About 100,000 in U.S. now work for Chinese firms

mcclatchydc.com

WASHINGTON - In the tiny North Carolina town of Tar Heel, the Smithfield Foods Packing Co., the world’s biggest slaughterhouse that often smells of pig manure, belongs to a giant Chinese meat-processing company.

Hundreds of movie theaters across the country are owned by the Kansas City-based AMC Theatres chain, which reports to China’s richest man.

And in Miami, a luxury condo tower called One Thousand Museum is rising over Biscayne Bay. Its contractor is a Chinese firm, the largest builder in the world’s most populous country.

In a presidential campaign focused on the loss of American jobs, a recent study shows how U.S. jobs are created or preserved under China’s investment boom in the United States.

China has spent more than $100 billion since 2000, buying or making significant investments in 1,900 companies. That flow is accelerating: In the first quarter of this year, Chinese firms had $30 billion in pending or completed deals, according to Stephen Orlins, head of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a New York-based organization that researches the two countries’ ties.

The Chinese purchasers, many of them state-owned or with close government ties in Beijing, are responsible for almost 100,000 American jobs, according to a recent report by Orlins’ organization and the Rhodium Group, a New York company that provides research on global business trends to U.S. and foreign companies.