the Cultural Revolution had come to an end, Mao died, and the Gang of Four was arrested. China was from that time implementing a new policy. It was a prelude to economic reform. So, we gave them special treatment, and we let it be known to people in the Golden Triangle, and so they knew that the communist party had a new policy. Some of them dared enough now to approach the border. So the border guards because they had received orders, arranged everything. The communicated with them, said, all right, we are not going to harm you. You will be all right. Take it easy. We provided transportation and whatever was needed for these people to return home to visit their relatives. All means but air, land and river transportation. Later on, with the implementation of these policies, more and more people began being lured to return to the mainland. And this is to visit their families. And what is so funny is that their families had a strange policy, too. They were allowed then to visit them. Later on, because there were some very famous big guys over here, Khun Sa being the big one, he personally was lured into China, but he did not go so far. But we did arrange a meeting with him.
This is where, in these towns, where the border discussions were held, in Meng Hai and Jing Gian and Su Mau. These meetings were held then, people from the army in civilian clothing, to make them look like the represented the government, and in a sense this was true, too. If you belong to the army then you represent the government. So they assured these people that whatever you want to do, whatever you need, we are going to provide you free of charge. But they, according to my brother, this policy went on for one or two years. So these people really saw some benefits in that period of time. So later on the army people sent some special individuals spies, but, you know, they penetrated into the triangle and mingled with these people, they could do that, they spoke the same dialect, if you were a former officer, it was Mandarin, but if you are from the local area, you speak the local dialects. So they infiltrated. And the top people knew they were infiltrated. And they knew. They didn't care. Because they had received support from the army. Logistical support, medical supplies, arms I don't know. All I know is that the Army, there is a chance that they were getting arms, they had a secret agreement with the Burmese government. In the 1950s there was a fierce battle going on in the area and the government forces were defeated by the KMT. They said that the KMT forces were the best in the world, after the Communist forces in China. So they had no problems resisting the local forces, the Burmese and the Thais. And so this was all done according to an arrangement. They had their secret border. And they negotiated a hands off and non-interference policy between the Burmese government and the KMT forces in the region. Everything was done in secret, a sort of Gentlemen's agreement between the drug growers and the local government in Burma. But until 1975, the people growing poppies in the area, their relatives suffered a lot, they didn't accumulate a lot of money as today, and their living conditions were harsh and their medical circumstances were primitive, and living conditions were poor, because transportation was blocked, in reality, from all sides. And the Chinese army in the region knew that. And they knew the only logical way for the people to receive some outside support. From Mainland china. So we talked with these people. And we sent people over for family visiting purposes, and visitors were welcomed here. They were shown touring spots of attraction and later on they formed an arrangement. China agreed to send certain supplies to them, food, medical materials, logistical supplies, free of charge to the people here. Arms were to be included, also, along with information. If arms were not included, of course, it would not make much sense. That would be just AK47s, B40 rockets. But no planes or tanks. In that region anyway they would make no sense. But in return they provided to provide the products of their agriculture and have them shipped back to China, and in the process China became a major heroin refining country, along the border, and only under the control of the border.
The name they used to refer to the business was "tobacco and affiliated processing plant." Munghai and Xumau were the biggest plants, and the biggest one is Yusi. These plants did receive some tobacco from the big tobacco plants and they did produce cigarettes, too. But, actually, what they did most, was process heroin. They also grew poppies in the region. The army of course had its own plantation in the region. In Chinese they call it Military Cultivated Plantations(Chinese Name). This was at the battalion level. But they had trucks, bulldozers, and machinery. They were secretly engaging in a marijuana and poppy growing. They make profits in this. But of course, the things that grow here are not as high quality a products as those that grow further south, because of the weather difference. Marijuana is such a crop that it is heavily affected by the weather conditions. So they helped these individuals in the Golden Triangle and they had them shipped both on the road or on the Mekong River. Actually, this part of the Mekong River, because of the arrangements between the people here was not very heavily controlled by the Burmese government. But still the Burmese government consented to it. So the army did pay a fee to Burma to use that area.
We also began to send technical experts into the area, technicians and construction workers. They supervised the use of fertilizers, temperature control and upgrading for solar energy purposes. And we provided them with solar energy, too, because electricity was a major problem in the area. We provided them with whatever you can imagine. Whatever you need, imagine yourself situated in the mountains there. You need technology and you need outside supply. Because they were facing enemies on three sides. But now they have their friends back at home, so they feel very much relieved. And they have their own processing plants, too, in that region. They built it for themselves. Once China built its own, we let these people come back for a visit, to see how advanced we were in this. And these guys made up their minds. They agreed with the army to ship part of their products into China to have it processed. At first, once we processed this kind of thing we shipped it back to let them see how we did it. They had their own strict traffic routes, of course. They did not use the mainland much. But after 1976, because of the agreement, they thought the army represented the communists, and they said, all right, it is very difficult for us, to ship these kinds of materials out, because it you want to ship in the past and get their materials to the sea, they have to pay a high price to people controlling the local area, the local landlords, the black societies. So in the past, these people growing the material were not the people actually exporting it. But since things were moving toward a change. They did not export them to Burma or Thailand. So they shipped it more and more back to China. Once you process this stuff you can ship it back to China. We sent people to them and found out more how their business worked, how much it weighed and what it cost to ship. We provided them with experts and they provided their marketing information to the army, then the army made sure that this material was shipped to Hong Kong and to Taiwan, to Fuzhou, they used to have a former military region over in that area. So the military region of Kunming, the business totally belongs to the logistical department. There are three departments, commands in each military region. Political, operational, logistical. Logistical department directly contacted the logistical department of this area, because once you have an outlet on the coastal area, you must have the support of the military. The logistical looks after the general welfare of the military region, the plantations, food supply, medical and this sort of thing. Fuzhou had their own military region, their own logistical department, her father, used to be the commander of the logistical department of the region, only a one star general, major general. They were over here, and they secretly, according to the arrangement, and they then made contact with Taiwan and shipped it there. They used sea route transportation. They sent their ships here, and they had no problem having them loaded on board ships eventually, ships from foreign countries. They just moored at sea and we used small ships that belonged to the army, and directly transported the materials to the big ship, that was registered to a foreign country and then the big ship headed to an unknown destination.
It was very easy for them to get to Taiwan, after they got to Guangzhou. Very easily. They go down the Pearl River, easily, since this is heavily controlled by the military. I believe these guys, working for the army, have their own domestic connections in Guangzhou and in Hong Kong. The CMC, all it would see would be the annual report on how much profit is generated. Nobody cares where the profit is made from. The only thing they care about is that now you are able to take care of yourself. Fine.
The government officially, of course, is against drugs. And they execute publicly drug dealers every month. These, though, are the small dealers, the civilian dealers who sometimes steal from the army, and they run a small business. After all, there is some heroin production done privately. And some is shipped through other routes, too. And they have their own plantations. So a lot of leaks have to be plugged, so to speak. And when drugs get into the hands of the local people, something has to be done. There have to be prosecutions of what they call "hooligans." And once these guys are caught and put on trial, the Chinese government looks good. So China looks clean to the world while the traffic prospers. The US cannot figure it out, it seems, they think the Chinese government is clean. So if something is coming out of China, they seem to think that the Chinese government cannot control it. And in one sense they are correct. The government is indeed unable to control it. In a sense they are correct. They don't want to stop it. And it is controlled on a regional basis.
Huge profits, naturally, are not reported. These go directly to the local area officials and to the army How they spend it, I can't tell you. Once you have the money, then how are you going to invest it. You can count on one thing, individuals don't profit from the business. They do it purely for the support of the army. So theoretically individuals do not profit. The army retains the profits. The army is clean, and they don't use the drugs. Because China is not so advanced in the area. But the people who are able to lay their hands on the drugs, I can't guarantee it.
The object of the profits in the end is to modernize the army. And part of the modernization is to ugrade it with systems from America. But the army from this military region is not so advanced in weaponry since they are regarded as a sort of rear defense, unlike the air force and the navy. And so they are neglected in a way by the Central Military Commission, but still they are able to take care of themselves.
What is so funny is that later on the Burmese government intervened, in 1979 and 1980, after the war with Vietnam, and China showed a lot of strength, to this sort of government. Before they carried a lot of grievances. They wanted to protect their sovereignty and their integrity. And so the army secretly negotiated through these people, approached the Burmese government, starting in 1980, and supplied arms to the Burmese government, to the Burmese regime, to get them to shut up. And they were then able to use arms from China to clamp down on their own people and maintain their own regime. Due to the secret understanding, there was nothing on paper and no signatures, and so we will just do it. This is all handled through the Kunming military region, and supplied the Burma government, with pieces of large artillery, giving it to them.
So now, for many years, the Kunming military region secretly supplied arms, but they did it with the understanding from the Central military command, because supplying the Burma government suited Chinese national policy. In 1976, actually, the China government supplied the resistance groups of the Burmese, but since 1978 China began to normalize its relationship with the government but not the resistance groups, in order the change its image in the world. What happened was that the military air command, must have had the acknowledgement of the CMC, began supplying arms to the Burmese government in Yung Guang. Why should anyone care about this, the Burmese. They allowed the Chinese to operate on their soil and they could not do anything about it. Their government forces were not strong enough to conquer the land. The people in the Golden Triangle had secret agreements with the governments of Thailand, Burma and Laos. They annually pay tributes to those government. The only reason they could operate in the area without military interference from three governments was because militarily the people in that area were too strong because they were Chinese. And secondly, they didn't want to fight too much, they wanted to carry on business. And so the agreement was this, all right, if you allow us to operate on your land, annually, we will pay you a tribute. The heroin was going, of course, primarily to the US. Part of the heroin may be shipped to Taiwan and consumed there, maybe, but all that I know for sure is that the Chinese military is heavily engaged in that process. Huge profits are involved in this. You can imagine. The army agreed with the people growing heroin in the golden '/triangle, and they agreed in sharing of the international market price. See, the production costs of that kind of heroine is very cheap. Like growing tobacco, but once you sell the product,(footnote here) this is a very profitable business. Very low production costs, low utility of the land. So the people in the Golden Triangle did not pay the army a tribute, they just cooperated with each other. If you can find this published anywhere I would be pretty much amazed.
So they were, later on, the people were happy too. They did not have to worry too much about finding efficient and safe traffic routes. In the past, they used to pay a high price. This local landlord, he would say, if you want to use our traffic route, we are going to help yo ship this material overseas, but we must maintain a commission, like ten percent. But ten percent is really a lot of money. So these people are squeezed. But once they ship their cocaine to China, the army can make a profit too, they don't have to rig so many things. Because the army takes care of the traffic route. That explains why the business goes on so smoothly, and expands, as the years pass, despite the strict measures applied by the US government and police -- against drugs in Latin America and in Europe. In fact, the US has even sought cooperation with the Chinese government. And the Chinese police agreed that each year they would arrest ten guys, which is very easy to do. My God, to pick up ten guys from the street and then shoot them all is simple. Who knows who they are. But in the meantime the traffic goes on. And as far as I knew, the Navy, in the South China Sea fleet was involved also in the shipping of the heroin from the port of Zhanjiang. So the Navy was involved also. They did not go so far as to use their own ships, but they did allow foreign freighters to use their own ports. These were Taiwanese and Hong Kong ships, among others. You now what, to understand this you must understand that anything that comes out of China, to be reloaded on foreign ships, the ship cannot be too close to China's coast.
They cannot, never. They cannot come into port. If you stand in the port you can see the ship, with the binoculars. So you need the support, absolutely, of the local military. They use their own small ships. And the local customs officials cannot stop army military vehicles. They can't. They don't have the power to check military transportation. So the local government does not have to be aware of what's going on, since the military takes care of that. The local officials don't even know what is going on. There is no profit for them, of course not.
The only guys that were involved were the local air force and military in the region. Later they dispatched their engineering personnel to this area. Helicopter landing pads, later on they helped these people build one or two helicopter landing pads, and they used helicopters too.(What is he talking about here).
They are loaded at Zhanjiang by ship to ship, not by helicopters. Even if you informed, and told someone what was going on, who in the world would care. Nobody there can supervise the military. When someone is arrested it is for political purposes. This is simply to show that the government is really serious. The individuals arrested and executed, it is said that they are drug dealers. But who can tell. China always makes a big story by saying that someone was arrested at the airport for carrying as much as, two kilograms of heroin. That's funny. That is considered they say a big amount. The public security agents arrest the local guys and put them on trail.
Any leakage from this. The people working at the processing plant. They know what is going on. But they don't know where the heroin is from or where it is going. And they didn't care. Of course, they might be some people with connections who would know what is going on. But they don't tell the story to a journalist.
The new road that they are building in the area, as to exactly where they are going to build it, I don't know. Do they really need a new road in that area. I don't think so.
These individuals don't have new expensive cars in Yunnan. The army profits and generates huge profits for themselves, and they use that sort of thing, not just to import arms for themselves, and they didn't care about high tech arms there, they can just put the soldiers and offices on better living quarters and on a better social welfare system. Each month they give their soldiers a bonus, and they distribute the profits equally among some people. It is a remote and underdeveloped are with a lot of minorities. It is in the only province in China with so numerous minorities. So the guys in the military are primarily Han, and they supervise everything. Once they generate the profit I don't know where they are going to spedning it. We are talking about millions and millions of dollars over the years. And the problem with me is I don't know where they spend the money.
Some of the profits of course make it to Beijing. But these individuals also have their own bank, in Chinese they call it Xiao Jingquo. Small golden devil. That means your little golden container, that means this money is solely yours and nobody else is even supposed to know the existence of it. You report 60 percent of the profit annually and the turnover, the profit is in US dollars, and Swiss francs. The money goes overseas and so the money paid is in foreign currency. It can be converted then into renmenbi.
I believe that these individuals also have bank accounts abroad, but I am not sure about that, I have no first hand information. But I can tell you this, what if you had hundreds of millions of dollars in profits and you could not spend it in your country. What would you do? Where would you put it.
What if you are the general commander and I am your deputy. Right, and we have a general political commissar and one day in the afternoon the three of us go out and we have dinner and we talk about business. Once we retain ten percent of the profits this year and distribute it between the three of us. This conversation is off the record, no one has a tape recorder, do you agree or not. And if you don't, lets forget about it and turn over all the profits. And of course, these individuals make that agreement of consent. Nobody says no.
Zhanjiang is headquarters of the Southern Sea Fleet, it is a deep water port, ocean going freighters come in there and so there are no problems. But of course for heroin you don't need an ocean going freighter. If you just have a thousand ton ship, there is no problem. How much heroin do you ship on one ship.
Some goes out to Hainan, of course. Hainan, all ports are controlled from Zhanjiang and the southern Sea fleet, and they use this port for foreign transportation too. Actually they were caught, not with heroin, but transporting foreign vehicles, cars. The army was caught once in this. By the local customs officials and they reported what they did. The navy was caught once And the local naval commander was sacked for that. But that was part of the Chinese house cleaning effort. And once you are caught you are in trouble. God knows how many times they were caught. But as far as I can recall this is the only time they were caught.
That was in 1986, when China started its house cleaning. These guys were taught because they were stupid. They were too obvious. They used LSTs to transport Japanese cars, and they put them on deck uncovered, people could see them. And so of course they were caught. The market for the cars was all over China. Like the Shangri La business. All the local governments have money, and they are willing to pay because they want foreign luxurious cars to show off. They don't have to worry about paying for it. They have money. The central government puts strict quotas on importations of foreign cars. That means if you are going to import one car from Japan you are going to pay a high duty on it when you bring it in legally.
This reveals how profit minded people are all over China, particularly the military.
VIETNAM WAR

Southern Air Transport. Dropped supplies from the PRC. Would private American pilots go to Kunming but I never heard anything like that. Although it might be possible, I would not totally rule out the possibility, however, I would guess that it would be embarrassing to lose Chinese personnel over a country like Laos or Cambodia or Thailand. But, your speculation might be one of the explanations. they were talented and it would be embarrassing for them to be shot down. Another reason, if they employed, if they were experienced in that jungle, if they experienced, then that makes sense and the Chinese are not confident enough to fly over that area.
It was sort of one stone and killing two birds. The second bird was bigger. That was the one that Deng was looking for. He could just go to the Central Military Commission and say, Look, this is what thee war taught us. The Chinese military is not prepared for fighting a major war. Still, this war is against just the Vietnamese. What in the world will happen if the Soviets invade us from the North. That will be a war much larger in scale and significance. And then he said, "Do you think now that we are prepared for that. " And he went on to say that what we need to do is to beef up the national defense by spending more and by all measures, including the spending of foreign currency and getting it from the Western world. So 1979 was a turning point for the national defense of China. And priority was given to the air force and the navy and the second artillery corps. The second artillery corps is the Chinese strategic arm. It looks after the strategic missiles aimed at the Soviet Union. This is an independent force parallel to the air force and the navy. Modernization of the military(Gun ban sihin din hua) modernization of the national defense. These people are talking about the four modernizations in China, right. But while the modernization for national defense always ranked fourth. Industry was one, then agriculture, and then science and technology and the fourth was always National Defense. That was 1978 when China started its economic reform. Mr. Deng kept repeatedly telling the military men that they needed to wait patiently, and this was the term that we heard constantly, "wait patiently." And so what he implied was that the entire country was not in good condition and could not give them all the money they needed. And so he said, "Support yourself, and do not expect too much from the government, since we have huge deficits." So the military was forced to find other sources of revenue, including the selling of arms. The war against the Vietnamese prompted the Kunming military region to open its trade with people from the Golden Triangle, because the Kunming military region was the principle one in fighting against the Vietnamese during the war. In other words, they committed more personnel, they committed and provided more logistical supplies than anyone else, even though there was supposed to be a centralized command, but still centralized command, depending on where you are, has a different emphasis. Right. it was singled out to manage all the logistical supplies. And what is funny is that later on the general logistical department of the PLA refused to refund them. You know, because they couldn't, in the first place. And in the second place, they said, well, the war was fought in your military region, and of course, it is your responsibility to look after all the military supplies, including even cigarettes. And so the Kunming military region in comparison with the other major military regions, like the Beijing military region and Shenyang military region, they were always having a priority in national defense because they were defending Beijing against the Russians from the North. Lanzhou military region was also organized against the Russians. There are eight military regions, like the Fuzhou military region takes after the defense against Taiwan. So each region has its priorities. Except, Kunming. Because in the past, Vietnam was not regarded as an enemy, until 1979. So, they were not happy. So they were forced, and secondly, they did not have a coast. And that means they were limited in their trade or access. They had begun befriending the KMT in the Golden Triangle. And they had to cooperate and coordinate with other military regions in sending their products overseas.
So, this is the background for the Kunming Military Region getting contact with the local KMT generals, and also...at that time, the Kunming military region took a long time before they made up their mind, because the local KMT general in the Golden Triangle, they had the support of the CIA and they had the support of the intelligence services of Taiwan also. But the efforts of the CIA to get the KMT to invade China, that was not significant and China just felled them with one blow and then it was finished. After that, they never cherished the ambition of conquering the mainland, like those guys on Taiwan Island, although it was still one of their slogans, everyone knows that it is unrealistic, right. So, but what is so funny is that I knew that when the Kunming military region began building their contact with the KMT and the Nationalist Forces in the Golden Triangle, what they discovered was that a lot of officers were
unhappy with the CIA, with the intelligence and support from the KMT on the island. Why? Because the only reason why the CIA supported the KMT in the Golden Triangle was for anti-communist purposes only. And that means that they were used, they were pawns. And they objected to that. And the national forces, in the Golden Triangle, were not the only forces in the Golden Triangle operating by producing opium.
The Karens were actually the Communist force there, supported either by the Vietnamese government and by the Burmese government and in the earlier stage they were supported by the Chinese, because they thought that China at that time was still supplying arms to the local resistance groups against the Burma government, which is no longer the story today.
1978 was the shifting point of Chinese foreign policy. Chinese suspended its military support at that time, to all the resistance groups in Indochina and the Southeast nations. They began then building their relations with the official governments. They were pretty successful in that. Look at Burma today. The military regime was solely backed up by China. So once the CIA started supporting other groups in the Golden Triangle, like Kuhn Sah, they had the support of the CIA too and the Generals felt unhappy. They thought they had been sold out.
All I knew was that the CIA never supported them any more in full strength. In other words, KMT officers in the area were not the only target for the CIA support. So they felt they were not getting enough support from outside. Still, they bore all the burden of fighting for their own survival. They needed ammunition, medical supplies, communication equipment. And all of these could not be provided by the KMT from Taiwan, they were too far away. And there were not airfields in the region and it was impossible for them to rely too heavily on outside support. And so at this critical stage the Kunming military region opened contact with those guys. They negotiated, they provided very nice social welfare and housing facilities to the relatives left over by these officers on the mainland, and some officers were encouraged so much to pay a visit, to their homeland, and they did this, finally, and found that there were no consequences and no dangers. Nothing happened to them. They were virtually welcome home again. Whatever they asked for was given to them, and they were satisfied at every turn. Of course, the Yunnan commander had business in mind. That is why Cina established a lot of opium refineries and laboratories and facilities.
I know of one General, Mr. Liu, he was the general, the Bao Shan military district, and he was involved. But I guess he was not the only Liu. Actually, his son was in the battle against the Vietnamese in 1979, and his son was cited for the battle, decorated, because there was minefield they had to cross, and because all of the troops were in a hurry to cross the field, they didn't have the kind of mine detection facility with them, so this guy just rolled himself over the field, over all the mines, making them explode after him, because he rolled quickly. And he did this across the field until he got to the last mine, which virtually blew off his two legs. My God, he was a hero. His name was Liu, a very junior officers, but he was in the reconnaissance corps, and he was in charge of paving the way for the advance of his troops, and he sacrifice his legs and his troops then marched on and advanced. He is still alive today. But he lost the two legs. Actually, my brother in law interviewed him after the war, when I was in Nanjing, my brother in law in 1981 was on the spot with the filming team from the army studio, and he still there today. Actually a lot of stories he told me personally.
They, the Kunming military region established very solid contacts and cooperation with the KMT in the region, and they told them, frankly, "We no longer regard ideological differences as a line dividing friends and enemies. All we would like to do is to generate some profits. We are all Chinese, after all." And the KMT there bought that. And they, because they, although they had their own refinery facilities, but that was all in the mountains and in the jungles. All very primitive. And they did not have a lot of things. But still they managed to refine. But what you refine could not be very pure, if you really want to make the opium that is injectable, which evaporates very quickly, then you just make it very pure. And the Chinese could be able to do that. And actually, some medical personnel were called from the Kunming People's General Hospital in Kunming Province, and they were called upon to facilitate this processing, since they knew this technique. And besides, once you have the equipment, refining opium is a simple business. It is not something very complicated, but still you need all the things for it. But once you have all the things needed, it is only then a question of time, and it is then a question of how many pounds of opium you can acquire. Opium was one of the things that the PLA grew on its plantations at that time. But still the army figured out that the opium that output was not so great as that in the Golden Triangle, certainly, the quality was not as excellent as that from the Golden Triangle, and so in order to get a huge profit they needed to coordinate with the KMT officers. They used the Mekong River. They said, all right, we are going to provide you with whatever you need from the military region. We can provide medical supplies. Hospital facilities, emergency aid and logistical supplies, such as Chinese military rations, in cans, these just poured into the local KMT storehouses.
Thee were not objections to what was going on because not many people knew that. All that they viewed from the public said that these are the medical research facilities either for medical purposes or for tobacco production. No one knew the nature of the business. Nobody bothered. Once it belongs to the army and is classified under the PLA, not many people bother to know what they are doing. It is nobody's business. Because they belong to the military and whatever belongs to the military is good in nature. So the once the Chinese are able.
The local army officers, they invited the KMT general or officers, from the 3rd or 5th army, that was the army operating in the Golden Triangle. And they asked them to come up and see for themselves the facilities that we have. And, my God, those officers were stunned by what they saw. They never dreamed that communist china could have these facilities. They never imagined this before. These things, they thought the communists were kind of silly, peasant, army. They never knew that the communists were never possible to process and put together the facilities and grow and then to process opium. Heroin. So the Chinese showed what they had learned and how they processed it. One hundred percent pure. They became convinced that the Chinese could do an excellent job. And so they came to an agreement. They said, We will supply you and you process for us. And then the process product you ship back to us, and we pay you for it, right. And you keep the rest for your own purposes. They never questioned where the opium was to go. And it was from this point on that the Kunming military region started making a profit. Once they accumulated enough they started contacting people from Hong Kong and Macau and TAiwan. Once you have this product, you do not have to worry about finding demand. Demand is already there, everywhere. It is only a problem of getting the supply tpo the demand.
My brother was involved on different occasions just in driving a truck He told me, he was there.


Airplane factory builds motorcycles and radar factory turning out televisions. That's everywhere in China. They do it. Like Shenyang airplane factory, used to be a very famous warplane manufacturer, producing Mig 19, 21 and 23. Starting in 1982, they because they used a particular material, aluminum to produce planes. They have special aluminum supplies, ideal material to build a high pressure pot that the Chinese households like. So they produced that and made a huge profit for themselves. Most high pressure pots they use in China re from there, they are regarded as the highest quality. They do that to make a profit. And in Sichuan province, in Chongquing, there is a huge complex of submarine producers, and one of them is responsible for motor propellers, and it is exactly a motor factory within this group that started producing motorcycles, and they called them Zhaling Zhan. And for five years this was a very famous brand of motorcycles used in China. these are the perfect examples, but, the motorcycles output was really huge. You can see that in Beijing or in all the metropolitan areas, the Chinese motorcycles from these factories. They sold them directly to the state owned department stores. They have the license to produce that. In China you don't have to worry about producing these kinds of things. And you can make a huge profit.
Another area of defense producing civilian products. The radar factories in Shansi province and Jiangsu, virtually all the radar manufacturers started producing color tvs. The catholde ray tube has similar technology. so if you have a plant capable of producing ground tracking and air tracking radar, you have no problem in producing a television set. Nothing could be simpler than that. The profits, part of it, returns to the manufacturer, and that money is again generated for reconstruction or facilities for the employees like a hotel for the employees or swimming pool like a party office disco, a lot of things in the recreational area, but still some of the funds are reinvested in the original production area. And in doing so the whole capacity is beefed up too.
Also,that's why, what I think. I need to read the story. I know it is a transcript. Once I start reading it, my mind starts floating along with the story, and in this area we might add something else.
Clarify. The 41st corps, who was the commander. I don't know the name. But the previous commander was a good friend friend of my father. General Ho. He was the previous commander and he had retired by the time of the Vietnam War. It was comprised of 3 divisions. It is not famous. It was in the battle. They called in the troops from at least part, virtually all of the army units or corps all over China. Every corps had its own units committed in the battles. Like the US did during the war. Deng wanted to commit as many troops as possible into the battle in order to get combat experience for the men. There are about 27 army corps. When they refer to an army they refer to an army corps. |We call what you call an army, we call that a corps, with three divisions. and each division is comprised of three regiments. Now we have brigades for the naval units. The corps at the top, then the divisional command, and then regimental and then battalion and then company and then platoon.
41st army corps, was the strongest corps, belonging to the Guangzhou military region. The organization of the military districts. The Yunan district, military region.
The regions, originally, we have as many as 14, and military regions, but at the time, from 1978, they were reduced to 11. And now it is further reduced to seven. Now there are just 7 regions. During the height of the drug activity, we had the Yunnan military region and it was independent, and it reported directly to the CMC. But about three years ago, the a major reshuffling of the military organization, so Yunnan was incorporated into the Chengdu military region, so now it belongs to Chengdu military region. So officially, Sichuan has the official military jurisdiction over Yunnan, but in reality, we call it a Yunnan military district, and it is a provincial level local military controlled district. the flow of the opium trade profits, I don't know what happens to it now.
The change was made before Tiananmen Square. The change was before 1989. Each region would have some as many as six army corps. Like Beijing or Shenyang, because they are all concerned with Russia. Like Lanzhou. Or Nanjing. Nanjing is important because it defends the long eastern coast of China and the coast of Taiwan. We used to have a Fujian Region, but as part of the reshuffling, now we now longer have that and it is incorporated into the Nanjing military region, and they have jurisdiction over the Fujian region. that was intended as a signal to Taiwan that we no longer intended that we should be a direct threat to them. The region commander would be at least a three star general. The commander, or the political commissar would be two star, lieutenant general. That is the two star in the Chinese army. Major general is one star in China. Unlike yours. The corps commanders are all one star generals. So make a point to say that during the Vietnam war, the senior colonels command the divisions.
Within each of the regions where does the navy fit in. IN Navy there is no region. It is controlled from Beijing, and they comprise three fleets. The air force, each region has its own air arm. But each air arm has two channels of command. One directly from the air force commander in Beijing, but locally it receives command from the commander of the military region.
Missiles are under the control of the second artillery corps. Command and Control, all the ICBM and IRBM of China, no matter where they are located. That is a powerful military organization, it is of the same level as the air force, navy and the military regions. All are on the same level located in Beijing.
No joint chiefs of staff. Chief of Staff is one individual, works in compound of general staff headquarters. We have two and sometimes three deputy chiefs of staff. But they all war army uniforms. But they do have control and command over the air force and the navy, theoretically speaking. While the air force and the navy act somewhat independently, while in actuality they only report to the chairman and the vice chairman of the Central Military Commission.
Civilians never control the military in China. If you want to control the military you must be in the military. Starting with Hua Guofeng, after Mao's death. Hua, purposely put on a uniform when reviewing a parade in Tiananmen in 1976 before his fall. He was in an army uniform. And he was also in an army uniform when he went to Liu Shen to the naval base and asked for a parade, but he didn't have that because he did not have a written permit from the CMC, although he was the chairman of it. That's the Chinese.
Relationship of regional military commander to the chief of staff. Regional commander is constantly in Beijing to attend meetings, usually political meetings. That is why the commanders of each military region are constantly changed and switched. This is from Mao's time, Mao's theory is that if a commander stays on the local command for too long it is the tendency for him to build up too strong a power base. And some day he might be out of my control. So I will make sure that each commander, of the military region, is switched, either every three or four years, to another post, a neighboring military command or region.
In Yunnan this means that he is always there. He does have deputy commanders. He was not alone.
Relationship between National Security, Armed Police. Armed Police is paramilitary unit. Previously part of the PLA, like the PLA in the past had all the provincial military units, as in the Yunnan military district, and the army was constructed at the provincial level. Its responsibility was to take command of the local province. That was their only jurisdiction. They are what we regard as local or provincial units. They are always in uniform. They are a profession, and their equipment is not so advanced. In 1977, since the reform started, the military organization went through the biggest reshuffle since the founding of the PLA, and part of that, was to trim military units into civilian control. So they reported more to the provincial government rather than the military commanders.




(When the war between Iran and Iraq began, it presented, in 1980, a golden opportunity, literally, for Poly Technologies and for Norinco as well. Poly handled the most sophisticated weapons sales, like long range bombers, the H-6 bomber, and intermediate range missiles. Silkworms were sold to both sides by Norinco. They fought each other with Chinese weapons. The Iranians did particularly well with Chinese silk worms hitting many tankers attempting to make a run through the strait of Hormuz.
Exocets were sold by Poly to the Iraqis and Chinese technicians trained them in China and they were trained there for the silkworm and for the electronic countermeasures, and the Chinese also trained the naval personnel from both countries to familiarize them to man and operate the missiles and to train them in conventional naval warfare doctrine, and also to train them to use and operate Chinese manufactured frigates and torpedo boats. And China basically selected two training bases for naval personnel from the two countries. The one training base was located in Qing Huang Dao(Qing Huan Island) at Bo Hai Bay on the Bo Hai Sea. The other training facility was on the island called Ma Shie, close to Zhangjiang, which is the site of the headquarters of the Chinese Southern Sea Fleet. The personnel were rotated between the two bases, each side trained in both places. But China made the point of never training the men together at the same place.
Aside from these two, in Shanghai, the Navy PLA, also has a training base for all of the foreign military personnel and technicians. There they are trained in the technical and tactical aspects of naval warfare. The Pakistani friends and men from the Bangledesh Navy and the Royal Thai military personnel were trained in Shanghai. Especially the three frigates the Chinese navy sold to the Thai Royal Navy were manufactured and launched in Shanghai Naval Shipyards and therefore the Royal Thai Naval Personnel, it was handy for them to be trained close to where the ship was manufactured.
Norinco sold MIGS to both sides, but primarily the Iranians and the pilots were trained in China. China also sold two Romeo class submarines, conventional submarines to Egypt, since Egypt at the time was probably the closest ally to China in the middle east. This was all before Poly was founded. Later on, Poly gained a hand in providing materials like these to foreign friends. So With more and more profits being generated into Norinco system, the PLA was getting anxious to have a direct access to this huge revenue.
The Chinese Aerospace and Aeronautic ministry, as it is called now(then it was called YJ-82). At that time Chinese Aerospace and Aeronautic were separate.)
China was able to clone or reverse engineer or steal the technology from the French exocet and made a copy and then produced their version, calling it the YJ 82, in the west it was called C 801. At that time, in 1984, the ministry really wanted to sell the missiles to Iraq in order to generate profits. But, the PLA intervened. They said the PLA Navy wanted the missiles. So, the ministry had no choice but to sell the missiles to the Navy at the price of 0.97 million renminbi each. And later on, Poly Technologies directly sold these missiles to Iraq at a price of 1.2 million US dollars. That is why the Aerospace related defense industries in China were angry. But they could do nothing. And this is one of the rationales for the establishment of Poly Technologies. Because after all, it is only a trading company. The uniformed military could not do business with foreigners, but a trading company could and then the profits would be channeled directly back into the military through the General STaff. Because Poly basically belongs to the General Staff. In doing the arms trade because of the unique position that Poly held, it was never beaten by any domestic and international rivalries in the arms trade. Until, in the middle of the 1980s, the Shangri La deal. This was a humiliating blow to Poly.)


The Shangri la failure

Now there are agents -- our "friends" -- in organizations. And when we need information we get it. Lewt me give you an example. On American aircraft carriers. Let me put it broadly first. We get whatever information we need. Whatever information. It would shock you. It would shock you!

The Shangri La I think is our greatest failure. Actually. A major disappointment. It was supposed to be for scrapping purposes. At that time, in 1986 and early 1987. We wanted to design our own aircraft carrier. We wanted to learn some of the landing and maintenance techniques that the Us had. This was a medium sized aircraft carrier from World War II, and this as a medium sized carrier and that is what we wanted. The technology was modern on the carrier. At that time the situation in the South China sea was so critical. We had naval skirmishes with Taiwan and with Malaysia over the Spratly Islands sovereignty. At that time, China became to think, or was reminded of the seriousness of having long range protection force capability, an aircraft carrier was the ideal solution for the Chinese navy, since a lot of areas in the Spratly islands were simply out of the range of the shore based fighter bombers. And so China needed an aircraft carrier. Therefore, they wanted to buy one. Actually, in 1980, China purchased one carrier, the old World War II model, from Australia, the Melbourne, the city in the southern part of Australia, We bought that and disassembled it. Every part was taken off with extreme care, it was disassembled in a shipyard near Guangzhou. And it was studied and the contract originally was for scrapping purposes. But every part was evaluated. Then we found that it was not enough. We needed to buy one from the US and evaluate it. The US was more advanced. That one was from Britain, but we needed one from the US. Of course we could never buy something like the Kennedy or your modern carriers, but we needed to buy a medium sized not to old ship. For scrapping purposes. So there was an argument in China. Some wanted to keep the Shangri La and to use it as it was. But the Shangri La they had something else in mind. It was put up by sale in Philadelphia. So we immediately jumped into the bidding for the ship. And we almost got it.
They obtained assistance from Am friends who are extremely well connected here in Am. [I should tell you that it is a source of pride for us that before any American military vessel is launched, all of the information, guidebooks, instructions, captabilities, statistics, photographs regarding the vessel are provided by our friends to the Central Military Commission. This is a fact, not a wish. The CMC does not like surprises.] They had access to information having to do with the bidding from TAiwan. So they went through a lot of activity, and they carried on covert surveillance and observations, and they concluded that they knew what Taiwan would offer. So China didn't want to spend too much, so having information on the bidding was crucial. This was a scrapping company making the bid, a company in the North, situated on the Northern coast of China, this is still secret today. This was not an open bid, people had to know who the bidder was. The bidder was only from TAiwan, as far as I know. The bidder was a ship scrapping company on the North Coast. We know who it was. The only competitor was from Taiwan, they were willing to offer more oney, and we knew exactly how much. The bidding procedures were extremely confidential. I know that China offered a slightly higher price. So theoretically, we should have had the deal. But, unfortunately, your CIA found out that we wanted to use this carrier for something. Due to influence from the government, without opening the bid from China, the ship was sold to TAiwan. Chinese personnel from the security ministry went on board and videotaped the ship. They identified themselves as from the salvage compnay and Poly people identified themselves as salvagers. Then a small handful of friends from the circle also came with us on the ship. Genuine blue-eyed, blonde haired Americans took us aboard the ship and helped us greatly. Not Cinese Americans
They were satisfied on the ShangriLa aand found that the catapult was still intact and the large caliber cylinder was still intact, that drove the catapult, and this is what we wanted. Poly wanted that ship. We would get it from the salvage company and individuals involved in the intelligence services were involved in the deal also.
Now, they were so sure that they would get the ship, and they were extremely experienced people, and when they believe they will get something they will get it. But this time the US government intervened. So money was no longer the issue, but politics was. So they lost the deal.
And the State security people then had their friends buy cars in Phiadelphia and Seattle. They knew it was going to China, and they wanted direct access to clearance in customs in China. Everyone would make a profit. Cars would be a solution to the problem. So they bought hundreds of cars in the US, new cars, ordered them. On both coasts. Not in concentrated areas. These were National Security people and their friends.
They had to resell the cars. They lost money. Some had agreements with car dealers, and returned them to friends at car dealers. But they had to eat the discount. That company generated a profit, bujt China lost money. The car dealers didn't have to be friends of China. The dealers arranged everything. They ordered the cars and told where to have them delivered for export, that was all legal. That was all legal, so long as you have the clearance documents, customs, tariffs and so on. Who cares that this was going on. But once the deal was lost thye had to resell thecars. The government agency would have owned the cars in China, and then resell them. That is extremely profitable. The government, of course, was not informed of the deal. The security ministry was informed of the deal, but it was a profitable venture and who cares, as long as you generate a huge profit. The security ministry was not going to buy this car, others, in the provincial governments, or in the agricultural ministry and so on. The Chinese would pay eventually, and then they could be sold to a third country, in the middle east or so on, in a third country and generate a profit there. Everyone was after a profit, of course. It could have been a collective profit, of course. A little bit of profit, of course, would have meant an awful lot of money.
Let me tell you someting about your security. I saw books from your warhsips, time and again, which we translated into Chinese for our own use. The manuals for aircraft carriers and from submarienes. Tha was for our business.
The Public Security System is for the people, but not for Poly. We are above that. I remember on a couple of occsaons when I was involved in business, and there was this intersection with foreignsers, and I was followed by public security agents. They didn't seem to know who I was. So Poly called them off. They came up on the elevator with me, saw the floor I went to, and they then asked who I was and I knever saw them again. I had to go to the American Embassy, for example, and they wanted to folow me.
The people who purchased the cars in Seattle, they were State Security Ministry people. That is equivalent to your CIA. These individuals of course are stationed everywhwere. Besides, they have a lot of loyal support, from influential people in America. Now those people, some of them, I know personally. In China I met them first. They have both houses in the US and then also in Beijing. In China they live in luxurious compound, funded by the government. These are all American born Chinese. But these Chinese are well connected with Americans in your country, to be sure. And some of them themselves are well connected and well to do in your country. Of course they do not do what they do for money. They do it out of what they believe is patriotism -- to China. It is a funny world, I tell you. If you include that in your story, few people in America will believe this, I know. And it is a hell of a story. How can you make people in America believe this. When I first met them, I looked into their eyes, and I knew what they were about. I knew what was driving them, why they were taking the risks they were taking.
If we were -- well, the Shangri la would be the best example of how they work. This was in 1987 and in 1988. Well, in China, I saw a videotape of the ship with our people on board examining the ship, accompanied by blonde-haired, blue-eyed Americans. I saw that video, shown around by people from your government. It was sale for scrap. The video, we did that ourselves. And when the delegation returned hone they showed the videos to our leaders and they showed it to us.
The people who were examining the ship, of course, represented a scrap company, in China. They were really representing us, and a company from Hong Kong was also involved in that they would tow the ship first to Seattle and then to China. When I looked into these people's eyes, based upon my knowledge of this deal itself, I knew, of coursed based upon my knowledge, these people were not in it for the money, I knew. They did it purely from political conviction. They think your country is rotten. They see it for what it is. Now these people are not communists, they are not members of the Communist Party in our country. The party members think of them, well, the words they use are, "they are extremely helpful." There is little reluctance to trust them. There is an extremely powerful organization within the PLA, whose job is solely to take care of these individuals. I know what that organization is. There goal is to make use, as much as they can, of the social position of our friends in other countries, including America. And Singapore and everywhere. They have different offices around the world. One office overlooks both the US and Canada and is called Meida, Canada and America. That office. This one over Hong Kong, that one over Taiwan and that one over Singapore. These people, when they go to the office may go in uniform, if they so wish. But if they do not wish, or when they travel, they immediately get a visa from a foreign embassy. The name of the organization, I will tell you, depends on how far we go. Very few individuals know about this organization.]


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So Syria came calling, sending a delegation to China, saying that Syria was interested in Chinese arms too since they had observed the successful Chinese missiles in Saudi Arabia and Chinese arms in Iran and Iraq and in Egypt. And China said, all right, anything but ballistic missiles. And Syria said it was exactly the ballistic missile that they were interested in. Because this was exactly what they could not buy from the outside world. Both the USA and the Soviet Union were forbidden to sell these arms to Assad. China was the only country to sell missiles of this kind to any foreign country in history. The East Wind. So the Syrians said, OK, let's make an agreement. We are not going to sell you intermediate range missiles, but we can sell you short range ballistic missiles. Which is the M9 series and which is really all they need. China was shrewd on this. China told them, but so far we do not have the missiles, and that is because we are still in the design and developmental stage for these missiles. We are unfortunately short of funds at the moment. So if you’re interested in the missiles really you can participate in their development by providing financial contributions at the moment, which is what we need. To the research projects. This meant an immediate infusion of foreign currency to China, which is exactly what we needed. And once the missiles come out, in three or four years time, this will be an advance payment and you can then be provided with them. So the Syrians, of course, they were interested. They wanted anything ballistic, no matter what the price. They were very interested in hitting Israel and this was the weapon that they could do it with. Whatever the price. The only thing that could safely hit Israel was a ballistic missile, because Israel's air defense capability was extremely good, especially the air force. So now the Israelis were worried. Especially about the Bekka Valley. When Israel planes wiped out all of the SAM missiles provided to them by the Soviet Union. They were infuriated by this by the poor quality and perofm4ance of the missiles provided by the Soviet Union. So they wanted to buy ballistic ones, and by ballistic ones I mean that once they are launched against a target, unless there is an SDI program, they cannot be countered. By ballistic I mean once they are launched against a target, once they go into the atmosphere and then they come down, that means you cannot see them. Unlike a Scud missile, which you can see. A cruise missile is a ground skimming missile, But these you cannot see them until they reemerge into the atmosphere of the earth, and that is only moments before the explosion. So they are impossible to put a ground or air defense against them. That is why the USA is developing an SDI program. So the Syrians loaned the money to the Aviation and Aeronautic Industry. They have a lot of research institutes. The function of these is the developments of intermediate or short range ballistic missiles. So, the Syrians did that. Provided the money. And later on China provided the Missile launchers. And quite high ranking officials from the Aviation Industry, they personally supervised the shipping of the launchers and the first missiles to Syria. That means they were on the ship. That means they flew on the planes and they were there in advance of the landing of the launchers and the ships. They supervised the safe delivery, camouflage, transportation and everything. How much money did they provide? Millions or billions(Something that we talk about later on)
So now the Syrians have launchers. The western intelligence experts have spotted launchers. The launchers were installed by Chinese technicians. But I seriously doubt that Syria has obtained at least a couple of missiles already. They have, I think. Due to the financial contributions to the program.. It is impossible for China to stop this deal now. The only thing that can actually stop this or make China refrain from this is that all of a sudden it was exposed in the world. So it is not longer a secret, so China will be more careful. She will postpone her deployment for a time. But just for a time. By short range missiles I mean about 375 miles. An IRBM is more than 1,000 miles. The accuracy of these is, what do you call it, the smallest error circle, for this missile, is very insignificant. If it carries nuclear war heads, you can forget it, since you do not have to be that accurate. This is the last card, of course, that China holds in its hand. Now that you guys all have these missiles capable of delivering a nuclear warhead, now I know that you cannot develop a warhead by yourself. The only country capable of developing that warhead and placing it on the missile is China itself. See, so in order for your guys to acquire delivery of a nuclear warhead, then you must maintain good relations with China and, in time, you might get what you want. Later on. But it depends on the bilateral relationship. And now, all the Arab world, has diplomatic relations with China.
China, in the nuclear non-proliferation agreements, says only that it is willing to consider signing the treaty. But it still needs to have ratification of the people's Congress, which is not going to be held until this year later. And even if the Congress approves, and if China signs this treaty, I seriously doubt, who signs this treaty. The Foreign Ministry. And what in the world is this foreign ministry? It is nothing. Nothing in the arms export circles. It has no power. But China needs a foreign ministry for communication with the West. So they are caught x somewhere in the middle.
So the defense system is a state unto itself, and Poly Technologies is the head of the family.

Poly Technologies. Why am I providing you with all of this background information. Few people know about this, the inside history of Poly Technologies. Few people know about this. Few people know this story. One of the reasons why the US did not protest Chinese arms sales in the past was because the Soviet Union was still there. Gorbachev came to power in 1985. Before 1985 China and the US military relationship was very close. I personally saw, was in the crowd watching a parade for, a Naval parade for the Secretary of the Navy and for Caspar Weinberger, and Lehmann, they were in Beijing. Lehmann I saw him twice and each time he was in the Naval compound. The Navy held a military parade for his arrival, in their headquarters in Beijing. This was not widely known. In China, this was not publicized, they just said he was in Beijing, Lehmann. The discussions that they carried on, there was an official and unofficial agenda. They spoke of cooperation in the Naval field. The trainer warship that went to Hawaii the year before, and the US warships visiting Shanghai. These were the results of agreements that we never knew about. Cooperation of the two countries in -- we can talk about that later. A lot of things. The US contributed, prior to 1987, significantly, to the Chinese. In 1987, the US began to change its attitude and then more dramatically in its attitude toward China. 1989 to be exact. But 1989 was a turning point, because of Tiananmen Square. Gorbachev came to power, and your government knew the Soviet Union was going to be significantly weakened, and it would be liberalized. Any communist country that is liberalized, to a certain degree, that means that its defense capability is more exposed to western ideas. And that means the more democratic a country is, the less strong it is militarily. Or, if you want to keep a strong military force in a democracy, you are going to have to pay a high price. We know that. Much higher than the same amount of force required in a communist country. That is why your country and Japan pay huge amounts in defense expenditures. While the Soviet Union and China are somewhat more comfortable with their defense expenditures. Because the defense structure is quite different. The pay for logistical supplies and for ground forces is lower in communist countries. And a lot of other things. In the communist society, defense oriented industries have the biggest priorities, see what I mean. That means the people are put in a less favorable position in getting a fair share of the GNP. See. So, that means or that translates into this. The people in the communist world are willing to suffer themselves, in order to pave the way for having a strong military force. That means, deliberately or unintentionally, the people are willing to cooperate with the government to provide a strong military. And that means that once the Soviet Union is shattered, the whole weak economy is exposed. Now the people don't even know how to get through the winter. That shows how fragile and vulnerable the whole civilian economic structure in a communist society is. But look at the defense industries. Look how advanced they are. Look at the Soviet and the Chinese defense industries and then look at their domestic economies. They are as advanced in some aspects of defense technology as the US is. Because people are willing to suffer and to sacrifice. The whole system as designed that way. The system is designed that way. The military gets the top priority. Deliberately or intentionally the people are willing to accept that fact as part of their lives. The product of the Chinese society is the People's Liberation Army and the Red Army of the Soviet Union. They enjoyed an extremely high social status, and that is why in China the children of families with high social status want to join the PLA or be affiliated with the PLA in China. You know. Especially now days, joining the PLA is never for money purposes.
The army is like a state to itself. The army has now its own plantations, the army even grows poppies. For profit, of course. And they sell it throughout the world. But officially. We can talk about that later on. Believe me, some of the drugs sold on the streets of Washington, D. C., near the White House, is no doubt from China. If it is good, then it is. China successfully uses family ties and influences of the people in the Golden Triangle, to influence and infiltrate the structure of the world drug trafficking. China played that card, capitalizing on the Chinese who worked and controlled the Golden Triangle but who left their families behind in China, in the mainland. The people in the Golden Triangle, they realized that they still need to rely on China. And the people there, a lot of them Chinese, they provide them with advanced processing techniques, with laboratories, they provided them with equipment. China served as their logistical supply base before that time. All the Chinese knew that, but in the West they don't seem to know this. Few people know this in China, and there has never been wide exposure of this in China, of course.
It is one of those issues that never comes before the public. And even it is, it was decided already politically and so there is no room for debate on this. This is serious, and it generates profit. When something is not that serious, not that central, then the Party throws it out for individuals to debate in a silly way. But the issue is not serious, like abortion or something. Zhao Ziyang and Deng Xiaoping of course were informed of this, had access to this information, but they never bother themselves with the details. Never. As long as the profits are generated, and as long as you guys take care of yourselves, then you guys are all right no matter what you do. Whatever means are required, you do it yourselves. Your defense is short, we are going to cut you, so whatever means you use to make money is all right. You just figure it out yourselves. They provided logistics, processing techniques, in order to be more competitive in the international markets. That is why a lot of things were shipped through Chinese continent. Thailand and Indochina, that is a very nice route. And now China maintains a very good relationship with Burma(Myanmar) the military regime. I still have the article in my suitcase, very fantastic. Now they are building a road, building another one. From Kunming down into the Golden Triangle, just like the one that we built linking Lhasa and Szechwan. The PLA lost thousands of soldiers lives during the building of that road. Due to the extremely severe weather. And actually on the way the PLA advanced into Tibet, it was built bit by bit. That is a road out of no road, out of no natural route, and the road conditions on that road are very tough.

The plantations in the South that grow poppies. That explains why much of the heroin of the world is trafficked through China. But China is now under more and more pressure to stop this. They say that they have arrested hundreds of people and executed those traffickers. Who were these individuals. There are always civilian drug dealers, but they were nothing in the international traffic. And among the hundreds of people arrested in China and shot dead, the business goes on. And it is run by the PLA. I doubt that many individuals within the government know about it. The PLA is run by people at the top and they know, but many people in the middle don't know. Zhao Ziyang and Deng Xiaoping of course should know. But the question is do they really care, does it really make any difference to them. The problem was that they had no money for the PLA and so they had asked these individuals to make their own money, we know longer have enough money to give you. And that is why the PLA had its own plantations and its own factories. This is why they would have an aircraft factory also turning out motorcycles. domestic CIVILIAN production comes out of military production, and radar production facilities produce color televisions. They are capable of doing that. The submarine plants turn out motorcycles, too. Which turn out to be very successful, actually. The PLA was forced into that by the need for money and particularly for foreign currency. But the people at the top, they never really want to know much about that. They simply look at printouts of production and they want to know what the profits are. You know they don't care about where the money comes from. And if the Yunnan district comes up with millions in profits, that is good. But do you think they really care where the profit comes from. They know that the PLA generates enough revenue for the defense modernization. And so the conclusion drawn is that the PLA is capable of taking care of itself. The leaders, Deng and Zhao, they were really pleased with what the army had accomplished. That was a big reduction of the burden on their shoulders. Now they no longer have to worry about generating money for the army.
When they get their annual report, they get a report that says, in Kunming military region, for example, we have generated how many US dollars in revenue due to front line production, which we are always encouraged to do. That is hugely profitable. They never question that business. Unlike the arms sales in the Middle East, which also generate profits, unlike when it comes to ballistic missile sales or nuclear materials technology, then the Generals in the PLA know that they can no longer be responsible for this and they must include it in their reports.
I know personally the reporting echelon from Poly to the Politburo, or to the CCMC, they report that directly. When I was working in Poly, almost daily I saw the signatures from Li Peng and Zhao Ziyang, they just signed off on our business. That is the funny part about the business. The funny part about the Chinese arms sales business to international market is that those people who are in the position, like if you are the premier or the general secretary of the party, you must sign the documents. Because tomorrow, at 8 in the morning, the first thing you see on your desk is a report from Poly or from the General Staff, saying that we want to buy or to sell something from the Middle East or from the West, and now we need your signature. These people What they are concerned about at that time, is that they want to stay at their post for as long as they can. They do not want ever to offend the military, they know that the military is always powerful in China.
When it comes to official reports, nobody is going to stop them. If you are Zhao Ziyang you have to sign. Even though you might not be entirely sure as to what is going on. Although you know so little about what is going on. The people who really know the business, who come up with the ideas of what to do, they were always behind the scenes and there is no way you can stop them. When it comes to the official report, no one is going to stop them. You sign, even though you know so little about what is going on. Behind the scenes are the people who really formulate policy, and there is no way -- believe me -- that you can stop them.
That is the funny part of Poly Technologies. That is why, say, Norinco, if you have a hundred missiles to sell to Iran, and Poly knew that you were going to generate profits for yourselves, then, ever since Poly was established in 1983, because it was so powerful, and it has the full support of the military and the general staff, and because of the personnel connections, the son in law of this one and the daughter of that one, son of the marshal and daughter of the marshal, they were then extremely powerful, even though these guys are no longer at their posts. They are out of power but they are still in position. See, what I mean is this.
The people who are involved in the decision making process. Sometimes they are a general and sometimes they are civilian. But on the top post, you held the post before, you retired then. That means you no longer hold the post. Right. You know longer go to the official office, but you are still in a position to make the final decision. Like Mr. Deng. He retired from everything but he holds the final say in virtually every decision. This is exactly the pattern that the arms trade in China follows. It has nothing to do with loyalty. It is just a common idea that holds together a small circle of people. And they reach an agreement. And they say, all right, if we sell this missile to Saudi Arabia, we make a political gamble, like three or four people, and they ask, all right, but is it going to be politically risky. Somebody will say that it is, but they don't care about that. And besides, they believe, if we sell missiles to Saudi Arabia, then Saudi Arabia’s government is going to be more friendly toward China, and then later on we can establish diplomatic relations with Saudi Arabia. That is exactly what was talked about before the decision to sell missiles to Saudi Arabia was made. Se. They already foresaw the political implications of the deal. Not only for money. Not for money alone, of course. Once the agreement was made, they generate a report and put it in a written form. And then it circulates in a small circle at the top. The official channel. The report finally reaches Zhao Ziyang. But the report, what is written on the report, is not the same material that they discussed behind the scenes. They discussed, behind the scenes, the defense modernization drive, now comes to a critical stage, and we are in a critical situation and we are extremely short of funds, and based on the current evaluations, we came to the following conclusions. The best way to generate the funds is to sell the missiles to certain countries. One of them is Saudi Arabia and one of them is Syria. And what they need, they need something that we don't need. They need something that we want to sell, because we are now out phasing some of the equipment and one of them is ballistic missiles. See Zhao Ziyang was never trained in military aspects at all. He cannot realize the implications, the strategic implications of ballistic missiles, all he knows is the kind of missiles that we have we no longer want to keep. And if we sell them, we are going to generate a lot of money for the PLA. There is no cheaper way to do that. Because you guys no longer need these missiles. So why not sell them?
So the report was ratified. And the decision is already made. So all the PLA is going to do is just to work something out, make sure that the strategic defenses system is shipped off to Saudi Arabia. And the PLA was already committed to the ground maintenance, or installation of this defense system.
Do American military people realize how power is distributed in China? No, not really. I don't think so. They are always shown something official, like a military parade. They never draw the conclusion that they may be speaking to someone with or without any real power. One thing you must know is that they are not shown everything and they do not meet everybody. They meet only those that they need to meet and never any more than that. The more you are involved in a military relationship or a commercial relationship with the PLA then the more people you meet. And the more you become involved, the more you meet people like me. But still the people you do business with are in civilian clothes. And you also never know where we are going to spend the money that we get from these deals. It is none of your business. But I am still in civilian clothes, I am a company doing business, and that is all you need to know. That is why my company is involved in both export and in import, because they must go hand in hand. What is fantastic about the company is that we seldom keep money. Seldom. Of course we keep it for a certain time before it is turned over. But, the objective is to spend it for the PLA. So, like Norinco, it has one hundred missiles that they want to sell to Iran, right. And the PLA, we can step in, and this is exactly what happened.
The money is used to buy weapons from the US and from other countries. Part of the revenue is kept for ourselves, but the biggest portion goes to the PLA because that is our objective, our reason for being.
Talk about overseas Chinese later on.
1983, the reason for the founding of the company and the environment under which it is created. There were 100 missiles that Norinco wanted to sell to Iran. And we stepped in. We are the same as the equipment department of the General Staff. We do things for them and they do things for us. Poly does not have to do that, we are the same as the equipment department of the general staff. Once you have to deal with foreigners, then it is Poly Technologies that does the business. Once some domestic issue is involved, the General Staff is going to step in. Say, they want to sell missiles to Iran, and the General Staff steps in, and they say, the PLA needs these missiles, then you cannot sell them. Then the PLS buys these missiles from Norinco at an extremely low price, and then we sell them at a high price and make a profit for the PLS. That is why the other companies involved in the business -- that is exactly what happened -- that is why the other companies -- involved in the business, always cherish strong grievances against Poly because we have the advantage. In truth, in formally, Poly is really a branch of the PLA supply department, but officially it is registered under the Citic Group. Unofficially, behind the lines, it is the supply department of the PLA. Everyone knew that you guys on the elevator going to the seventeenth floor, to our company, you cannot do so without permission. It is not something you do without permission. You just don't knock on our door and open it. Even if you are senior people or ordinary people, they don't know what is going on.
The telephone line between the General Staff and Poly? We don't need that. They have their secret telephone numbers. and we have them. Secondly, they have direct access to those people's compounds, which is extremely heavily guarded. But some of the individuals that I work with, th9is evening I am going to speak to Yang Shankun, and at first he was just trying to impress me, I thought. I didn't believe him. And then he did it. And he told me, I just drove my car into the compound. And I thought, "My God, you just drove into the compound!" And in fact, he just drove in. The guard saw the plate number, and he didn't look at the face. He just looked at the plate. If you are in the car you are safe. Some of these guys can drive into see Deng Xiaoping whenever they want to. But the foreign minister, if he wants to see Deng, they tell him wait a minute, you have to find out if he is busy or not. Access at any time, and if Mr. Deng is taking a shower he will still interrupt it to see us.
Intermarriage in the company. It is kind of a family run business you might say, but that still is not quite accurate. Because it is run by several families. And they are interchangeable. Almost like the Mafia. You could say that. There are a lot of things in the company, but you cannot understand it. There is a code of silence like in the Media, an agreement of consent, Omerta, I know what you are doing, but I never ask you. That is what it is. And you know what I am doing, but you never ask me about it. I don't feel comfortable if you ask me too many questions. That is what happens inside the company. That is why, when I left the company, nobody seemed to care. You are no longer with us when you go. There are about a half a dozen, no more, that intermarry and run the company. But some of them, although the foreigners tend to think, of Deng Xiaoping and Yang Shankun, that they are the most important leaders. But actually, there are a lot of people from the military families, individuals with careers in the military, whose father's may have been generals or marshals, and they are well entrenched. And they are extremely well informed, and very well informed and influential. Each day, at eight in the morning, they read information that is then forwarded to Deng. They provide a summary to him. What is happening in the world. They get the same information. These are never diplomatic officials, of course. But they are more powerful. These are not the guys you read about in the papers. What they say is extremely business like. That is the bottom line. They are businessmen. What is the bottom line of business. As to Saudi Arabia. They will write: Saudi Arabia. Critical stage. Need arms. Cannot buy from the US. Fantastic opportunity for us to step in. Then political costs. Financial costs. Yes. Military considerations. Israel possible response. Appendix one. Israel relationship or ambition for relations with China. How we can make use of that. Conclusion. Israel will remain silent. We can do this. The reports are generated from the head of the state security agency for the army intelligence, they have agents or spies around the world, of course. Very few people are involved in the final processing of this information. A large number of course are involved in gathering the information. But they read purified information and they purify information, they condense it. They put their ideas, their twist or spin on it. They are then responsible for their analysis. The archives for these reports are maintained. On a couple of occasions we saw these reports. They are kept in a small circle of individuals within the families. They then keep it within the families. What are the last names of the families -- six of them. So, they are, this is the perfect background for understanding Poly. If you say it is like the Mafia, then it is. If you use that word, you use it. But I would not use it. This is a small family group with a code of silence, tremendously powerful and influential. And the cardinal characteristic of them, of course, heavily committed.
Heavily committed but to what? But, not at a post. Committed to the modernization of the PLA. These are extremely loyal individuals, you must remember. Loyal to the PLA. The individuals writing the reports, generating them, of course, they know exactly what it is that will attract the attention of these leaders. And those who generate repots, know what the others are thinking and how they think. So in the case of Saudi Arabia, the political risks, costs, Chinese involvement in installation and maintenance were all part of the report. Israel response, US response, and so on. And then the best way of doing the business, to keep it a secret, that also is part of the report. Possible US response. In order to keep it a secret, the best way of shipping, arrangements, payments, and so on. And how many people will be involved in the business arrangements, and finally it is stamped top secret. And if you look at the fucking real world, the public world, the Chinese newspapers, the People's Daily, then they talk about something else. And American academics and policy makers they read that material and we know that, and they interpret it and they draw the wrong conclusions, they are good at that. They study our bullshit and they draw conclusions from it, every conclusion but that it is bullshit. They think they understand Poly or they understand the army and they understand not one goddamned thing. They listen to the most stupid information imaginable. They have your number. You know, living here in China, I never realized how really unique we are. Then I spoke with visiting American academics and dignitaries, and I realized how stupid they were. I visited Washington and it was the same story. Ignorance. They study bullshit. This is almost funny if it were not pathetic. They hear this or that and they listen to the radio. They were experts on the most stupid things I could imagine. I could not believe my ears when I heard them. They were teachers and policymakers and they knew nothing about how China really works. I knew what I was doing on my job. I never stopped to think about how unique we are. I just knew what I was doing. But after I visited the United States did I realize the implications of the piles of bullshit we had been shoveling into the press. Then I read the papers in the US and listened to individuals at an official reception. And I realized it was nuts. You are nuts.
Perhaps some of this information will enlighten. I think it is about time for somebody to make the American people to realize what in the hell the reality is of China, what you are dealing with. This is not "The Good Earth" or "The Last Emperor," for God's sake. It is the whole world that they want to control, in fact. And you refuse to believe that, absolutely refuse. This is exactly the forbidden city in international politics and in international business. This is what they want to have and what they do not have. But maybe someday they will. What makes things work. Lots of people, by the way, think that they do have access, at least they have knowledge to know what is going on it China. But they cannot get inside the walls of that Forbidden City that the inner circles have built. As soon as your government asks your think tanks to find out how business is carried out in China, a lot of people who are supposed to know the way that we think, from Rand and Stanford and from Michigan, where people are very good at pretending that they know China, so whenever the government expresses an interest, a lot of people without doing much research come to a ready-made quick conclusion. They say, ok, we know enough about China and about this company and here are the answers. This is worse than crazy. This is dangerous. They say, OK, the company was founded at this time, and it is headed by top families and these are the people in it and so on, and it, well they use a lot of information. And believe a lot of the reports generated for the White House and people believe those reports because they are put together by "the China experts" in the United States. But tell me, this, "How in the fuck do they know what is going on in China, especially in the forbidden city. They don't even know it exists, let alone understand it, for God's sake. Let me put it this way. Nothing of substantial value has ever been released or published by an American think tank. Poly might have placed agents within American think tanks or universities, but that is not necessary. Because they Americans obviously know nothing.
Now there are agents -- our "friends" -- in organizations. And when we need information we get it. Let me give you an example. On American aircraft carriers. Let me put it broadly first. We get whatever information we need. Whatever information. It would shock you. It would shock you!
Let me tell you something about your security. I saw books from your warships, time and again, which we translated into Chinese for our own use. The manuals for aircraft carriers and from submarines. That was for our business.
The Public Security System is for the people, but not for Poly. We are above that. I remember on a couple of occasions when I was involved in business, and there was this intersection with foreigners, and I was followed by public security agents. They didn't seem to know who I was. So Poly called them off. They came up on the elevator with me, saw the floor I went to, and they then asked who I was and I never saw them again. I had to go to the American Embassy, for example, and they wanted to follow me.
The people who purchased the cars in Seattle, they were State Security Ministry people. That is equivalent to your CIA. These individuals of course are stationed everywhere. Besides, they have a lot of loyal support, from influential people in America. Now those people, some of them, I know personally. In China I met them first. They have both houses in the US and then also in Beijing. In China they live in luxurious compound, funded by the government. These are all American born Chinese. But these Chinese are well connected with Americans in your country, to be sure. And some of them themselves are well connected and well to do in your country. Of course they do not do what they do for money. They do it out of what they believe is patriotism -- to China. It is a funny world, I tell you. If you include that in your story, few people in America will believe this, I know. And it is a hell of a story. How can you make people in America believe this. When I first met them, I looked into their eyes, and I knew what they were about. I knew what was driving them, why they were taking the risks they were taking.
If we were -- well, the Shangri-La would be the best example of how they work. This was in 1987 and in 1988. Well, in China, I saw a videotape of the ship with our people on board examining the ship, accompanied by blonde-haired, blue-eyed Americans. I saw that video, shown around by people from your government. It was sale for scrap. The video, we did that ourselves. And when the delegation returned hone they showed the videos to our leaders and they showed it to us.
The people who were examining the ship, of course, represented a scrap company, in China. They were really representing us, and a company from \Hong Kong was also involved in that they would tow the ship first to Seattle and then to China. When I looked into these people's eyes, based upon my knowledge of this deal itself, I knew, of coursed based upon my knowledge, these people were not in it for the money, I knew. They did it purely from political conviction. They think your country is rotten. They see it for what it is. Now these people are not communists, they are not members of the Communist Party in our country. The party members think of them, well, the words they use are, "they are extremely helpful." There is little reluctance to trust them. There is an extremely powerful organization within the PLA, whose job is solely to take care of these individuals. I know what that organization is. Their goal is to make use, as much as they can, of the social position of our friends in other countries, including America. And Singapore and everywhere. They have different offices around the world. One office overlooks both the US and Canada and is called Meida, Canada and America. That office. This one over Hong Kong, that one over Taiwan and that one over Singapore. These people, when they go to the office may go in uniform, if they so wish. But if they do not wish, or when they travel, they immediately get a visa from a foreign embassy. The name of the organization, I will tell you, depends on how far we go. Very few individuals know about this organization.]