Book Review: One Man's View of the World

My friend, Ken Fong, found the book so compelling that he bought a bushel so he can give a copy to each of his friends as he ran into them in daily encounters. At age 90, this is most likely the last book by Lee Kuan Yew. Lee was Singapore’s first prime minister in 1959 and led the city state to full independence in 1965 when the rest of Malaysia rather unceremoniously invited Singapore to go their separate ways. By the time he stepped down in 1990, Singapore has been transformed into a First World metropolis. His is a legacy of what good government is like and how a successful national leader should behave.

As the book jacket stated, with little else left to prove, he looks ahead to offer his unvarnished view of the future shape of the world. In reading his view of the world, the reader will come to understand the core beliefs of this remarkable man. Some of these include:

(1) For any nation to succeed, clean government is a must. Road to a clean government is to pay the civil servants generously so that there is no reason for corruption. For those that do stray and gets caught, the punishment needs to be harsh for betraying the public trust.

(2) Democracy is no panacea. If the citizens are poorly educated and have no idea of what democracy is all about and if the country lacks a history of progressive thinking and culture of individual equality, the introduction of democracy will fail. As Lee predicted in his book, winter inevitably followed Arab Spring because tribal based feudal systems of the Middle East cannot nurture democracy.

(3) Education is the necessary foundation to any successful developing nation and the access to quality education must be equal to all citizens, male and female. Educated workforce is vital to economic development and a growing economy gives the population opportunities to a better life and thus a willingness to support their government. Thus in his view, the caste system will always hold India back from realizing its full potential and keeping women from education will block the development of Islamic countries.

(4) Diversity in a population trumps homogeneous population because diversity means more diverse gene pool and greater range of creative thinking and capacity for innovation. From his point of view, the U.S. greatest strength is its welcoming attitude towards immigrants. By the same token, Japan’s inability to accept anything foreign, even ethnic Japanese who has lived abroad is the root of its inevitable decline.

Hi book deals with major global topics and each major regions of the world.  On China, his impression of Xi Jinping is in the “Nelson Mandela class of persons,” and Deng Xiaoping is undoubtedly the most impressive international leader he has ever met. Key difference between the US (a benign power) and China is that China does not believe in “evangelizing their form of government.” His biggest concern on China is if the future young generation of Chinese, not having experienced the challenges of China’s difficult past, gets overly nationalistic and aggressive.

From his visits to the U.S, “I came to appreciate fully the dynamism of the entrepreneurial American.” Lee sees long-term success of the U.S. resting on its ability to continue to attract “bright and restless immigrants from the world.” As for the competing influences of the U.S. and China in Asia, he felt that even though the US military budget is still six times greater than that of China, China has advantage of proximity in competing for influence in its neighboring states. He seems to think that both sides need to find mutual accommodations around a stale mate.

Lee is considerably less optimistic about Europe. He sees two major hindrances. The flaw behind the Euro is monetary integration without fiscal integration between 27 nations with wide and disparate of economic development. He sees no hope for fiscal integration ever. Europe is afflicted with the welfare state mentality and stifling labor laws that discourage entrepreneurialism, innovation and striving for productivity. Rather condescendingly, Lee thought Europe might be able to get away with the welfare state mind-set if they were competing with Fiji or Tonga.

The book jacket endorsements list some of world’s who’s who as heads of state, diplomats and international notables.  But I don’t think that was the reason Ken liked the book so much that he became a volunteer propagandist of Lee’s worldview. In Lee, he sees and the world sees a great statesman who successful synergized his impeccable western education with his innate Asian values to show the world how a small port city can integrate into the global economy and let the people thrive. The politicians in Washington would do well to read and heed the lessons he learned.

Book Review: Fortunate Sons

“Fortunate Sons” told the story of the first group of 120 young boys to be sponsored by the Manchu government in Beijing and entered the U.S. for a western education. The first cohort rode on the newly completed transcontinental railroad from San Francisco to Hartford Connecticut in 1872. These boys grew into adulthood in America and played important roles the early bilateral relations between China and the U.S.

Sending boys to America for a western education was Yung Wing’s idea. He had undergone just such an experience, becoming the first Chinese to graduate from Yale in 1854.

When he went back to China, he eventually met and became a trusted assistant to Zeng Guofan, the most powerful official at the imperial court. Zeng felt the sting of Western imperial powers and the unequal treaties imposed on China. He asked Yung for his ideas on modernizing China, Yung proposed sending boys to the U.S. for further education.

By the time Yung accompanied the first of three batches of 40 boys to America in 1872, Zeng had died and succeeded by Li Hongzhang, who became Yung’s chief patron in court. Li shared Zeng’s desire to modernize China.

With the help of Yung’s friendship and connection with the Christian missionaries, the boys were dispersed to families in Connecticut to attend schools preparatory to entering leading universities in America.

By and large these boys, at ages of 12 and 13, adapted to American life and quickly became fluent in English. Some even excelled in baseball and all worked diligently to get to the top of their class. Anti racist bias had not yet found their way to the eastern parts of the U.S. Their female classmates found the Chinese boys exotic and more attractive than their more ordinary white classmates.

The first group of students graduated from high school in 1876 and they were accepted into such elite schools as Yale, MIT and other Ivy schools. The race riot that rampaged through Chinatown of San Francisco incited by Dennis Kearney was a year away in the future.

By 1881, Li Hongzhang came under severe political pressure at the imperial court and was forced to abort the mission to educate the boys sent to the U.S. Only two had completed their college education and received their degrees. Over 60 of them were sprinkled in various colleges; Yale had the most with 22, MIT with 8, Columbia with 3 and Harvard 1.

The last contingent was to return to China in September 1881. Before boarding ship in San Francisco, the now young men challenged the local team to a baseball game. The local team couldn’t hit against the lefthander on the Chinese team and lost.

Some of these men found positions in the government. Others built some of the first railroads in China. Others found schools and universities. Among the more notable were Tong Shaoyi and Liang Dunyan.

Tong was one time the right hand man under Yuan Shikai before becoming disillusioned by Yuan’s greed for power. He led a delegation to Lhasa and successfully negotiated a treaty with the Brits that gave possession of Tibet back to China.

Liang was the southpaw pitcher who became Minister of Foreign Affairs. He convinced America to use some of the indemnity funds to send Chinese students to America. He started Tsinghua prep school to prepare the student before sending them overseas.

The book was as much devoted to the life of Yung as the boys he brought to America. By accident, he became the hero of his Yale freshmen class by scoring the equivalent of the winning touchdown in the traditional annual scrum between the freshmen and sophomore class.

Yung met or intersected with the lives of many historical figures. Besides Zeng and Li, Yung met some of the leaders of the Taiping Rebellion and flirted with the idea of joining them. In the U.S. he met Mark Twain and shook the hands of President Ulysses Grant.

Yung was to cross the Pacific numerous times in the service of the Chinese government. On March 2, 1875, he married Mary Kellogg. By then he was in his early 40”s, well past the age when Chinese men married for the first time.

The book did not record whether Yung met Anson Burlingame during his stay in China. There was no question that he and his charges benefitted from the Burlingame Treaty of 1868 which respected the sovereignty of China and stipulated that citizens of each was to protected by the other.

By the time, the last of Chinese mission returned to China, it was just one year before the Exclusion Act of 1882. It was an America radically different from the one Yung first entered.

In September 1898, the famous 100 days of reform came to an end, and Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao, the lead proponents of reform had the escape beheading by sneaking out of China. They did so with Yung Wing’s help.

Yung himself was not so fortunate. His US citizenship was revoked for no justifiable reason and he had sneaked back into the U.S. He died penniless and alone in a San Francisco flophouse on May 29, 1912 less than one year after China became a republic.

Book Review: The Chinese Dream by Helen H. Wang

For three decades, since China began its reform in 1978, its economy amazed the world by growing in double digits, doubling roughly every seven years. When it first doubled, most pundits pooh-poohed the growth as coming from a small base. When the economy doubled again, some say it couldn’t possibly go on. Then it doubled and some predicted a pending collapse. Despite the dire forecasts, it doubled yet again.

Finally, China’s economy stopped growing in double digits, but it was not because of any of the reasons given by the western pundits and economists. The economy slowed to below 10%/year because of the global slowdown triggered by the bubble created by America’s Wall Street in 2008.

The credit default obligations and repackaged subprime mortgages brought the American economy to a virtual ruin while the European and Japanese economies actually contracted. China managed to grow at “only” around 8% per annum, which means doubling every ten years instead of seven.

Suddenly, the world’s equity markets began to take notice of China’s economy, by now the second largest, second only the U.S. Today when China’s manufacturing indices decline slightly, all the stock markets take a tumble. Conversely when China’s indices changed positively, all the world’s equity markets brightened.

Despite the obvious linkage of China’s economy to the well being of the global economy, there remain naysayers that maintain their skepticism and believe that so long as China does not become a democracy, its economy cannot defy gravity indefinitely. It would be terribly tactless, of course, to point out that so-called democracies were the first to tumble during the crisis triggered by the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Many mainstream economists now share the widespread belief that not enough of China’s economy is coming from consumption, that China needs to rebalance economic priorities away from too much dependence on fixed assets investments such as infrastructure building and to spend more and save less.

On the other hand, retail sales in China’s cities have been increasing at a rate nearly double that of GDP. We see young urban professionals living the life of conspicuous consumption; travelling overseas and sweeping the luxury goods clean off the shelves of high-end, name brand shops.

How can we reconcile the seeming contradiction of China’s need to have more of its GDP coming from consumption and the obvious over the top consumption behavior of certain socio-economic groups? One explanation comes from “The Chinese Dream” written by Helen Wang.

This book is an intensive study of China burgeoning middle class and how it came to be. The bulk of the book is devoted to personal interviews in China, from migrant workers to entrepreneurs, from laid off workers to those that got the jump start by taking over parts of state owned companies in the process of being privatized. By way of examples, the author illustrated that China’s private sector “is really neither private nor public” but a peculiar blend of capitalism with Chinese characteristics.

It’s not possible to explain the complexity of today’s China in any single book, but by her wide-ranging interviews and personal stories along with careful research and extensive footnotes, Ms. Wang has made an important contribution to understanding the attitudes and mindsets of upward and mobile young Chinese.

By understanding this social and trend setting group of largely urban professionals, it is possible to project China’s consumer behavior into the future. Just as China has become an integral part of the global economy, the Chinese customer will become an increasingly important buyer for all kinds of goods and services.

Whether you are interested in understanding today’s China as part of business planning exercise or for personal enlightenment, this book would be an excellent primer and starting point. 

non Book Review: Tiger Trap by David Wise

This is the first time I am reviewing a book I have not read. Instead my review is simply based the author's willingness to espouse the same ludicrous assertion that China conducts espionage differently from other countries by relying on the so-called grains of sand approach. This approach alleges that instead of relying on professional spies and dastardly derring-do, China collects tidbits of data from the millions of cooperative Chinese in America. Putting all the scrapes of information together and incredulously, China gets the design of the latest multihead missile system or some other equally devastating secrets.

The FBI has been claiming this theory for decades to justify their indiscriminant and racially prejudiced actions taken against Chinese Americans in America. No one has seen fit to challenge the notion that bits and pieces of information could possibly add up to the secrets the U.S. holds dear. Since J. Edgar Hoover first made this claim as a cattle prod to hit over the heads Chinese Americans, this bit of racist rant has persisted within the law enforcement community.

Whatever the merits of his book, that the author would continue to promote this myth about the Chinese way of spying calls to question as to his intelligence and integrity. Some years ago, I have written a summary of the well known bias of the FBI towards Chinese Americans.

See the book review in the Wall Street Journal for an actual review that attempts to explain the grains of sand hypothesis. The review mentioned FBI expert Paul Moore, a prominent proponent of this hypothesis. As I have pointed out in the past, Moore is the car pool buddy of Robert Hanssen, a senior FBI official and eventually convicted for leaking secrets to the USSR. Yet Moore who never smelled a rat sitting next to a real spy can readily speculate that any two ethnic Chinese talking at a cocktail party could be passing secrets.

Her Mother Remembers Iris Chang

Ms. Ying-Ying Chang has written a book (The Woman Who Could Not Forget) about her daughter and gifted author, the late Iris Chang, and about their mother-daughter relationship. Iris was at the top of her game as an amazing writer of history and non-fiction when she shocked the world by taking her own life. Many speculated about the cause of her death. Her mother was driven to write this book to set the record straight and preserve the memory of her daughter.

I got to know Iris when she became a member of The Committee of 100 after the publication of her worldwide bestseller, The Rape of Nanking. I found her to be passionate about the subjects she wrote about and highly intelligent in how she saw the world. As her mother described in her book, Iris was outraged by injustices in any form and was particularly sensitive to the rights and equality of women.

I was among the minority that did not read her book on the Rape of Nanking. In my case, I simply could not bear the thought of again reading the graphic descriptions of Japanese atrocities already known to me and becoming enraged once again by Japan’s refusal to apologize for the crimes against humanity that they committed in WWII. From Ying-Ying’s book, I came to appreciate that Iris identified herself with the heroic action of Minnie Vautrin in protecting the lives of Chinese civilians--eventually at the cost of her own life. I had read about Minnie Vautrin before I met Iris.

When Iris decided to write the history of Chinese immigrants in America, I was delighted. It was a subject dear to my heart whose scope and complexity needed someone of Iris’ skills and dedication to do it justice. When the book came out, I read it promptly and wrote a review on my own volition. Iris contacted me and asked for permission to use a portion of my review as part of the blurb on the cover of the paperback edition. Naturally, I was flattered that she thought enough to want to include it.

I also organized a book signing for Iris at Ming’s, a restaurant in Palo Alto. Many came to hear her and talk to her. I recalled a set of parents originally from China that brought their young daughter and had photos taken of their daughter beaming with pride standing next to Iris. At the time, I remember thinking to myself that although Iris said all the right things and was gracious toward her audience, she seemed a little stiff and awkward. Upon reading Ying-Ying’s book, I now understand that Iris had suffered the stresses of a frenetic book tour and was beginning to experience the strains of her illness.

The news of her suicide surprised and shocked us all and was beyond any comprehension. I got to know Iris’ parents after her death as a member of the team working to preserve her memory by staging a worldwide annual essay contests on war crimes and atrocities. During the three years that the essay contest was held, Ying-Ying spoke about her resentment of a series of specious speculations on the cause of Iris’ death. She eventually took time off to write a book that revealed the intimate details of a strong bond between a loving daughter and a devoted mother.

Ying-Ying made a strong case that lack of sleep and nutrition led to Iris’ initial mental illness. Improper psychiatric diagnosis led to prescriptions of antipsychotic medications that not only did not help her but the side effects actually pushed her into the abyss. Mental illness is considered shameful and difficult in the Chinese culture to admit and owned up to. It took a lot of mother’s love and courage to want to address Iris’ illness and document her tragic end as a warning for the benefit others.

If you want to understand how Iris became a hugely successful writer, read this book. If you want to learn about the uncertainties of current state of psychiatric medicine and the perils of antipsychotic treatment, you need to read this book. If you believe that successful daughters need not spring from Tiger Moms but from warm, loving and supportive parents, this is a book for you and an effective antidote to rampant Amy Chua-ism.

Flight of the Silicon Dragon

Every journalist dreams of writing a book and Silicon Dragon (McGraw- Hill, $24.95) is Rebecca Fannin’s. She interviews a dozen of China’s most successful entrepreneurs and builds a book around her profiles of their roads to success. These are some of China’s movers and shakers in the high tech industry, especially in Internet and wireless communication sectors. All of them are well known inside China but most are relatively unknown to the West. By describing and analyzing the keys to their success, Fannin has provided some lessons learned that are useful to anyone contemplating doing business in China.

As readers go through the 150 pages of easy to read text, they find certain common themes. The first lesson is that a proven business model from the U.S. does not guarantee success in China. Whether it’s Alibaba vs. eBay, Dangdang vs. Amazon or Baidu vs. Google, the local version has first mover advantage and can move quickly to localize the business model to ensure acceptance in China.

The established American competitors initially focused on their U.S. market and paid no attention to China. By the time they are ready for China, they attempt to leapfrog via acquisition of a local company. They then make the mistake of replacing the Chinese management team with culturally deaf and dumb managers from home or even move the headquarters back to the U.S. Thus they further handcuff themselves by removing the ability to react quickly to a fast changing market. The book offers many other gems on rules of conduct in China that readers will find useful.

Alas, the subtitle of this book: “How China is Winning the Tech Race” is unfortunately misleading. With the possible exception of the last chapter on possible technological breakthrough on light emitting diodes based on silicon, other chapters depict no threat of world leading edge, technical breakthroughs. Even the LED development with its vast potential to revolutionize the lighting of the world is at the pre-commercial stage. All the other chapters describe clever, hard working entrepreneurs that have basically improved upon something that already existed.

My personal view of where China will make a world leading edge, technology breakthrough is to look in life sciences and not in electronics. My reason is that China has been investing heavily in R&D. In such cases as stem cell therapy, researchers in China do not have the school of intelligent design as competitor for funding.

Regrettably, this book exhibits too much rush to publish and could have improved its quality with a bit of fact checking and editing. For example, the book says “China accounts for 24% of world production of semiconductors.” This is not true. China accounts for 24% of consumption but barely produces one fifth of what they consume. Albert Yu is described as “now-retired programmer” at Intel. His actual last position was Senior Vice President in charge of Intel’s microprocessor development. The two top foundries in Taiwan are identified as Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. and United Microelectronics Corp. UMC is correct but the other, by far the largest and best known in the business is TSMC, where T stands for Taiwan.

Blemishes like those listed above, unfortunately, mar the confidence on the reliability of the information in the book that otherwise could serve as a valuable reference for tracking China’s future high tech development.

Book Review: “For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism under Fire” by James Yee

Captain James Yee, Denise Woo and Dr. Wen Ho Lee have some things in common but also bear some essential differences. They are all American citizens that suffered egregious injustice at the hands of their own government. That much they have in common.

From Dr. Lee’s case, we learned that the government as represented by the FBI agent in charge will lie in court in order to indict an innocent person. Denise Woo, a former FBI agent with her case still pending, stood accused of abetting an enemy agent under investigation when her real offense was to tell her superiors that they were investigating an innocent person.

From his recently published book, “For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism under Fire,” Yee’s personal ordeal at the hands of his government was similar but different. According to his own account, Yee grew up in the all-American tradition. He loved baseball and collected baseball cards. He went from being a casual Lutheran to being a casual Muslim before studying the religion intensively. He studied in Damascus, became fluent in Arabic and a scholar of the Qur’an. When he returned to the U.S., he rejoined the Army to serve as a Muslim chaplain and serving with distinction. As a West Point graduate who previously served as an officer, he was given the rank of captain.

Yee’s misfortune began after September 11, 2001 and the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center. He was sent to the Guantanamo base on Cuba and the commanding officer there did not take kindly to even implied disapproval of the inhumane treatment of prisoners on Guantanamo. The commanding general Geoffrey Miller became suspicious of Yee, the only Muslim chaplain on the base, as he carried out his duties including ministering to the 600 some prisoners being held on the base. To Miller, Yee’s ability to communicate with the prisoners and offer some words of comfort seemed conspiratorial.

Even at the end of Yee’s ordeal when all charges of treason and consorting with enemy combatants were dropped, General Miller leveled last minute accusations of adultery and pornography on Captain Yee. In the end, Miller’s commanding officer, General James Hill, bowing to public opinion, dismissed all the charges against Yee. Even then Hill offered the spurious reasoning that Yee had suffered enough and not because Miller acted incorrectly. Yee never got due process and never had his day in court to clear his name. Even when he was supposedly reinstated and returned to active duty, the Army made it clear that he was tainted goods and would never get a fair shake.

The first part of Yee’s book did not tell us anything new. We already know that the U.S. government called the prisoners “enemy combatants” so that the U.S. did not have to abide by the Geneva Convention, since technically they were not considered as prisoners of war. Guantanamo on Cuba selected for the holding pens was leased to the U.S. into perpetuity. Technically, it was not part of U.S. soil and therefore U.S. laws did not need to apply.

Most of us did not know that the Army built an air conditioned hospital for cosmetic effect to show visiting reporters the supposed level of humane treatment being rendered to these prisoners. The visitors did not see prisoners actually housed in furnace-like 8 foot by 6 foot open pens enclosed by wire mesh and a tin roof. We did not know that young boys as young as 12 were held as enemy combatants and regarded as threats to the security of the U.S.

Yee’s narrative can be deceptively placid typical of a religious person virtually free of rancor and bitterness. He had gone through solitary confinement, chained and shackled in the manner of Wen Ho Lee. His family went through hell not knowing where he was, what he had done and what would become of him. His reputation devastated and his marriage damaged by deliberate government slanders leaked to the press from which he had no means to defend himself. Yet, the strongest condemnation he can say of his chief tormentor was: “It is hard to imagine that General Miller did not realize I had suffered seventy-six days of solitary confinement, as well as enormous harm to my reputation, for no reason.”

From the book, the reader will see that General Geoffrey Miller personifies everything that has gone wrong with the so-called “war on terror.” At Guantanamo, Miller approved and/or utilized physical, mental and psychological torture in order to extract information and confessions from the prisoners. Desecration of the Qur’an, physical exposure and touching by female interrogators, provocations by guards that led to brutal quelling of prisoner riots and other techniques later applied in Iraq were first practiced at Guantanamo. In Miller’s view, all Muslims are potential enemy combatants who are some lower form of life that deserve no measure of decency and respect.

Even though as chaplain Yee was not allowed to participate in the interrogation of the prisoners, he nonetheless formed the impression that most of the hapless prisoners arrested or captured in the war in Afghanistan had no idea why they were taken, were never informed of any formal charges, what they were doing in Guantanamo or when, if ever, they could hope to be released. After being in the state of indefinite limbo, most became severely depressed and some became suicidal.

There are still some 550 prisoners remaining captive at Guantanamo today and most of them have been there for over three years. This is going to be a thorny problem for the U.S. Only four prisoners have been charged with crimes. Someday, the Bush administration will have to find a face saving way to let the rest go. Who is going to vouch that these originally labeled enemy combatants upon gaining their freedom won’t become real combatants and try to even the score? The same General Miller is put in charge of the prisons in Iraq. How can we be sure that he is not, through his abusive approach, graduating more future terrorists that will target America?

Captain Yee received officer evaluation report from his direct commanding officers at Guantanamo that was the best ever in his military career. This was just two days before his arrest ordered by General Miller. Yee was not the only member of his staff that was unjustly treated.

Ahmad al-Halabi was a young American from the Air Force assigned to assist Yee. Yee considered Ahmad the “most skilled and dedicated translator” who worked at Guantanamo. He was arrested upon his return to the mainland and charged with 30 counts including espionage and terrorism. After nine months in prison, 26 charges were dismissed and he pleaded guilty to four minor offenses for time already served, reminiscent of how Dr. Lee was treated.

Ahmed Mehalba who served as a civilian linguist on Guantanamo was imprisoned for almost two years before his release. His only offense turned out to be possessing classified information. At around the same time, a white non-Muslim officer at Guantanamo charged with mishandling classified information was given an administrative reprimand and spent no time in prison. This too mirrors the disparate treatment Dr. Lee received vs. the slap on the wrist on John Deutch, former CIA director, for taking secret information home.

The lesson is painfully clear. The very ethnic minority Americans that the U.S. needs in its armed services and intelligence agencies are going to be increasingly hesitant about entering into such service. While there are fair minded officers in most branches of service, it would take running into just one like Miller to have his or her life turned upside down. It is also clear that so long as the likes of General Miller are running the war on terror, the U.S. will be fighting a losing battle, creating more enemies even as we try to curb terrorists and insurgents.

Book Review: China Revealed: The West Encounters the Celestial Empire

Out of Italy comes a recently released chronicle of the West’s fascination and fixation with China. China Revealed is not just a masterful collection of illustrations and photos copied from museums and archives around the world that would dress up any living room and delight the eye. The laconically written text traces the historical encounters of the West and China from early Arab traders in the 9th century to when the last emperor of the Qing dynasty left Beijing’s forbidden city to become a puppet in the Japanese imperial design for China just before the outbreak of World War II.

In thirty chapters and 330 large-format pages, Guadalupi reviews how the early enthrallment with a mystic China evolved into a nineteen century target for every western nation with colonial ambitions. Early contacts are initiated by the Vatican desirous of establishing an alliance with the invading Mongols to battle the Islamic forces and the tempting potential of converting the horde to Christianity. Later contacts are consequences of the need to satisfy the western world’s hunger to trade for China’s tea, silk and porcelain and trade flourished when the West found opium a suitable substitute for silver as the medium of exchange.

Marco Polo and others including a number of historically obscure or forgotten figures come to life by the author’s deft descriptions. This is a hugely entertaining and valuable reference for anyone wishing to understand the historical China as seen by western eyes. The book is so rich in information that the reader will have to read it many times in order to absorb it all.

I came across this book by accident at one of the Costco stores and bought the last two copies from this location, one to give away. I have not been able to find the book from various online sources except for one UK based site. According to this site, the book was released on November, 2003 so there should be copies around for those wishing to learn how China has been shaped and influenced by the West.

Book Review - “The Chinese in America” by Iris Chang

NCM, George Koo, Posted: May 14, 2003

Iris Chang in her latest book, The Chinese in America, examines the phenomenon of an immigrant community still regarded as foreign despite having lived in America for more than 150 years. To Iris, the Chinese experience in the United States has been more of a series of repetitive cycles rather than a monotonic progression from victims of brutal abuse to becoming widely accepted as a “model minority.”

Chang chronicles early experiences that branded the Chinese. In 1877, there was Denis Kearney, a demagogue who rose to political power by fanning an anti-Chinese hysteria, accusing them of stealing the white man’s livelihood. In 1950, Senator Joseph McCarthy began a witchhunt to look for communists under every bed and an inquiry on “who lost China” to communism. The Chinese American community especially felt the heavy siege of suspicion and glare of McCarthyism.

In 1853, the conviction of killers for the murder of Chinese immigrant Ling Sing was overturned on the grounds that the “inferior caste of people who were non-citizens,” meaning Chinese, cannot testify against whites. In 1982, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz used a baseball bat to bash Vincent Chin to death. Even though Chin was born in America, Ebens and Nitz did not spend even one night in jail.

Ling Sing’s case prompted the phrase “not a Chinaman’s chance.” After nearly 130 years, Vincent Chin’s chances fared no better.

Everett Drumwright, then U.S. consul in Hong Kong, concluded in his Foreign Service report, filed in 1955, that nearly all Chinese in America were illegal aliens capable of all sorts of dastardly deeds including spying for China.

FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover also subscribed to the notion that the Chinese community teemed with spies from China. Later, FBI analyst Paul Moore was to refine Hoover’s theory by suggesting that China recruited spies differently relying on “ethnic affinity” rather than the customary blandishments of cash and sex.

Moore’s testimonies before the House Select Committee headed by Congressman Christopher Cox contributed to a sensational report alleging that more than 10,000 PRC company offices in the United States are intelligence gathering stations and all Chinese in the United States regardless of citizenship status are potential spies.

Opponents of President William Clinton used the Cox Report to accuse him of losing nuclear warhead missile technology to China. In response, his administration promptly offered Dr. Wen Ho Lee as the designated sacrificial lamb, the book suggests.

Lee was thrown in solitary confinement for months on 59 charges, all but one of which were later thrown out. He pled guilty to one count in exchange for time spent in jail. One can argue that Lee’s experience was an improvement over the fate of his predecessor scapegoats that were lynched, burned or shot by periodic rampaging mobs in the late 1800’s.

The author also drew positive parallels. Yung Wing became the first Chinese to graduate from a major university (Yale in 1854) and opened the door for others. In the early 1900’s, Chan Chung Wing became the first Chinese to practice law in California. Bessie Jeong was the first Chinese American woman to graduate from Stanford and became a practicing physician.

By breaking the mold, the trailblazers paved the way for others to follow. Today, accomplished Chinese Americans occupy every profession from Tsung Dao Lee and Chen Ning Yang (Nobel laureate physicists), to I.M. Pei (architect), Yo-Yo Ma (music), David Ho (medicine), Elaine Chao (government), to Gary Locke (politics), Charles Wang (software), Jerry Yang (Internet) and many more.

Of course, all Chinese Americans should read this book to truly understand how their roots in America were planted. They will be better braced for the next time they face a random invitation to “go back to where they come from”—even if this means Peoria. This book is not just for Chinese Americans but also for all newly arrived immigrants and conscientious citizens that care to appreciate the deficiencies of American democracy.

To read Iris Chang’s book is to understand that the only recourse is to stand for what is right and vigorously protect the principles that have made America a diverse nation from which its unique greatness sprang.

Book Review: American Goddess at the Rape of Nanking, The Courage of Minnie Vautrin

In 2014, I posted this review on Amazon.

Some people live their lives at the water's edge, footprints of their passage on earth quickly erased by the rising tide. Others acquire a bit of immortality by converting their wealth into libraries, monuments and endowment funds. Then there are still others like Minnie Vautrin, who devote their entire life to helping others and hardly thought about the next day much less their place in history. Thanks to Ms. Hua-ling Hu and her tireless effort to uncover the facts obscured by the dust of time, Ms. Vautrin is, at least, one unsung heroine that will not be forgotten.

Author Hu manages to open the thin volume of under 150 pages with a most informative review of China's history of uneasy and ambivalent relationship with missionaries from the West and sets the stage for Ms. Hua Chuan's (Minnie Vautrin's Chinese name) arrival in China.

When Ms. Vautrin first went to China, she knew nothing about the country. At the time, the beginning of the 20th century, teaching in missionary service was one of the more attractive career options for women. Yet, she was to devote 28 of her 55 years in China and came to call China her home.

Despite her extensive research, the author never quite explained why Ms. Vautrin came to adopt China as her country. Perhaps because she shared the esteem Chinese hold for education. Perhaps she saw that the women in China, shackled by male dominated feudalism, needed her as their champion.

By the time the Japanese imperial troops marched into Nanjing in December 1937, Ms. Vautrin had already spent a quarter of a century at the Ginling College in Nanjing. She not only administered the training of female students; she also organized schooling for children of destitute families living nearby. Women were taught to read and acquire skills that would provide them a livelihood.

Most of the book, of course, is devoted to describing the atrocities committed by the Japanese troops and Ms. Vautrin's valiant effort to confront and face down the brutal soldiers and their arms. She was not always successful in protecting the women seeking sanctuary inside the college, but she earned the eternal gratitude of the people of Nanjing who canonized her as a living Buddha.

This book looks at the Rape of Nanjing from yet another perspective and complements those recently published about this subject. At the same time, this book tells the story of a selfless woman of compassion and courage. Minnie Vautrin is surely one of China's and America's earliest advocates for women's right to equal access to education. Hers is a story that should inspire all.

Book review: Virtual Tibet by Orville Schell

In a way, what Jonathan Spence did with The Chan’s Great Continent, Orville Schell has done with Virtual Tibet. Both study how the West glamorizes, idealizes, disparages, and criticizes China, nearly always from a narrow western frame of reference, blinded by its own bias and ignorance. Chan’s is a scholarly compilation of how the West saw China throughout history. Schell deals with how the West sees Tibet in a less scholarly but more personal way. Schell interweaves West’s early contacts with Tibet with his foray into the Hollywood fascination with and idealization of Tibet.

Virtual Tibet is anecdotal and fun to read. In walking the impartial line of a journalist, Schell is careful to recount his observations without the intermixing of his opinions. However, his droll descriptions never cease to entertain. For instance, he voiced nary a nasty comment on the carrying-on of the kung-fu actor, Steven Seagal and his fixation with Dalai Lama. Still, after reading his encounter with Seagal, the reader comes away with a new appreciation of what a Hollywood megalomanic lout is all about.

From Schell’s book I learned that the word “pundit” came from the Anglicization of “pandit,” a Hindi term. Pandit or pundit meaning a person of knowledge was applied to native Indians trained by the British to spy in Tibet starting from the turn of the 19th century. It seemed that for decades, the voracious British colonial government coveted Tibet and needed detailed maps of the region. Official surveys headed by white explorers were out of the question and the solution was to resort to employing Indian nationals that could sneak into Tibet. Before reading this book, I often wondered why I hold a vague disdain for pundits. Now I know.

By the time Lost Horizon was written in 1933 and introduced the concept of Shangri-La, a hidden paradise, Tibet had already been established as the exotic destination of choice for overactive adventurers and farout mystics. Tibetan monks were attributed with awesome magical powers including ability to fly, read people’s minds, perform miraculous cures and endure subzero temperatures. According to Schell, “the Tibet of filth, ferocity, arcane religious practices, grinding poverty, barren wastes, inhospitable weather, serfdom, disease and theocratic absolutism vanished from public consciousness.”

“Shangri-La is a distillation of a borrowed piece of Tibetan mythology overlaid with a Western dream of dreams that was two centuries in the making.” Look past the Hollywood gloss on the modern Tibet of the West, and one concludes that Schell’s observation still holds.

Reviews in brief

A Victor’s Reflections and other Tales for China’s Timeless Wisdom for Leaders by Michael C. Tang is an absolute joy to read and own. The author has managed to reduce classic stories of China’s sages, military strategists, wise rulers, clever advisors and child prodigies into highly readable and entertaining short stories. When he tries to draw lessons from these classics to modern day situations, he was less successful. But, if your grandchildren ever ask you to explain “what is Chinese culture,” you will want to read this book first. Better yet, give this book to your grandchildren.

I had been looking forward to reading The Yamato Dynasty by Sterling and Peggy Seagrave ever since I saw the book in Asia and then found out that the publication in the West was months later. This book claims to contain the secret history of Japan’s imperial family, the billions of gold stashed away and the secret deals made with General Douglas MacArthur after World War II. Unfortunately I found the book disorganized, rambling and not well written, falling short of the reputation the authors earned from their previous efforts. However, this book is a valuable reference that goes a long way to explaining the complicity of the U.S. government in overlooking war crimes committed by Japan.