China will send troops to Haiti

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China's Public Security Ministry is set to dispatch a 130-man "special police" unit to Haiti this month in the first deployment of Chinese forces to the Western Hemisphere, Bush administration officials say.

The first advance unit of the police troops, who are specially trained for riot and crowd control, will over the next two weeks join the U.N. Stabilization Mission in Haiti, the multinational force known as Minustah dispatched to the war-torn Caribbean island.

The main body of the force will arrive a short time later and will deploy to the port of Gonaives, say officials who insist on anonymity.

Administration officials are concerned that the Chinese government will use the troop deployment as a way to put political pressure on the Haitian government, one of the few nations retaining diplomatic relations with China's rival Taiwan.

"It's been a big year for China," says one official opposed to the deployment. "They put a man in space, won gold medals at the Olympics, and now they are going to put troops in the Western Hemisphere for the first time."

The official says China's first military presence near U.S. shores would boost Beijing's long-term strategy to "supplant U.S. influence" in the region. "China is pursuing a maritime strategy in the Caribbean to gain access and control over port facilities, free trade zone infrastructure, fisheries, oil and minerals, and off-shore banking platforms,"

For example, a Chinese company whose leader is close to Beijing's communist rulers operates major port facilities at both ends of the Panama Canal.

"They will assert political influence [through Chinese companies]," the official says. "That is where this is headed."

Administration officials say the decision to permit the Chinese to join the U.N. force in Haiti was made quietly, without a full debate among defense, foreign policy and national security agencies.

"This was done by the people in charge of peacekeeping," one official says.