Under the deal, Industrial & Commercial Bank of China Ltd., by some measures the world’s largest bank, agreed to acquire a majority stake in Bank of East Asia Ltd.’s U.S. subsidiary. ICBC, as the bank is known, is based in Beijing and is 70% owned by the [Communist] Chinese government.
Bank of East Asia has a total of 13 branches in New York and California. ICBC and Bank of East Asia have talked to U.S. regulators about the deal.
The move represents what could be the start of big expansions by Chinese financial institutions in the U.S.
If ICBC’s deal to acquire Bank of East Asia’s U.S. subsidiary goes through, Americans could walk into the retail branches, open check and savings accounts and, most significantly for many investors, open yuan accounts to trade the currency.
Signed in Chicago on the last day of Chinese President Hu Jintao’s state visit to the U.S., the move, comes as both Beijing and Washington are calling for greater commercial ties between the two countries.
From “Greater Commercial Ties” To…
This is on the heels of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates recently calling for “stronger military ties” between the US Armed Forces and the military of Communist China.
According to Reuters;
“Gates and his Chinese counterpart [Liang Guanglie] agreed on Monday that stronger military ties were needed to avoid missteps between the two global giants.”
A Chinese Base On American Soil?
In 1998, the Chinese government attempted to lease long-term the now abandoned US Naval Base in Long Beach, California.
Under the guise of leasing in the name of COSCO (Chinese Overseas Shipping Company), it was discovered that COSCO is actually a Communist Chinese government owned company.
If the deal would have gone through, the Chinese would have had in essence, a Naval base on US Soil.
The negotiations came to a halt when the Republican-controlled Congress squashed the deal due to national security concerns.
