Apparently, the Chinese government is getting ready to start buying up Idaho.
And not just little bits and pieces either, if you go whole hog and believe everything you read on the Internet. In the words of Bill Turner — a self-described reverend and journalist who calls his blog site “Boise Conservative” — Gov. Butch Otter and President Barack Obama “have hatched a plan to make Idaho the first Chinese-owned state in America.”
Because, you know, Obama and Otter are always in cahoots.
Clearly, some folks are buying the China-is-buying-Idaho conspiracy. We’ve gotten a few calls and emails about this one over the past few days. So this theory is out there. In more ways than one.
Seriously, where do people get this stuff? In this case, they latched onto some actual quotes and actual facts — and mixed in a healthy serving of hysteria.
• A Chinese national company, Sinomach, is pursuing two Idaho projects — a fertilizer plant near American Falls and a 10,000- to 30,000-acre industrial, retail and residential “technology zone” south of the Boise airport. The Statesman’s Rocky Barker wrote about both projects in the Dec. 31 paper.
This week, a site calling itself the Intel Hub put a lot of spin on the Boise project. “The planned ‘self-sustaining city’ in Idaho would include manufacturing facilities, warehouses, retail centers and large numbers of homes for Chinese workers. Basically it would be a slice of communist China dropped right into the middle of the United States.”
At a site called The New American — published by American Opinion Publishing, a wholly owned subsidiary of The John Birch Society — William F. Jasper says Sinomach is no innocuous corporate neighbor. The government-owned company, he says, is nothing less than the “commercial-political-military-intelligence instrument” of Beijing’s communist regime.
Who says Red-baiting is dead?
• The conspiracy crowd is also trying to get mileage out of quotes from Idaho officials. Neither quote is in dispute, and both were gleaned by Barker, who covered Otter’s China trade mission last summer.
Says Lt. Gov. Brad Little: “Idaho’s the last state that should say we don’t want to do business with Asia. Asia’s where the money is.” And, says Don Dietrich, Otter’s Commerce Department head, “The Chinese are looking for a beachhead in the United States.”
Again, let’s go to Jasper: “As Idaho’s chief promoter of commerce, Dietrich surely could not have intended to convey a willingness to provide a hostile foreign power with an invitation for a military invasion. His poor choice of words, however, is in a sense apropos, even if unintentionally so.”
That’s reading an awful lot into “beachhead,” a fairly common metaphor.
• Then there is Otter’s much-touted “Project 60,” his campaign to grow Idaho’s gross state project to $60 billion, from its current $55.4 billion. Otter outlines his plan in a letter on the state’s website — and, says The New American’s Joe Wolverton II, the governor’s cryptic wording is all part of the plot. “There is in Gov. Otter’s letter nothing of substance, plenty of weasel words, and an extraordinary display of misdirection all designed to lull the citizens of the sovereign state of Idaho into a stupor while their state is sold to the Chinese.”
Usually I’m the first guy to blast Otter for being vague. But this stuff is out of my league.
There is ample room here for sober debate. “Inward foreign direct investment” is a plank of Idaho’s Project 60 plan. And I have mixed feelings about openly courting business from a nation with questionable environmental and human-rights records — and a country that has bought up much of America’s debt.
Those are serious issues.
Hysteria doesn’t help, though. And this “China-buying-Idaho” stuff feeds into hysteria. The stuff of the John Birch Society’s heyday, given new life by the Internet.
LUNA’S GUEST LECTURERS
When state Superintendent Tom Luna’s school technology task force meets in Boise next week, the 39-member group will hear from two former governors: Jeb Bush of Florida and Mike Wise of West Virginia.
This adds one more wrinkle to the meeting, as this group begins working to implement Luna’s controversial Students Come First education overhaul.
There is some Luna-Bush backstory. As Dan Popkey reported in February, Luna met with Bush at a national educational summit Nov. 30 and Dec. 1, as the Idaho superintendent was quietly crafting Students Come First.
Bush and Wise are covering their travel costs to and from Boise, Luna spokeswoman Melissa McGrath said Wednesday.
Kevin Richert: 377-6437
