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UNIVERSITY POSSIBLY DUMPING MILLIONS INTO COMMUNIST GOVERNMENT | PROPONENTS: NO BIG DEAL
A construction company owned and operated by the communist Chinese government is the leading developer on the University of South Carolina’s nearly $40 million Honors College Residence Hall Construction project, The Palmetto Scoop has discovered.
A large banner for the China State Construction Engineering Corporation — which is under the complete control of the People’s Republic of China’s Central Government — can be seen on a crane towering over the development, located at the corner of Main and Blossom streets in Columbia.
“I am appalled that South Carolina is writing a check for even one cent to a communist regime that exerts complete control over its people with brutal consequences for those who disobey,” a source with knowledge of the project said, referring to the dictatorial past and present of China’s government, including possible human rights violations. “I would expect something like this in California or Massachusetts, but not here. Taxpayers should be outraged.”
Repeated emails to the university’s office of media relations were not returned.
A bond granted by the school’s Board of Trustees and approved at a May 2005 meeting of the South Carolina Commission on Higher Education’s Finance and Facilities Committee lists the Honors College dormitory project at an estimated $36.5 million. It is unclear what portion of that price tag has gone been paid to the CSCEC.
Critics of China’s government-backed industries claim that the huge Asian country is consuming much of the world’s raw materials at an out-of-control rate. In the construction industry, CSCEC has purportedly undertaken so many massive building programs that American companies suffer exorbitant price increases caused by the scarcity of materials.
And because USC receives public funding, this project could raise concerns over the proper appropriation of taxpayer funds and the possibility that those monies not only go to an authoritarian communist government, but could also cost countless American jobs.
“It’s disheartening that our economy is in the toilet and unemployment is through the roof yet we’re giving money and jobs to China,” our source said.
But proponents claim there is a lot of money to be had from China’s recent emergence as a global superpower and that Chinese contractors have only won a small number of bids in the U.S.
One expert who spoke with TPS said the country’s new “opening of doors” is highly beneficial to the rest of the world, including America. “They have finally come out of their economic slumber and are ready to spend big bucks. We would be foolish to turn that down.”
The common ground among many in the state though, is that we should not allow China unrestricted access. The only questions are, how much regulation is too much, and what is the moral and ethical costs?
Academic arrogance at its worst. The board should be removed immediatlely for treason. Wss there no local company able to do the work. The legislature should certainly invistigate this. Someone should be held accountable for this horrendous lapse in judgement.
This needs to be addressed immediately. This is one of many issues that is afflicting this University. Students and graduate students are forced to deal with a lot of bureacratic nonsense and favoratism, and it is frankly quite sad that the taxpayers do as well. I can not imagine that there were not any US or SC companies that could not complete this contract.
A shame.
-Graduate Student, USC
People are true patriots in Mass. They don’t think wearing flag pins that were made in China makes them American. They understand that sending money over to China is one of the reasons gas prices are up. Does it make sense for a foreign company to do construction business in the US with today’s exchange rates? Only for China, whose currency is undervalued and where the government will subsidize it industries until we don’t have any left over here to compete with them. I’m not surprised at USC at all. What’s next Hillary Clinton as USC president?
State law requires that contracts be awarded to the lowest bidder in the sealed bid process.
South Carolina wants foreign companies to invest in our state – at least I thought we did. Let’s see – South Carolina is a very poor state – let’s be very unfriendly to companies that want to invest here – especially one of the fast growing economies in the world. Yeah, that makes perfect sense.
Having a law that forbids foreign companies from being awarded contracts when they are the lowest bidder most likely violates every trade agreement we have with any country.
China restricts our foreign investment, so why shouldn’t we restrict theirs when they are screwing us?
Wait, I thought as a nation, we’ve traded Communist hate for Muslim hate? Oh but the economic ignorance is all the same so at least there is that.
Even though the banner on that crane says China, I walk by that construction site routinely and have yet to see a Chinese worker or foreman; they are all south carolina residents, or at least pretending to be (but an immigration discussion would be off topic right now). Furthermore, all the construction materials they use are from domestic suppliers, once again providing jobs to productive US residents.
You people want to complain about tax dollars being misused? Well if they had xenophobia influence the contract award we’d be seeing a very similar post here, only about the school wasting money because it didn’t accept the lowest bid. They have plenty of useful things to do with that saved money like remove parking that students need and replace the land with greenspace. I love looking at the nice trees and lawn as I drive by, 20 minutes out of my way, looking for a parking spot.
Want to really do something about Chinese human rights or freedom or whatever? Try and get a divestment bill passed somewhere. Except that would violate free trade agreements and cause alot of economic damage and put wal-mart out of buisness and overwhelmingly harm the poor residents of our country. Sad fact about reality; sometimes the cure is worse than the disease.
Really says something about the state of american industry when the best company to do a public works project is foreign owned and only been in south carolina for 6 years.
You first have to ask yourself, why is the University, which is the State of SC building a hotel confrence center which will compete with private facilities and will probably sit vacant at least a third of the year due to poor scheduling? Hey one scholaist government supports another. Their are a lot of new vacant buildings in China also.
Think about all those new university buildings that are needed because no one wants to teach or study on Monday or Friday. Classrooms only used Tuesday to Thursday sit vacant 4 days a week, does that make any sense to the Tax Payer?
“Their are a lot of new vacant buildings in China also.” This statement is false. People are migrating into their urban areas faster than even their construction boom can keep up with, and will continue to do so as long as their economy grows faster than 5-6% a year (Their average growth over the past few decades is around 10%).
Hell, looking at how good their economy is, maybe we should be encouraging *more* chinese companies to work here? They seem to know what they’re doing. Nobody over there cares about a little oppression when they have more than double the standard of living of their parents.