Under Attack, We Grow stronger
(1) UNDER ATTACK:
A Hoover Institute Report (HIR),entitled "
Chinese Influence, American Interests: Promoting Constructive Vigilance
", greatly threatened the security
and rights of Chinese Ams since Nov. last year. It explicitly named tens of
Chinese Am. organizations for being possibly under the influence of the Chinese
government, without any concrete direct evidence. It even raised the
specter that these orgs may harm the interests of the U.S.A.
The "5th Column" list included the largest Ch-Am newspaper, The World Journal,
and the perpetually timid C-100, which claims many wealthy business persons as its
members. HIR's treatment of C-100 was extremely high-handed. See Footnote 20
on HIR's page 38.
(2) WE REELED UNDER ATTACK
Our response? C-100 played dead although 3 months have passed since
the public accusation against it. The World Journal wrote a letter to protest, but was ignored
& it acquiesced. No other orgs., though publicly attacked, uttered a word.
(3) 80-20 EF LED A COUNTER ATTACK:
Seeing how the HIR is hurting our community, 80-20 EF sprang into action 8 weeks AFTER the publication of HIR. We
led a counter attack to protect the AsAm community's rights.
After a 5 weeks struggle with authors of the HIR, EF has published the following view. These views have NOT been opposed by neither the authors of the HIR nor any officials in the U.S.
(a) AsAms have as much right as Jewish-Ams and Irish-Ams to care for folks in
their respective old countries,
(b) The above rights are especially important for "naturalized citizens" - a
human need
well-understood by America's forefathers that human
beings are not machines who can turn
loyalty on and off at will. They
therefore ordained that naturalized citizens may NOT be
President or
Vice President of our nation,
(c) We will not be cowed by "vigilantes." Any intimidation attempt, if there
was one,
has been
completely
turned back
and negated
!
(d) After 2 open-to-public panel discussions held at Stanford Univ., where 6
of the 8 panelists
were principal authors of the HIR,
many
of the
panelist/authors, including Larry Diamond,
stressed that the HIR was a
"work in progress". They stressed that
revisions
would be made
to try to
address the strong concerns raised by the Chinese
Am community,
including the need to be accurate and try to prevent stigmatizing.
For details of the step-by-step progress in this struggle, click on 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.
(4) ROLE MODELS WHO WON IT FOR US
-
Sec. Steven Chu and Prof.
Gordon H. Chang
A few months ago, EF published an e-newsletter entitled
'Will AsAms who've "made it"
step up?' Some of our best and brightest have apparently responded positively.
Chang, Oliver H. Palm Prof. in the Humanities & of History, Stanford Univ., was 1 of the 4 panelists in the first panel discussion. He was most
effective in being openly critical of the tone and accuracy of the report. Larry Diamond,
one of the 2 co-chairs of the HIR, the only person presented in both panel
discussions, responded to Chang's critique by saying "... Gordon, I've taken very careful
notes ... we don't want to say things that are wrong by assertion or implication, so,
we want to address that. I appreciate your candor here."
Chang
is also the author of a superb book entitled "Fateful Ties: A History of America's
Preoccupation with China." It's one of the few books that I read and enjoyed last year. The book was written with a
tender-loving-care for both the U.S. and China that is possible only for a scholar who has absorbed the best of the Chinese and American cultures.
Secretary Chu made a surprise appearance at the first panel discussion. He stood up and stated that the policy that the HI Report was advocating, even assuming that it is accurate, would drive out most of the top talent in science and technology who are of Chinese descent. So the HI Report was not balanced, since it didn't mention the "opportunity cost" to our nation. To which Mr. Diamond replied that what " Secretary Chu outlined is very justifiably (something we are) worried about."
When we have THESE ROLE MODELS IN OUR MIDST,
we grow
stronger under attack.
Post your views here. Donate
S. B. Woo
President and a volunteer for the past 20 years
80-20 Educational Foundation, Inc, a 501 C-3 organization,
Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (1985-89)
To know more about 80-20, view these videos :
