The Secret Chinese Company Eating the World
The Secret Chinese Company Eating the World
Players in the Great Game
China was recently in the news for “hoarding 50% of the World’s Grain supply”.
It’s far worse than even that
The Chinese Government is currently holding:
65% of the World’s Maize
61% of the World’s Rice
51% of the World’s Wheat
37% of the World’s Soybeans
This isn't just a story of China’s hoarding, China Bad. It is one of the nature of the global system.
This hoarding all through one company: the COFCO Group or the China Oil & Foodstuffs Corporation. This singular Corporation is responsible for China’s food supply. COFCO’s annual sugar imports account for about 50% of China’s total imports. A company headquartered in China that has legal entities in the Caribbean.
And it just keeps getting crazier.
Corporate Structure
COFCO has two major Subsidiaries, each its own a multibillion dollar company:
China Foods is responsible for the production and distribution of Coca Cola within Asia. With a 70% Equity partnership with Coke.
China Foods is legally located in Bermuda.
Registered Office:
Clarendon House, 2 Church Street Hamilton, HM 11 Bermuda
And this is just the tip of the iceberg. COFCO themselves also have at least seventeen other subsidiaries:
Aviva-COFCO Insurance
Chinatex (Textiles)
COFCO JOYCOME (Farm to Slaughter Meat Supply Chain, Pork focused)
Womai.COM (Food E-Commerce Platform)
CPMC (Canning Factory)
GRANDJOY Holdings (Restaurants, Hotels, & Property)
COFCO NHRI (Agri R&D)
Note: COFCO no longer any stake in UBS Securities despite what the internet says.
COFCO has completely divested from UBS SECURITIES (formerly 14%, sold 2018) a USA Stanford based Investment Bank. UBS Securities still has an investment Stake in Dominion Voting Systems. The Election Machine & Software Company, and they (UBS) are still owned by China, but not by COFCO.COFCO also has Equity in:
MENGU DAIRY: 35% (China’s Second largest Dairy Company)
They own Australian Dairy company Bellamy
A company headquartered in China, and legally based in the Cayman Islands.
And that’s not the only Caribbean red flag.
The COFCO Group. also own COFCO Ltd. Which has even more subsidiaries in the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Bermuda.
That Web is vast and too much to cover even here… You can go through some of it at the link above.
The Caribbean Connection is important because it gives the Chinese government three major things:
Deniability
Laundering Potential
Security
Deniability
Being an agent of China isn’t always the best, it limits the options and movement of deals and cash flows. Traceability is more common and the movements of the behemoth that is China are hard to hide.
A level of tact and subtlety is required for moves in the Great Game and shell corporations can help provide this. Economic Warfare is a common, and inconspicuous tactic of unrestricted warfare that requires vassals to project Power.
These are those vassals.
If anything were to go awry they can distance themselves from any fallout as it is “not a Chinese company.”
On top of all that the Chinese government can easily excommunicate and dispose of a party member to the justice system of the host country while keeping their hands clean.
Laundering Potential
Having a Chinese government entity as a Carribean company gives them a shield and pretext for deniability, but also laundering. They can invest in other Nation-States or Corporations as “not a Chinese company” avoiding embargoes, sanctions, and tariffs.
Hostile takeovers become much easier if it take seven layers of digging to find out you’re selling a stake to the same entity.
It also allows the Chinese or frankly any Government running this scheme to benefit off of private government contracts and foreign aid. A secret wealth transfer that even its host didn’t know about.
Security
Given COFCO is the equivalent of the Chinese foodstuff supply chain being the target of embargoes or sanctions is a non-starter. These shell corporations and legal entities provide the Chinese government security against “retaliation”. In addition if anyone sues these companies they would have to go through the Caribbean justice system and not the Chinese system giving them more deniability and security, as they are not involved.
“They are the Modern East India Trading Company”
Through its vast network of trade deals, subsidiaries and suppliers COFCO has assembled a supply chain for every foodstuff available. They are fully responsible for China’s food supply. Yet the magnitude of this company cannot be understated. They are the modern East India Trading Company.
COFCO operates a fleet of over 200 cargo ships.
“We operate three (Cotton) warehouses in the United States: Memphis, TN, Greenville, SC and Dallas, TX. Together, they cover an area of 115,000 square metres. They can store 330,000 bales of cotton.”
In addition to our [soybean] crushing plant in Standerton, we also operate a 30,000-hectare contract farming operation in South Africa
This one operation is akin to owning a farm the size of Boston, Manhattan, and San Francisco combined, a farm a little smaller than the City of Detroit or the entirety of the Maldives.
Our partnership with one of the largest farmer’s cooperative in North America, Growmark, provides access to large volumes of domestic grains.
Growmark has several retail and commercial brands, among them AgriVisor, Archer Lubricants, Fast Stop, FS InVision, HiSoy, the FS System, Green Yard, MID-CO, Seedway, STAR Energy, and United Lubricants.To put it Simply, COFCO is China’s to quote them a “fully integrated supply chain.”
To put all of that into perspective this is an image of their global physical operations.
Notice something Interesting? I do too, a concentration in South America.
The Plundering of the Third World
We’ve heard about China buying up American Farmland, but the dog that wasn’t barking was South America.
We have global capabilities to meet global demand, with 60% of our grains and oilseeds assets based in South America – the world’s largest exporting region.
COFCO Corporation has further expanded upstream resources for oils and oilseeds by signing deals to import soybeans from Brazil, rapeseed oil from Russia, palm oil from Indonesia, soybean oil from Argentina, and sunflower oil from Ukraine.
This is all part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
A new Silk Road. A Chinese Global order from countries belittled, forgotten, or shunned by the American Empire. One of those places was South America.
Post Cold War South America and Africa were tossed aside like the used toys they were. Pawns in a Global war against the USSR. Now broken and downtrodden, they seek aid from China the only Global Power willing to given them any; but their pawn status has only transferred players.
China is extracting them for as much raw materials as their boats can carry.
Coda
Keep in mind, COFCO is a wholly State owned corporation, so all of what you see above is really Chinese State owned. And every deal with the Chinese State. All of this was and is completely legal. Every article stating “Blame China for inflation” is partially right.
Yet, we let them.
We can’t blame China for our own dealings. Regulators approved all of these acquisitions and deals.
This is Globalization.
The foreign ownership of everything.
But it doesn’t need to end in despair. These corporations require every quarters performance and KPI’s to be better than the last. Foreign ownership requires “profitability”.
You can still support local businesses and communities to help reverse the trend. But only if you choose to.
Thank you for reading, if you enjoyed this share this with a friend or colleague to help shine a light on important issues.