The Chinese-owned Ralls Corp. has added President Barack Obama as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging the U.S. government exceeded its authority in blocking the firm’s planned wind farm projects in Oregon near a Navy base. In an amended complaint, Ralls Corp. said Obama “acted in an unlawful and unauthorized manner” in citing national security grounds to order it to halt construction of four wind farm projects near the Naval Weapons Systems Training Facility in Boardman, Oregon.

Two senior managers with the Chinese SANY Group, a private company and the largest construction machinery manufacturer in China incorporated Ralls Corp. in the United States. According to BBC Chinese, it’s believed that SANY has a military background, which may be related to its founder Liang Wengen, who had three years of experience in a Chinese military enterprise. There is no doubt that Liang, who, in 2011, was listed as China’s richest man, is a private sector entrepreneur with close ties to the government. Liang joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 2004 as the chairman of SANY. In 2007 and 2012, he became a representative of the 17th and 18th Congress of the CCP. Liang is said to be a likely alternate member of the Central Committee of the CCP, a group of 370 of the most politically powerful people in China. SANY is said to have an unwritten rule that anyone who wants to be promoted to a management position must submit an application to join the Party. Liang once said, “It was not until I started my own business that I realized that one can only fulfill his ideals by connecting himself to the cause of the Party.”

[Editor’s note: Foreign investment in U.S. companies is reviewable by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). CFIUS recommended denial of the investment from China because the wind farms are all within or near the restricted air space of the naval training facility.]

Source: BBC Chinese, October 3, 2012
http://www.bbc.co.uk/zhongwen/simp/chinese_news/2012/10/121003_sany_liang_wengen.shtml

A Xinhua article offered an interpretation of Japan’s aggressive actions on the Diaoyu (Senkaku) Islands issue, saying that Japan is acting in concert with the U.S. strategic plan to contain China. The article further explained, “From the perspective of the geo-military strategy, Japan is the most important partner in the United States’ return to Asia. The Diaoyu Islands issue is a chess piece in U.S. hands. Japan has an ulterior motive in its act to ‘nationalize’ the Diaoyu Islands. Its purpose is to test China’s reaction to Japan’s cooperation with the U.S. plan to return to Asia. For some time now, the United States, along with Japan, South Korea, the Philippines, and other countries has been holding frequent joint military exercises in the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and the South China Sea, with the goal being to strengthen its strategic encirclement of China.”