U.S. wants to place more U.S. customs agents in Chinese ports

The United States is pressing China to allow more U.S. customs officials to be stationed at Chinese ports. Currently there are U.S. custom officials stationed in the ports of Shanghai and Shenzhen, but DHS secretary Michael Chertoff, who is on an Asian tour, said the United States would like to station customs officials in more Chinese ports. “The more containers originating in China that we can screen and inspect here, the more will be able to pass through our ports in the US without having to be inspected in the U.S.,” he said. “That ultimately benefits not only our security in the U.S., but it benefits China’s ports because those ports then become kind of green-lane ports to move cargo more quickly, so that gives China a competitive advantage,” he added.

China and the United States would soon sign an agreement to “significantly” increase co-operation in air security, possibly entailing the exchange of information on technologies. “We’ve come close to completing, and we’ll probably complete in the next couple of weeks, a significant agreement on air security which will benefit both countries,” Chertoff said.