RED Communist China Steps Up Lobbying Efforts to Win Support in U.S. Congress

Bloomberg

China, which up to now has relied on U.S. presidents to keep Congress from derailing bilateral relations, is turning to lobbyists to burnish its image with increasingly assertive lawmakers. Employees of Patton Boggs LLP, Washington's biggest lobbying firm by revenue, made at least 116 contacts with lawmakers or their aides on behalf of China in the last half of 2005, according to disclosures made to the Justice Department. China's lobbying rose 74 percent from the year-earlier period; it spent just under $500,000 in the second half on lobbying, paying Patton Boggs $22,000 a month.


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Some of the contacts were for routine matters, such as the eight times Patton Boggs contacted aides to Senator Lincoln Chafee, a Rhode Island Republican. The calls were to set up and follow through on a Nov. 10 meeting between Chafee and Zhou, said Chafee spokesman Stephen Hourahan. Aides to Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, were contacted at least seven times, with Warner himself conferring about U.S.-China relations with a Patton Boggs lobbyist on Aug. 4, the firm's disclosures show.

``We do not recall anything specific about the meetings and phone calls, if in fact they occurred,'' said John Ullyot, Warner's spokesman. ``Senator Warner and his staff are contacted hundreds of times a week by individuals or companies'' with business before the Senate. Dan Adelstein, an aide to Kentucky Republican Geoff Davis of the House Armed Services Committee, was contacted four times in December by Patton Boggs. The lobbyists were seeking information about a defense funding bill, said Justin Brasell, Davis's chief of staff.

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Taiwan Lobbies More

China's lobbying is still overshadowed by other nations. China and its provinces spent $483,325 on lobbying in the second half of 2005, employing three firms. By contrast, just one of the 12 firms retained by Taiwan, Barbour Griffiths & Rogers LLC, gets $1.5 million a year from the government of the island, which China considers a rebellious province. Patton Boggs's contract with Trinidad & Tobago, a Caribbean country with less than a thousandth of China's population, is bigger than its China contract. Still, with Bush's job approval ratings in public opinion polls sliding to the lowest of his presidency, China must look elsewhere to block some more extreme congressional proposals, Lieberthal said.