Successful acquisition of the network "would provide communist China with a worldwide and very capable spy network of data communications," according to one company official who requested anonymity.

"Global Crossing has a fiber-optic network that connects Europe, Asia, Australia, North America, South America and Africa. Any communications network can be used to commit espionage if given the correct tools to do it with," the company official told WND.

"As long as you have the secure equipment from end to end while transmitting data, you can use communications in a secure environment," the official said. "The Global Crossing network would give Hutchison Whampoa … quality data transmissions over its undersea fiber-optic network.

"Sometimes it's difficult to get quality data transmissions from continent to continent without interruptions or capacity loss. Global Crossing's network has mind-boggling capacity," said the official.

Hutchison's connections to the Chinese army were established in the 1990s.

In testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee Oct. 22, 1999, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif., said the company's chairman, Li Ka-Shing, is "closely associated with the Beijing regime and has a history of acting as a source of funding or acting as an intermediary in deals for the People's Liberation Army."

During testimony, the California Republican entered into the record "unclassified documents by U.S. intelligence agencies, the U.S. Bureau of Export Affairs, the U.S. Embassy in Beijing and the Rand Corporation that identify Li Ka-Shing and [Hutchison] as financing or serving as a conduit for communist China's military to acquire sensitive technologies and other equipment. …"

"My concern is that this company (Hutchison) is controlled by the communist Chinese," said retired Adm. Thomas H. Moorer in testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee June 16, 1998. "And they have virtually accomplished, without a single shot being fired, a stronghold on the Panama Canal, something which took our country so many years to accomplish."