Special Projects Letter to USAToday editor on Chinese Spying August 3, 2007 Mr. Ken Paulson Dear Mr. Paulson: Would you please take a look at an article entitled "Law enforcement struggles to combat Chinese spying" on the front page of your 7/23/07 issue? There was also a Part II of your special Report entitled "Against China's tech spies." I am writing on behalf of the Board of 80-20 Education Foundation (EF), with an email list of 700,000 Asian American families. EF wants spying against us by China stopped as much as you do. However, we feel strongly that the headlines lacked sensitivity towards Chinese/Asian Americans who are still struggling to win equal opportunity in workplaces and getting out of the stereo negative image of "perpetual foreigners." Let me explain. Please see a full page ad that my organization placed in Washington Post
giving irrefutable facts of discrimination against Asian Americans. The
ad carefully cited all source materials. Go to http://www.80-20initiative.net/action/equalopp_washingtonpost_wpad.jpg. With headlines like yours, our struggle towards becoming equal citizens are seriously deterred. Think in terms of Chinese/Asian Ams employees in tech companies. Will their bosses care more about their? careers or his/her own career? What is easier for their bossess? Shoulder the possible liability of having promoted a Chinese/Asian industrial or military spy? Or, not promoting them at all? J. Edgar Hoover has always wanted Americans to think that there is "an FBI agent behind every mailbox." One recent FBI internal newsletter, issued during Ashcroft's tenure as AG, encouraged the same fear "for plenty of reasons, chief of which it will enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles and will further service to get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox.". http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2004/01/04/INGPQ40MB81.DTL&type=printable FBI has a very narrow mission. It may failed to realized that it'll also encourage every CEO to see a potential spy behind every Chinese/Asian American employee. Note that most Americans don't differentiate one Asian from another. Vincent Chin, a Chinese American was bashed to death with a baseball bat by two Detroit auto workers who took him to be a Japanese. Does USA Today want to be an accomplice to this narrow FBI scheme? What kind of America will it be if the tactics succeed? More secure perhaps but at the expense of trampling mercilessly on a very small minority possessing little power to defend itself. Your titles also lacked perspective. To illustrate, what if China were to pull these mirroring sensational headlines against Americans and American Chinese in its People's Daily? Would you consider such hyping as the demonizing of the U.S.A.? Members within our organization have advocated that EF will use its huge email list to start a mass protest against USA TODAY and to boycott your papers with a reminder every six months henceforth. I reject such suggestions out of hand. However, I do respectfully request that you act in a meaningful way to correct that insensibility towards Chinese/Asian Americans. Can you come up with a win-win situation for US TODAY, Chinese/Asian Americans and America? In the past, USA TODAY has nobly resisted racial typing of minorities. You have shown a world perspective. Are you abandoning these loftystandards now? Looking forward to hearing form you soon, Sincerely, S. B. Woo
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