Foreign Owned Corporations

For the last eight years, as Afghans fought one another on the battlefield, foreign companies waged a back-room war for the right to build a pipeline to tap the vast energy riches of Central Asia. El Segundo-based Unocal Corp. and Argentina's Bridas Corp. headed two competing groups that hired diplomats skilled in the gentle art of persuasion and offered Afghan warlords tempting incentives in pursuit of a prize worth billions. But like so many Afghan dreams dashed in 23 years of war, the $1.

The floor at the National Assn. of Television Program Executives' convention here this week was filled with the usual participants pitching new talk shows, game shows and reruns to local TV stations. There are 1,100 commercial TV stations in the United States, and executives from most of them have come to New Orleans searching for next year's big hit.

Among the hundreds of dinners, coffees and receptions that benefited the Democratic Party last year, a single private gathering featuring President Clinton and four wealthy Asian businessmen at a luxury hotel here last July is emerging as a focus of particular intrigue. The fund-raiser was extraordinary in several respects. One was its intimacy: The president rarely attends a campaign event with such a small group.

It was a signal occasion, a milestone in the struggle of Asian immigrants to find their place in the American firmament. With the acuity of hindsight, it's clear the elements of the eventual scandal were there too, wanting only more time to reach critical mass and explode.

The Chinese government Thursday passed legislation that prohibits some monopolies but also could throw new hurdles in front of foreign companies seeking to acquire businesses here. The final text of the long-anticipated law, the drafting of which began in 1994, was not immediately released. But recent versions have included practices common in U.S. and European antitrust regimes, such as bans on companies colluding to raise prices and abusing dominant market positions.

Common Cause on Thursday called on Atty. Gen. Janet Reno to investigate a meeting last June between President Clinton and a Thai campaign contributor, charging that it appeared to violate a federal law prohibiting "the sale of a meeting" with government officials. The request from the citizen's lobby referred to a June 18 meeting at the White House at which the president reportedly discussed U.S.-China policy with five Thai business executives.

Senate hearings on campaign funding abuses--the spider web of foreign money, foreign companies and foreign governments wrapped around the 1996 presidential election--begin this week with a parade of witnesses whose tales of laundered contributions and influence peddling could ignite public concern over the role of money in politics. At issue is more than just how much money it takes to win elections. It is how beholden the winners may be once in office.

Soon after an Alaska Airlines MD-83 crashed off the Southern California coast late last month, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered U.S. airlines to inspect the tail assembly on all similar planes. The airlines raced to comply, inspecting more than 1,000 planes within 72 hours and finding nearly two dozen with problems. But what of the nearly 900 similar planes flown by foreign airlines?

Japanese-owned companies in Orange County, stung by what they perceive as growing anti-Japanese sentiment among consumers as well as criticism from their own American workers, are joining efforts to rebuild their sagging image. Already coping with volatile issues of international trade during an election year, executives at many of the 160 Japanese companies in Orange County say they now face questions from their own employees about inflammatory comments made in Japan.

When Ralph Girton started a management consulting company 27 years ago to help U.S. companies set up factories along the U.S.-Mexico border, some friends told him that he would be lucky to be in business in five years. The year was 1964, and most U.S. manufacturers eager to tap cheap labor sources were turning to the Far East--to Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore--to set up assembly operations.