Based on a presentation given before the Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, November 9, 1998
I was first invited to speak at the Commonwealth Club over two years ago. The invitation came from Dr. Gloria Duffy, Chief Executive Officer of this organization, and it was to engage in a debate with Harry Wu about human rights conditions in China. Mr. Wu's response was that he would gladly speak about the subject but would not participate in any debate. Thus, that invitation came to naught.
Naturally I was disappointed, because this country has had a terribly distorted view of China causing a severe case of jaundice on the entire bilateral relationship. In my view, Mr. Wu along with certain members of Congress and the mainstream media have created an image of China that is coming straight from the funhouse mirror.
Henry Rowen, a former senior official in the Bush adminstration and now a senior fellow at Hoover Institution found that in the first half of the '90s, the mainstream media ran articles on China with a ratio of 12:1 on the negative side. In other words, for every positive or objective article on China, there were 12 criticizing and/or castigating China. Prof Rowen defined mainstream media as consisting of New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Time and Newsweek.
With that kind of tilt in the press, it is almost impossible for the American public to develop a balanced view of China. Yet it is in our interest, as well in the interest of the entire world, that the U.S. and China remain engaged in a positive and rational manner. Thus, for the sake of my children and grandchildren, I was then and I am eager now to participate in forums where I have an opportunity to help clarify some issues. Just so there is absolutely no confusion, I want to say at the outset that I am an American, my children are Americans and my grandchildren are Americans. I am speaking from an American's perspective in the interest of all Americans.
Thanks to President Clinton's trip to China with the massive media in tow, to the sobering after effects of the Asian financial crisis, to the bankruptcy of the Russian economy, to Bosnia, Kosovo and most recently to the Israeli-Palestinian accord, bashing China is for now not a favorite pastime. I welcome this opportunity to talk about China during the interval of calm before the next storm. The seismic changes taking place in Washington stemming from the recent election may keep the storm clouds from gathering on China for a while, but I would hardly think that the bilateral relationship will always be sunny from here on.
Some of you may have noticed that the title of my talk emcompasses a curious collection of names from President Bill Clinton to Pat Robertson to Fan Shidong. No doubt, many of you are assuming that I selected this title to be titillating. Maybe so, but it is no more scandalous than to see Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi in the same political bed with Senator Jesse Helms lashing out at the Beijing regime for real or imagined offenses.
Aside from drawing up a title to attract an audience, the three gentlemen do have something in common. They have all made a historic trip across the Pacific, and have in my view some important things to say to China or about China, and if we listen--more importantly, if Congress will listen-- they will help put the bilateral relationship on a new track. Let me explain by first reviewing each person's trip, then I will attempt to pull it all together.
President Clinton's Historic Visit to China
First the easy one. When Bill Clinton decided to move his trip to China up to late June, he had to withstand a firestorm of criticisms ranging from his attempting to duck the Monica scandal--which if that was his intention, he didn't succeed-- to coddling with dictators. He also got unsolicited and malicious advice.
He was advised not to go near Tiananmen Square. Can you imagine the President on arrival in Beijing saying "Excuse me, I know that the Great Hall of the People is where you receive heads of state, but in my case please go ahead with the 21 gun salute without me?"
It was also suggested that Hillary Clinton wear white as a sign of mourning in memory of the students that died in June of 1989. If you remember the pomp and ceremony as the Clintons entered the Hall, you would realize her wearing white would've been unnoticed or if noticed, would have made her look mighty silly.
Instead, President Clinton became the first foreign head of state to address the Chinese people live, not once or twice but three times. First time at the Great Hall alongside President Jiang, second time at Beijing University in front of an audience of mainly students, both of these were televised to national audience, and third time on a radio talk show in Shanghai.
I believe as a result of this trip, Jiang and Clinton finally developed the rapport and mutual respect needed to maintain a dialog between two major heads of state. The Chinese people got a sense of the Western concept of democracy. Just as important, if not more so, President Clinton and his entourage including the media, may finally begin to realize that democracy, Western style, isn't the red hot issue among the younger generation in China that they may have presupposed.
Instead of fomenting dissent and espousing democracy, expected from the cradle of agitation that led to the 1989 Tiananmen protest, the student questioners at Beijing University addressing the President were pointedly more interested in knowing about U.S. attitudes and plans for the bilateral relationship. One student asked if U.S. has any human rights problems and what has been done about them. None showed any inclination to take up the U.S. point of view in the friendly debate about human rights and personal freedom.
What the students at Beijing University and later the people of Shanghai that participated in the radio talk demonstrated is that the people of China know a lot more about America than Americans know about China. This should be a strange conclusion considering that they are supposed to live in a closed society and we in an open society. Probably says something about the way our media covers China and about our interest in international relations (vs. domestic relations).
The Chinese respondents also showed that their concern about the future of China is just not the same as America's concern. President Clinton stressed the importance of individual freedom to the future of China and argued that China's long term stability will depend on the granting of personal freedom. The Chinese people politely disagreed. One of the students said, "I don't think the individual freedom and the collective freedom will contradict each other. For instance, in China, the prosperous development of the nation is actually the free choice of our people.... And I also think that only those who can really respect the freedom of others, they can really say that they understand what freedom means."
The last sentence is a pointed reminder to the President and the people of the U.S. that we Americans do not own the definition of freedom.
Of course it's hard for me to say whether the media have really learned anything from this trip and recognize that tremendous changes are taking place in China and whether they have yet to take off the blinders of pre-conceived notions and truly see what's going on.
For example, as a background piece, Dan Rather of CBS interviewed a former activist on Tiananmen who landed in prison for two years for his role. He is now a successful entrepreneur operating a number of book stores in Beijing. When asked about his thoughts on Tiananmen, he said that was the past, he would rather look forward to making a good life for himself and his live-in fiancee, also a Tiananman participant.
This probably was not the response Dan Rather had in mind. But it didn't keep him from this straight into the camera conclusion: "Isn't it terrible that China is suffering from lack of democracy." Rather is not the exception. Sam Donaldson strayed the farthest by reprising an exposé on organ sales that was shown on Primetime Live about 8 months earlier. In that program, Harry Wu help snare a young couple caught on TV for taking downpayments for kidney transplants.
Other than having the Shanghai Bund as the background, there was no new information given when Donaldson re-ran the Primetime piece. Questions raised after the first airing of the program included: What happened to the young Chinese couple, the Dai's, caught on video taking the advance deposit money for transplant reservation? Why weren't they arrested and prosecuted? Where did they go? According an article Harry Wu wrote for World Journal of ethnic Chinese press, he secretly let them go. Could that be true? Where did he get authority to take law into his hands? None were answered this time around.
Pat Robertson Meets Zhu Rongji
Pat Robertson went to China and met with Zhu Rongji almost exactly two months after Clinton's summit. Dr. Robertson is the Chairman of the Christian Broadcast Network (CBN) and a founder of the Christian Coalition. He was invited to China to see for himself the practice of religion in China. This summit was initiated and arranged by the Committee of 100.
The Committee of 100 is an organization of Chinese Americans. The mission of the organization is to speak up on Chinese American issues in America and to promote an U.S.-China relationship based on the principle of "seeking common grounds while respecting differences." Some of the more prominent members include Architect I.M. Pei, Cellist Yo-Yo Ma, Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien, and Governor Gary Locke.
In 1997, the Committee organized a group to Asia to meet with government leaders in Taipei, Hong Kong and Beijing. The purpose of the trip was to observe the return of Hong Kong to China and to discuss their concerns over the then existing tensions between the U.S. and China and between Taiwan and the mainland.
Just before this group arrived in Beijing in July 1997, Time magazine had reported on the vitriolic bashing of China from the religious right in the U.S. Sensitive to the power of the religious right in American politics, Liu Huaqiu, head of Foreign Affairs of the State Council, asked the visiting group for advice on how to best respond to the bitter attacks.
One member of the group, Dr. Richard Cheng, Chairman and C.E.O. of ECI Systems Engineering in Virginia Beach, who knows Pat Robertson personally, suggested that he could approach Robertson about a possible visit to China. This was warmly endorsed by others in the group. Thus, Cheng with the support of the Committee became the intermediary between Robertson's organization and the leaders in Beijing.
When he came back from China, Robertson said, "China's society has already made tremendous strides. The people have taken a great step towards freedom. China is in midst of building an economic miracle. Furthermore, the people of China are enjoying religious freedom to a degree far greater than has been described by the American media." Imagine that!
Robertson's remarks about China clearly put him on a collision course with many members of the religious right. When asked, he said people like Gary Bauer, head of the Family Research Council is hard to influence. "He does what he likes, but he does not speak for conservative Christians. I do," he said. "I don't believe he has ever been to China."
Robertson first went to China in 1979. Walking around Beijing's Summer Palace on this trip, he saw throngs of people relaxed and at play. He observed that there was no way that this could happen in a police state. "The change in China over the last 20 years is just breathtaking," he added.
Zhu told Robertson that according to official statistics, there are about 10 million Christians in China out of about 100 million that are registered with a religious affiliation. Buddhism was introduced into China nearly 2000 years ago. The Jesuit priest Matteo Ricci brought Catholicism with him in 1602 while the Protestant faith was not introduced until 1807. The relatively short history of Christianity in China is Zhu's explanation for the relatively smaller following.
Robertson congratulated Zhu on China's economic achievements. He also pointed out that China will need more than ever the moral and spiritual values from religion as the standard of living increases. "Religion such as Christianity is not a threat to your government," Robertson went on to tell Zhu. "Religion was not a threat to the former Soviet Union. Their problem was not having a visionary leader like Deng Xiaoping."
The meeting lasted 75 minutes, well beyond the allotted time and kept Zhu's next batch of visitors waiting.
Robertson's entourage had made a number of requests upon their arrival in Beijing. After the meeting with Zhu, doors opened. Robertson and his delegation visited churches and talked to scholars and religious leaders of all the major faiths.
Dr. Robertson and his TV crew even got to interview Alan Yuan, an 84 year old pastor who spent 22 years in Chinese prisons. He simply walked into the hotel where they were staying. This interview was later broadcast on Christian Broadcast Network. Yuan was originally sentenced to life imprisonment for preaching and running a home church without registering with the government.
According to Robertson, people like Pastor Yuan from China's underground churches do not trust the government offices in control of religion because they are all communists. However, in his official meetings and conversations, he met many "fine religious leaders." "The line is beginning to blur and underground churches are beginning to register with the government," he said.
On the eve of his departure from Beijing, Robertson hosted a press conference. He said, "China compared to before is wide open. The live telecast of the exchanges between Jiang Zemin and President Clinton is a historic milestone. I am delighted to see a new era of warmth and cooperation in relations between the United States and China."
Robertson's parting observation was that while some members of Congress are sincere about their concerns on human rights, they have not been to China to see the progress there. Others, unfortunately, have turned China and U.S.-China relationship into hostages of domestic politics.
The successful outcome of this visit is, in no small part, due to Robertson's understanding of Chinese history and culture. Throughout his meeting with Zhu, he liberally sprinkled his conversation with references not only to Deng Xiaoping but Confucianism and even Sun Zi's "Art of War."
I wrote a commentary about Robertson's trip to China and drew an analogy with Matteo Ricci. The Jesuit priest and a Vatican emissary entered China toward the waning years of the Ming Dynasty. He studied Chinese classics, spoke fluent Chinese, taught the sons of influential families and incorporated Western knowledge into his lessons.
Ricci represented himself as a scholar rather than as a priest. He adapted Catholic rites so that they were easier to understand by the Chinese. He did not ask converts to renounce ancestor worship and he acknowledged the influence of Confucius. He successfully weathered the transition in rulers and served as a respected advisor to Kangxi, the first Qing emperor, in a capacity similar to his role at the preceding Ming court.
The decline of the influence of Catholicism in China began when the Pope disagreed with Ricci's approach. He specifically prohibited missionaries that followed Ricci from allowing converts to retain traditional Chinese practices. Completely turned off by this show of intolerance, the emperor then expelled the priests from China.
A Dissident Refutes Harry Wu
Now let me tell you about Fan Shidong, someone most of you have not heard of. Fan is a dissident who was arrrested in 1983 and spent the next 11 years in Chinese prisons. He was seen in frequent company of an American official from their Consulate in Shanghai and he was accused of selling secrets to the U.S.
He spent the last 8.5 years in a Xinjiang labor camp before he was released in 1994 and slipped into Hong Kong in 1995. Harry Wu heard of him and contacted him. Wu offered Fan money in exchange for his testimony before U.S. Congress. At the time--early in 1996, Wu was on a campaign to stop World Bank financing in Xinjiang
Wanting to build a case to halt World Bank investments in Xinjiang, China's eastern most autonomous region, Wu tracked down Fan and flew to Hong Kong to meet him. Wu needed someone like Fan, more recently released from a Xinjiang prison camp than himself, to authenticate his case before Congress. Fan turn him down even though he had shown up in Hong Kong penniless and certainly could have used the money.
Fan's principle was stronger than his financial need and he refused because he felt that World Bank financing of irrigation projects in Xinjiang could only ameliorate the harsh conditions of that region. It would be good for the civilians and good for prisoners also as it would facilitate their growing their own food to supplement the meager budget allocated by the government and not pocketed by corrupt officials.
Wu told him that World Bank's charter does not permit financing projects related to the prison camps and to the military. Since there were prison camps in Xinjiang and the camps were under the military's management, that should be sufficient grounds to bar the investments, Wu explained to Fan. Fan did not agree with this loose interpretation of the World Bank mandate.
Xinjiang laogai prisoners not having enough to eat and suffering from beatings were not noteworthy, because Americans don't want to hear about that, Wu told Fan. Laogai is an abbreviation for the part of China's prison system that stands for reform through labor. "No one can call himself a human rights activist, if he actually doesn't care a hoot about the lives of prisoners and their living conditions," Fan declares to his audience on his first visit to the Bay Area.
Fan's view is that even though prison conditions in today's China have improved compared to the 1980's, violation of the prisoners' human rights remains a problem. Wu has succeeded in diverting the world's attention to such issues as prison made goods, organ sales, World Bank financing, and planned parenthood and thus taken the pressure off the Chinese government to improve the treatment of prisoners.
Fan also found out that Wu is capable of making many doubtful statements. For example, in his Congressional testimony on November 5, 1997, Wu claimed that he was thrown in prison because of his family background with a banker for a father. "Even during Mao's darkest rule, during the cultural revolution, I didn't hear of anyone being sent to prison just for having the wrong family background," Fan says.
By equating China's laogai to the former Soviet's gulag under Stalin, Wu is equating China current regime with Stalin's reign of terror, Fan points out. When Harry Wu was in prison in the 1960's, approximately 10% of the laogai inmates were political prisoners. By the time, Fan was arrested, political prisoners make up only 1% of the prison population and today, Fan believes, political prisoners comprised of only about 0.1% of the inmates in China. No where, he feels, are there any indications of China's prison system being comparable to Stalinist days in Soviet Union.
In presenting his disagreements with Wu, Fan cites liberally from "New Ghosts, Old Ghosts," a recently released definitive study of China's prison system by James Seymour with co-author Richard Anderson. Fan wrote the forward to this book and gave Seymour his collection of data and materials on China's laogai. Wu had sought to buy the same collection from Fan during that four-hour long meeting in Hong Kong.
For example, Wu makes a big deal about prison made goods from China flooding the U.S. market. Last Christmas, he even paraded in front of K-Mart to exhort shoppers from buying imported goods from China. Seymour's analysis showed that even during the years when prison made goods had the biggest impact, it could account for no more than 0.2% of China's GDP. With the economic boom that has been taking place, prison made goods account for even less and in most cases just goes to supplement the underfed prisoners.
Dr. Seymour is a professor at Columbia and a well known human rights activist including being a member of the board of the New York based Human Rights in China. His reason for writing this book is his belief that criticism on China, in order to be effective, must come from higher moral grounds with a ring of validity derived from facts and truths.
"Everything Harry Wu does is aimed towards destroying the U.S. China relationship," Fan says, "And I am in favor of strengthening the U.S. China relationship." Hadn't been for the moderating influence of America, his own conviction as an anti-revolutionary would have meant execution, Fan observes.
Fan and his wife came to the U.S. as UN refugees in 1997 now lives in the Seattle area. He works in a grocery store and spends his spare time studying and writing about China's prison system. Fan says that he feels he has an obligation to help improve the prison conditions by persuading the Chinese government to take necessary rectification steps. The government bears responsibility for the dismal conditions, but they are also the body most able to correct the problems, he concludes.
In late June this year, Fan wrote an extensive piece entitled, "Shattering Harry Wu's Western Funhouse Mirror," which appeared in Sing Tao Daily. A translated version of this article is posted on the web page, http://heather.cs.ucdavis.edu/crrc.html.
Seeing China Clearly
So what can we conclude from these three disparate transpacific sojourns? First of all, I need to assume that you are interested in a sound bilateral relations between the U.S. and China; in constructive engagement where differences can be aired objectively; in supporting criticisms but not demonizing China for the sake of domestic politics; and lastly but not least, you recognize that there is no profit in making China an enemy of the United States.
I believe the three gentlemen have revealed a China far different from how it has been portrayed by the mainstream media, and different from the perception of the general public in America. The next time you read about China from the media, be sure to distinguish between a pundit and a journalist. A pundit opines, he/she doesn't have to deal with facts. A journalist, at least, has to try to be objective, fair and provide balance. The New York Times is a prime example. Reading their editorials on China, one would have to conclude that those columnists are oblivious to the despatches from even their own reporters based in China.
The next time the US-China relationship comes under Washington scrutiny and Congressional debate, I urge you, the American public to listen carefully and ask them some questions. To start with: Have the critics been to China? What axes are they grinding if any? Hopefully with increasing exposure of people of integrity that can bear reliable witness to the real situation in China, we will see a decrease in people of questionable conduct, ethics and veracity appearing as the only witnesses before Congress.
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1 Henry Rowen, "The Short March, China's Road to Democracy," The National Interest, Fall, 1996, p67
2 See for example a discussion in "U.S. Media Coverage of China," National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, Inc., Policy Series Report No. 14, June 1998
3 Originally aired on October 15, 1997 by ABC.
4 Wu's article appeared in the Sunday magazine section of World Journal entitled "Xuexing Shiye" (Bloody Enterprise), early 1998
5 For more information on this organization, visit their website at http://www.committee100.org
6 "Pat Robertson -- A Modern Day 'Matteo Ricci' Fosters Ties Between Religious Right and China," Pacific News Service commentary, October 12, 1998
7 See for example, A. A. Quong, "A Quiet Dissident from China Sees Hope for Reform in Prison Labor Camps," Pacific News Service commentary, October 8, 1998. Other description of Fan's visit to Stanford and U.C. Berkeley appeared in October 18, 1998 issue of San Francisco Examiner and November 12, 1998 issue of Far Eastern Economic Review.
8 "New Ghosts, Old Ghosts," M.E. Sharpe, $39.95, was published early in 1998 and most recently reviewed in November 9, 1998 issue of Wall Street Journal. Earlier reviews of this book had appeared in South China Morning Post and Far Eastern Economic Review. All the reviewers agree that the conclusions of this book "strike at the credibility of Harry Wu."
Showing posts with label Harry Wu Hongda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Harry Wu Hongda. Show all posts
Thursday, November 12, 1998
Wednesday, August 5, 1998
Breaking Harry Wu's Funhouse Mirror, by Fan Shidong
Fan Shidong is a Chinese dissident from Shanghai arrested and sent to prison for talking to American officials in 1983 and released in 1994. He went to Hong Kong after his release and is now living in the Seattle area. He wrote a series of 6 articles which was published in the Sing Tao Daily from June 24 to 29, 1998 and spoke at Berkeley and Stanford as a visiting scholar. Professor Norm Matloff and I translated his article as below.
The Laogai Debate as Relates to Deng Xiaoping and Zhu Rongji
In his most recent meeting with the Voice of America reporters, Harry Wu made an interesting comment. He said, "Our difference with James Seymour et al lies in the following. Seymour only refers to those prison inmates that have been sentenced by the Chinese courts. We count as inmates not only those sentenced but also the dependents in prison camps, those forced to remain and work at those camps and juvenile delinquents. Some have served their term but is forced to remain with the prison team and still deprived of their personal freedom."
Wu's comment raises some questions. What does he mean by personal freedom and by what standard? Everybody knows that a long period in mainland China, all manners of control were imposed. Not just on prison inmates, but during the cultural revolution, the movement of all sorts of people were restricted. No one can leave their place of residence or work place without notifying and getting permission. It was not just those in stockades that were without freedom, even ordinary citizens were subjected to layers of government control.
During the cultural revolution tens of thousands of students were sent to the countryside without any choice; they were no different from those forced to stay and work at the prison farms after release. Everybody's individual freedom were taken away to varying degrees. Hundreds of million Chinese, the majority of the population, suffered from loss of freedom. By Wu's standard, nearly everybody in China would qualify as being a laogai inmate. Zhu Rongji in cadre school, Deng Xiaoping under house arrest would qualify as those deserving salute by Wu's Laogai Research Foundation.
Maybe it's not consider an exaggeration to add the years of forced service at the prison camp on top of three years of prison sentence and thus become a 19 year hero and laogai surviver. Why not? Everybody in China has the chance to declare having been a laogai surviver and claim the accolade of a hero.
Is there a limit to Laogai Economics?
During the debate between Seymour and Wu, one of the major issues is the contribution of laogai economics to the national GDP. Seymour said, "Some claims that without laogai, China's economy would collapse. There is no evidence to support such a statement." Seymours presents economic estimates that show output from laogai is but a tiny part of the national GDP. His calculations are based on incomplete data reported by the Chinese judicial authorities. Are these estimates reliable? I believe there is a high probability that they are overstated. Actual production from the prison system is likely much smaller than reported. While not completely believable, the estimates are at least better than those made up out of thin air.
Even today, filing falsify reports is still common place because it is not considered a crime. The central government and the Beijing municipal government frequently resorts to falsified data to lie and the people also resorts to false data to lie to the governement. This is a prevailing condition in China. Even so, there are not many that go to such extremes as turning three years in a prison camp into 19 years of laogai residency.
There are three main reasons why the data from China's prison authority are exaggerated or in error. (1) Towards the end 1980's, the government begin an incentive award system whereby for prisons that meet their production targets, the prison guards and administrators are entitled to share part of the profits as reward. About 10 to 30% of the profit is allocated as bonus. Therefore, the extent of overreporting of their production value and profit directly affect the bonus pool for the management of each prison.
Second, most of the production from prisons are not subject to tax or very little tax. The value reported to the tax authorities is frequently different from the value reported to the central judicial authorities. Both authorities tolerate this practice. The central judicial authorities want to boast about their achievements and the tax authorities have no desire to offend the judiciary.
Thirdly, the promotion of officials within the judiciary is the same as other departments. Namely by their work related performance. Hence another motivation to overreport. These reports are consolidated and report up the line. No one is particularly intersted in verifying those numbers reported. A direct consequence is the further infringement of the prisoners' basic human rights.
A numercial example would clarify matters. Suppose a laogai team earned an actual profit of ¥100,000 but was reported as having a profit of ¥200,000. If the prison authorities are entitled to a bonus of 20% of the profit, they will keep ¥40,000 or double the amount they are entitled based on actual profit. In effect they kept 40%. Part of the remainder is allocated as working capital and for management fees and other expenses. Whatever is leftover is then the budget for the prisoners meals. Since most of the other expenses are more or less fixed, the additional bonus payment comes directly out of the mouths of the prisoners.
Since the local prison authorities have other ways to increase their take at the expense of the prisoners, the meal budget of most prisons are only about 1/3 of the standard set by the central judiciary authorities. Virtually all of China's prisons suffer from this hidden deprivation and injustice. Thus the actual living standards of prisoners in China is lower than that set by the Judicial Ministry, and lower than international standards. In some prisons, the prisoners suffer from long term under-nourishment and must depend on supplement from relatives.
Therefore, the data from prison authorities can only be overblown. This tendency is exactly opposite to those profit making enterprises motivated to underreport revenue and reduce tax liability.
"China's economy can not do without the laogai's economy," seems to be Harry Wu's mantra. He is saying that China's laogai is an essential and basic part of its national economy. Trading with China is to help China's laogai economy and therefore become accomplices in oppressing China's political prisoners.
It's obvious Wu has powerful backers, but who are they?
These assessments did not originate from Wu. Just like Fiedler, Wu is just a low ranking worker bee and lack the qualifications and authority to make comments on political matters that rightfully belonging to those in power.
There are times when Wu gets so carried away that even President Clinton is dismissed. One source of his arrogance is his powerful supporters in the U.S. Congress. But this did not keep Seymour to singlehandedly said directly to the experts and scholars in Hong Kong, "I believe there are many in Senate and House that are irresponsible and make statements that are not factual. This approach will not help in improving human rights in China. Not only the Chinese authorities find justifiable grounds to ignore the criticism but can be used to argue that China has no human rights problems." Therefore, he emphasized that when criticizing China's human rights problems, "exaggeration is counter effective." (South China Morning Post, 3/12/98) Seymour did not hold back. In his book, he said, "Once World Bank invested in Xinjiang, the Bank became the whipping boy for Wu and (Senator) Helms."
Mr. Helms is the current Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; what is his relationship with Harry Wu? Is he Wu's patron? No way of knowing. But some things are easy to see, Wu is not incompetent. I believe even the Chinese public security would not deny that Wu possess exceptional abilities exceeding most cadres and dissidents. He has a quick mind and boldness, and is a highly productive doer. Whether his motivation to make trouble for China has to do with revenge, or to make a living, or to achieve fame with profit, or all of the above, is a question we can defer momentarily. Whether he is successful in making trouble also can be deferred for now. What's evident is that his tooth for tooth mission rely on underhanded, in the gutter approach, the same treatment he suffered under the Mao Communist regime.
There are many former laogai immates who suffered in the hands Chinese authorities that may have initially applauded Wu's action as striking a blow on all their behalf. I too had an initially favorable impression of Wu thinking that after coming to America he is still concerned about the suffering of prisoners in China. Because Wu can do such good deeds, it is small wonder that American politicians like him and pat him on the shoulder. However, when assessing Wu, they are careful not to go overboard. "Courageous" and "capable" type of praise is what bosses customarily give to their workers. Has anyone praise him for being sincere, honest, trustworthy, gentlemanly, not being a liar, upright character, etc.? Who would consider someone that cannot speak truthfully as a trustworthy friend or as honored person worthy of respect? At the same time, Wu would not let them onto his secrets or let them see his basis. He is realistic and knows full well that they do not trust him.
Seymour is, therefore, quite proper in including Wu's Washington supporters when he criticizes Wu. Sure, Wu is not factual, but the world is full of liars. Wu's exaggerations are not subtle, anyone with slightest analysis can see the flaws and inconsistencies. For anyone of average intellect to buy-in is clear indication of other political agenda or intentions. Therefore, Wu should not be recipient of all the blame.
As the smoke clears from Wu's debate with Seymour, Wu's falsehood and Laogai Research Foundation's basis for deception are exposed. Perhaps many members of Congress in both Houses choose to believe the falsehoods and innuendos because of the need to influence American policy towards China from a particular historical perspective, reflecting the U.S. mainstream's distrust and doubt toward China during this period of transition and reform. But then the exchange of visits between Presidents Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton marks the conclusion of twenty years of uneasy U.S.-China relationship and the beginning of new chapter of history. In this new era, the bilateral relationship will be increasingly stable and friendly, and witness increasing exchanges and cooperation. Thus, mutual doubt and distrust will gradually decrease.
Clinton recently again emphasized, "Isolation of China will not work." and "Engagement with China is the best way to promote our interest." If Wu and his laogai tales are nurtured by Uncle Sam's previous doubt and suspicions. Then to dispel these doubts now would require someone with impeccable reputation and position. Thus the way is opened for Seymour and his co-author.
We believe, even as US-China relation continues to improve and grow closer, criticism and promotion of human rights in China will remain a part of the U.S. policy towards China. We hope that the criticism will be based on facts and reality. Wu's false accusations should not serve as basis for U.S. criticism. Only criticism based on actual reality will be valid, effective and powerful.
Who is Wu helping and making trouble for?
Even though Wu's recent acts of deception have been effective in attracting mainstream media and public's attention, such acts are not helpful to the West toward understanding and evaluating the real situation about China's prison system and prisoner's human rights. The U.S. government also cannot use false accusations to ask China to fess up and thus apply pressure for reform. The Chinese government is not open and frank about many of their human rights problems. They won't even admit some real deficiencies much less admit to Wu's fabrications. Thus Wu not only has not made trouble for China, he also has not help the U.S. cause.
Seymour views this from another perspective. He said, "We not only do not need to resort to gross exaggeration, the adaptation of such approach is counter effective." This statement is indeed profound. Seymour as an American is not only concerned with human rights in China but is even more concerned with the image and reputation of his own country. If Americans continue to remain quiet in face of Wu's exaggerations and distortions, eventually the reputation of the U.S. as the champion of democracy would be damaged. Seymour is reminding the American public to pay attention to its own image and draw a clear distinction between fact and fiction. Otherwise, the day will come when intellectuals that are guardians of American value and cultural will be challenged as to why they ignored the antics of Harry Wu. They will be asked whether America willingly sacrifices their basic integrity and values for certain political positioning. Seymour clearly hopes that such a tainted chapter can be avoided in America's history.
Some feel that by objecting to anyone criticizing China is to help China. Many who can't stand Wu's activity do not take action to expose him because of this concern. Many other so called human rights activists show support for Wu solely to reaffirm their own political position. This overlooks the advantage afforded to the Chinese government. If they are accused of human rights abuses based on fabrications with hostile motives, they are given the opening to take high moral grounds and ignore the criticism and even find justifications to deny any infringment of human rights.
Objectively speaking, Wu's approach of making mountains out of mole hills actually helps the Chinese government maintain the poor human rights record. Main reason is that by exaggerating China's human rights abuses by 100 fold, gradually people will realize that 99% of the acusations have no basis in fact. At that point the anger towards the actual 1% of real abuses will have dissipated and perhaps turn to sympathy for the Chinese government. Ironically Wu's action serves to confirm that a lot of the world's criticism of China's human rights are based on false premises.
One example is the grossly exaggerated head count of prisoners in China and the politics of laogai economics.
Another is the TV program made by Wu and BBC which claims that all the apparel on the stalls in an unidentified street in Xinjiang are made by military laogai there. The reality is that cloths prisoners have to wear are dependent on being sent to them by their family. Wu also said certain cemetery in Xinjiang contains only graves of prisoners. This of course was false which he himself later admitted.
Consequently, the people of the world will not easily accept any accusations of human rights abuses in China. They will say if Wu, who has done the most authoritative research on China's laogai, can only utter nonsense and lies, how can anyone have any authentic issues to raise? Therefore, Wu's western looking glass has actually helped China and make trouble for the U.S. government. In the end, it's the prisoners in China that are harmed, their human rights conditions will not experience any improvement.
China's prisoner human rights problem has been led to a blind alley
Even though China's National People's Congress has been making progress legislating laws, human rights abuses and conditions in China's prisons are still terrible. Prisoners do not have enough to eat, with excessive work load, and crime rate inside the prison is serious--most of which perpetuated by the prison guards. The brutal and tyrannical practices inside Chinese prison system truly defies accurate description. I am a personal witness to these lawless practices which can be found in Seymour's recent book. These prison conditions are not unknown to Harry Wu who spent over ten years in Tuanhe prison farm outside of Beijing. In his earlier books, "586" and "Bitter Winds," he accurately described the dismal conditions of the prison system. We felt he did this very well and accurately identified the essential violations. He was also successful in calling the world's attention to China's human rights problems in their prison system. However in recent years, his hot button is to stop Chinese made prison goods from exporting to the U.S., to investigate the sale of organs from Chinese prisoners and to disrupt the investment of World Bank in China's backward northwest region. These problems have no direct relevance to alleviating human rights abuses in China's prison; some even hurt the cause of human rights for Chinese prisoners.
U.S. laws forbid import of prison made goods, but export of prison made goods is not restricted by international regulations. The U.S. can rightfully ask China not to export such goods to the U.S. but has no basis to ask China to stop exporting to elsewhere in the world. From the prisoners' point of view, they need to work to eat. They are also looking for more profitable form of labor and certainly are not concerned with whether the goods are exported or not. If markets for prison made goods are taken away, the prisoners are still expected to work and may end up having to take on more arduous work and bear greater hardship. Thus from a long term view, even if the objective is to change the prison economics and stop export of prison made goods, the welfare of the prisoners needs to be dealt with first.
The benefit for sale of organs from executed prisoners is not just for Chinese officials but also for the many patients, so that complete stoppage is not necessarily the best solution. The answer is to ask the Chinese authorities to set the regulations requiring the advanced permission of the condemned prisoners and protection of the rights of the immediate relatives so as to unify the practice according to law and render the procedure public. This matter really impact very few, around some tens of prisoners each year so that this is not a crucial question affecting human rights in China. About the same number are murdered by prison guards each year. In the 11 years I was in prison, there were three who were beaten to death by the guards.
Just because China's northwest region holds laogai prison camps, Wu opposes World Bank financing of irrigation projects. This is not justified and can directly harm the welfare of the prisoners detained there. To eat, prisoners need to plant and need to water and need to use advanced quipment and technology to increase yield. Instead of reforming the prison system, Wu's protest will only deprive prisoners of potential benefits.
Wu's three emphasis in recent years as described above has directed the world's attention away from the real problems relating to survival and humane treatment. The confusion he causes leads to the world wide impression that the basic problems of surviving and prisoner treatment have been resolved. If Wu could really think about the tragic conditions of the prisoners and expend one-tenth of his foundation income for the direct benefit of the prisoners, I probably would still not feel the need to expose him. But he has strayed too far from work on behalf of China's human rights and even betrayed the Harry Wu of the '60s and '70s who also suffered from beatings and deprivations of a prisoner.
Why break Wu's smelly western looking glass?
Harry Wu's greatest accomplishment is no more than creating what Shanghai people disdainfully called a western looking glass, i.e., a funhouse mirror. In the hearts of oversea Chinese, the stench of this mirror has been obvious for a long time. So is it worth the effort to expose him? I think so and sooner the better.
If we don't destroy this funhouse mirror, sooner or later the Chinese Communist will. If we let them expose Wu, all the oversea dissidents and activists will lose face. If we do this ourselves, at least we can assure the world that not all are syncophants reflecting only whatever the West wants to hear.
If we don't destroy this funhouse mirror, the American will sooner or later realize the truth. For them to reject this funhouse mirror is for us Chinese to lose face. If we expose this fakery, at least we can send a message to the world that not all dissidents are bullshit artists. It's not that America lacks people like Harry Wu that bullshits with no concern for documentation. At least we can then say that we Chinese have no admiration for people of that sort, would not employ them much less give them honorary doctorate degrees.
Finally and most important of all, only after we break Wu's funhouse mirror can the West truly see and understand the actual conditions of Chinese prisons and human rights needs of the prisoners. The prison conditions are still harsh. Every minute, there will be many prisoners that will suffer from starvation, beatings and demeaning treatment. We need to work hard with not a minute to lose.
The dehumanizing treatment of prisoners will harden their hatred toward society and heighten their criminal tendencies. Upon release they are likely to commit greater crimes and thus increase the harm to society. This is a world wide problem. True prison reform must begin with basic respect for the human rights of the prisoner. We should take action not only for humanitarian reason but the future benefit of the society as a whole. This is particularly critical for China during its persent transitional period with high potential for instability and is the primary reason for my commentary.
The Laogai Debate as Relates to Deng Xiaoping and Zhu Rongji
In his most recent meeting with the Voice of America reporters, Harry Wu made an interesting comment. He said, "Our difference with James Seymour et al lies in the following. Seymour only refers to those prison inmates that have been sentenced by the Chinese courts. We count as inmates not only those sentenced but also the dependents in prison camps, those forced to remain and work at those camps and juvenile delinquents. Some have served their term but is forced to remain with the prison team and still deprived of their personal freedom."
Wu's comment raises some questions. What does he mean by personal freedom and by what standard? Everybody knows that a long period in mainland China, all manners of control were imposed. Not just on prison inmates, but during the cultural revolution, the movement of all sorts of people were restricted. No one can leave their place of residence or work place without notifying and getting permission. It was not just those in stockades that were without freedom, even ordinary citizens were subjected to layers of government control.
During the cultural revolution tens of thousands of students were sent to the countryside without any choice; they were no different from those forced to stay and work at the prison farms after release. Everybody's individual freedom were taken away to varying degrees. Hundreds of million Chinese, the majority of the population, suffered from loss of freedom. By Wu's standard, nearly everybody in China would qualify as being a laogai inmate. Zhu Rongji in cadre school, Deng Xiaoping under house arrest would qualify as those deserving salute by Wu's Laogai Research Foundation.
Maybe it's not consider an exaggeration to add the years of forced service at the prison camp on top of three years of prison sentence and thus become a 19 year hero and laogai surviver. Why not? Everybody in China has the chance to declare having been a laogai surviver and claim the accolade of a hero.
Is there a limit to Laogai Economics?
During the debate between Seymour and Wu, one of the major issues is the contribution of laogai economics to the national GDP. Seymour said, "Some claims that without laogai, China's economy would collapse. There is no evidence to support such a statement." Seymours presents economic estimates that show output from laogai is but a tiny part of the national GDP. His calculations are based on incomplete data reported by the Chinese judicial authorities. Are these estimates reliable? I believe there is a high probability that they are overstated. Actual production from the prison system is likely much smaller than reported. While not completely believable, the estimates are at least better than those made up out of thin air.
Even today, filing falsify reports is still common place because it is not considered a crime. The central government and the Beijing municipal government frequently resorts to falsified data to lie and the people also resorts to false data to lie to the governement. This is a prevailing condition in China. Even so, there are not many that go to such extremes as turning three years in a prison camp into 19 years of laogai residency.
There are three main reasons why the data from China's prison authority are exaggerated or in error. (1) Towards the end 1980's, the government begin an incentive award system whereby for prisons that meet their production targets, the prison guards and administrators are entitled to share part of the profits as reward. About 10 to 30% of the profit is allocated as bonus. Therefore, the extent of overreporting of their production value and profit directly affect the bonus pool for the management of each prison.
Second, most of the production from prisons are not subject to tax or very little tax. The value reported to the tax authorities is frequently different from the value reported to the central judicial authorities. Both authorities tolerate this practice. The central judicial authorities want to boast about their achievements and the tax authorities have no desire to offend the judiciary.
Thirdly, the promotion of officials within the judiciary is the same as other departments. Namely by their work related performance. Hence another motivation to overreport. These reports are consolidated and report up the line. No one is particularly intersted in verifying those numbers reported. A direct consequence is the further infringement of the prisoners' basic human rights.
A numercial example would clarify matters. Suppose a laogai team earned an actual profit of ¥100,000 but was reported as having a profit of ¥200,000. If the prison authorities are entitled to a bonus of 20% of the profit, they will keep ¥40,000 or double the amount they are entitled based on actual profit. In effect they kept 40%. Part of the remainder is allocated as working capital and for management fees and other expenses. Whatever is leftover is then the budget for the prisoners meals. Since most of the other expenses are more or less fixed, the additional bonus payment comes directly out of the mouths of the prisoners.
Since the local prison authorities have other ways to increase their take at the expense of the prisoners, the meal budget of most prisons are only about 1/3 of the standard set by the central judiciary authorities. Virtually all of China's prisons suffer from this hidden deprivation and injustice. Thus the actual living standards of prisoners in China is lower than that set by the Judicial Ministry, and lower than international standards. In some prisons, the prisoners suffer from long term under-nourishment and must depend on supplement from relatives.
Therefore, the data from prison authorities can only be overblown. This tendency is exactly opposite to those profit making enterprises motivated to underreport revenue and reduce tax liability.
"China's economy can not do without the laogai's economy," seems to be Harry Wu's mantra. He is saying that China's laogai is an essential and basic part of its national economy. Trading with China is to help China's laogai economy and therefore become accomplices in oppressing China's political prisoners.
It's obvious Wu has powerful backers, but who are they?
These assessments did not originate from Wu. Just like Fiedler, Wu is just a low ranking worker bee and lack the qualifications and authority to make comments on political matters that rightfully belonging to those in power.
There are times when Wu gets so carried away that even President Clinton is dismissed. One source of his arrogance is his powerful supporters in the U.S. Congress. But this did not keep Seymour to singlehandedly said directly to the experts and scholars in Hong Kong, "I believe there are many in Senate and House that are irresponsible and make statements that are not factual. This approach will not help in improving human rights in China. Not only the Chinese authorities find justifiable grounds to ignore the criticism but can be used to argue that China has no human rights problems." Therefore, he emphasized that when criticizing China's human rights problems, "exaggeration is counter effective." (South China Morning Post, 3/12/98) Seymour did not hold back. In his book, he said, "Once World Bank invested in Xinjiang, the Bank became the whipping boy for Wu and (Senator) Helms."
Mr. Helms is the current Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; what is his relationship with Harry Wu? Is he Wu's patron? No way of knowing. But some things are easy to see, Wu is not incompetent. I believe even the Chinese public security would not deny that Wu possess exceptional abilities exceeding most cadres and dissidents. He has a quick mind and boldness, and is a highly productive doer. Whether his motivation to make trouble for China has to do with revenge, or to make a living, or to achieve fame with profit, or all of the above, is a question we can defer momentarily. Whether he is successful in making trouble also can be deferred for now. What's evident is that his tooth for tooth mission rely on underhanded, in the gutter approach, the same treatment he suffered under the Mao Communist regime.
There are many former laogai immates who suffered in the hands Chinese authorities that may have initially applauded Wu's action as striking a blow on all their behalf. I too had an initially favorable impression of Wu thinking that after coming to America he is still concerned about the suffering of prisoners in China. Because Wu can do such good deeds, it is small wonder that American politicians like him and pat him on the shoulder. However, when assessing Wu, they are careful not to go overboard. "Courageous" and "capable" type of praise is what bosses customarily give to their workers. Has anyone praise him for being sincere, honest, trustworthy, gentlemanly, not being a liar, upright character, etc.? Who would consider someone that cannot speak truthfully as a trustworthy friend or as honored person worthy of respect? At the same time, Wu would not let them onto his secrets or let them see his basis. He is realistic and knows full well that they do not trust him.
Seymour is, therefore, quite proper in including Wu's Washington supporters when he criticizes Wu. Sure, Wu is not factual, but the world is full of liars. Wu's exaggerations are not subtle, anyone with slightest analysis can see the flaws and inconsistencies. For anyone of average intellect to buy-in is clear indication of other political agenda or intentions. Therefore, Wu should not be recipient of all the blame.
As the smoke clears from Wu's debate with Seymour, Wu's falsehood and Laogai Research Foundation's basis for deception are exposed. Perhaps many members of Congress in both Houses choose to believe the falsehoods and innuendos because of the need to influence American policy towards China from a particular historical perspective, reflecting the U.S. mainstream's distrust and doubt toward China during this period of transition and reform. But then the exchange of visits between Presidents Jiang Zemin and Bill Clinton marks the conclusion of twenty years of uneasy U.S.-China relationship and the beginning of new chapter of history. In this new era, the bilateral relationship will be increasingly stable and friendly, and witness increasing exchanges and cooperation. Thus, mutual doubt and distrust will gradually decrease.
Clinton recently again emphasized, "Isolation of China will not work." and "Engagement with China is the best way to promote our interest." If Wu and his laogai tales are nurtured by Uncle Sam's previous doubt and suspicions. Then to dispel these doubts now would require someone with impeccable reputation and position. Thus the way is opened for Seymour and his co-author.
We believe, even as US-China relation continues to improve and grow closer, criticism and promotion of human rights in China will remain a part of the U.S. policy towards China. We hope that the criticism will be based on facts and reality. Wu's false accusations should not serve as basis for U.S. criticism. Only criticism based on actual reality will be valid, effective and powerful.
Who is Wu helping and making trouble for?
Even though Wu's recent acts of deception have been effective in attracting mainstream media and public's attention, such acts are not helpful to the West toward understanding and evaluating the real situation about China's prison system and prisoner's human rights. The U.S. government also cannot use false accusations to ask China to fess up and thus apply pressure for reform. The Chinese government is not open and frank about many of their human rights problems. They won't even admit some real deficiencies much less admit to Wu's fabrications. Thus Wu not only has not made trouble for China, he also has not help the U.S. cause.
Seymour views this from another perspective. He said, "We not only do not need to resort to gross exaggeration, the adaptation of such approach is counter effective." This statement is indeed profound. Seymour as an American is not only concerned with human rights in China but is even more concerned with the image and reputation of his own country. If Americans continue to remain quiet in face of Wu's exaggerations and distortions, eventually the reputation of the U.S. as the champion of democracy would be damaged. Seymour is reminding the American public to pay attention to its own image and draw a clear distinction between fact and fiction. Otherwise, the day will come when intellectuals that are guardians of American value and cultural will be challenged as to why they ignored the antics of Harry Wu. They will be asked whether America willingly sacrifices their basic integrity and values for certain political positioning. Seymour clearly hopes that such a tainted chapter can be avoided in America's history.
Some feel that by objecting to anyone criticizing China is to help China. Many who can't stand Wu's activity do not take action to expose him because of this concern. Many other so called human rights activists show support for Wu solely to reaffirm their own political position. This overlooks the advantage afforded to the Chinese government. If they are accused of human rights abuses based on fabrications with hostile motives, they are given the opening to take high moral grounds and ignore the criticism and even find justifications to deny any infringment of human rights.
Objectively speaking, Wu's approach of making mountains out of mole hills actually helps the Chinese government maintain the poor human rights record. Main reason is that by exaggerating China's human rights abuses by 100 fold, gradually people will realize that 99% of the acusations have no basis in fact. At that point the anger towards the actual 1% of real abuses will have dissipated and perhaps turn to sympathy for the Chinese government. Ironically Wu's action serves to confirm that a lot of the world's criticism of China's human rights are based on false premises.
One example is the grossly exaggerated head count of prisoners in China and the politics of laogai economics.
Another is the TV program made by Wu and BBC which claims that all the apparel on the stalls in an unidentified street in Xinjiang are made by military laogai there. The reality is that cloths prisoners have to wear are dependent on being sent to them by their family. Wu also said certain cemetery in Xinjiang contains only graves of prisoners. This of course was false which he himself later admitted.
Consequently, the people of the world will not easily accept any accusations of human rights abuses in China. They will say if Wu, who has done the most authoritative research on China's laogai, can only utter nonsense and lies, how can anyone have any authentic issues to raise? Therefore, Wu's western looking glass has actually helped China and make trouble for the U.S. government. In the end, it's the prisoners in China that are harmed, their human rights conditions will not experience any improvement.
China's prisoner human rights problem has been led to a blind alley
Even though China's National People's Congress has been making progress legislating laws, human rights abuses and conditions in China's prisons are still terrible. Prisoners do not have enough to eat, with excessive work load, and crime rate inside the prison is serious--most of which perpetuated by the prison guards. The brutal and tyrannical practices inside Chinese prison system truly defies accurate description. I am a personal witness to these lawless practices which can be found in Seymour's recent book. These prison conditions are not unknown to Harry Wu who spent over ten years in Tuanhe prison farm outside of Beijing. In his earlier books, "586" and "Bitter Winds," he accurately described the dismal conditions of the prison system. We felt he did this very well and accurately identified the essential violations. He was also successful in calling the world's attention to China's human rights problems in their prison system. However in recent years, his hot button is to stop Chinese made prison goods from exporting to the U.S., to investigate the sale of organs from Chinese prisoners and to disrupt the investment of World Bank in China's backward northwest region. These problems have no direct relevance to alleviating human rights abuses in China's prison; some even hurt the cause of human rights for Chinese prisoners.
U.S. laws forbid import of prison made goods, but export of prison made goods is not restricted by international regulations. The U.S. can rightfully ask China not to export such goods to the U.S. but has no basis to ask China to stop exporting to elsewhere in the world. From the prisoners' point of view, they need to work to eat. They are also looking for more profitable form of labor and certainly are not concerned with whether the goods are exported or not. If markets for prison made goods are taken away, the prisoners are still expected to work and may end up having to take on more arduous work and bear greater hardship. Thus from a long term view, even if the objective is to change the prison economics and stop export of prison made goods, the welfare of the prisoners needs to be dealt with first.
The benefit for sale of organs from executed prisoners is not just for Chinese officials but also for the many patients, so that complete stoppage is not necessarily the best solution. The answer is to ask the Chinese authorities to set the regulations requiring the advanced permission of the condemned prisoners and protection of the rights of the immediate relatives so as to unify the practice according to law and render the procedure public. This matter really impact very few, around some tens of prisoners each year so that this is not a crucial question affecting human rights in China. About the same number are murdered by prison guards each year. In the 11 years I was in prison, there were three who were beaten to death by the guards.
Just because China's northwest region holds laogai prison camps, Wu opposes World Bank financing of irrigation projects. This is not justified and can directly harm the welfare of the prisoners detained there. To eat, prisoners need to plant and need to water and need to use advanced quipment and technology to increase yield. Instead of reforming the prison system, Wu's protest will only deprive prisoners of potential benefits.
Wu's three emphasis in recent years as described above has directed the world's attention away from the real problems relating to survival and humane treatment. The confusion he causes leads to the world wide impression that the basic problems of surviving and prisoner treatment have been resolved. If Wu could really think about the tragic conditions of the prisoners and expend one-tenth of his foundation income for the direct benefit of the prisoners, I probably would still not feel the need to expose him. But he has strayed too far from work on behalf of China's human rights and even betrayed the Harry Wu of the '60s and '70s who also suffered from beatings and deprivations of a prisoner.
Why break Wu's smelly western looking glass?
Harry Wu's greatest accomplishment is no more than creating what Shanghai people disdainfully called a western looking glass, i.e., a funhouse mirror. In the hearts of oversea Chinese, the stench of this mirror has been obvious for a long time. So is it worth the effort to expose him? I think so and sooner the better.
If we don't destroy this funhouse mirror, sooner or later the Chinese Communist will. If we let them expose Wu, all the oversea dissidents and activists will lose face. If we do this ourselves, at least we can assure the world that not all are syncophants reflecting only whatever the West wants to hear.
If we don't destroy this funhouse mirror, the American will sooner or later realize the truth. For them to reject this funhouse mirror is for us Chinese to lose face. If we expose this fakery, at least we can send a message to the world that not all dissidents are bullshit artists. It's not that America lacks people like Harry Wu that bullshits with no concern for documentation. At least we can then say that we Chinese have no admiration for people of that sort, would not employ them much less give them honorary doctorate degrees.
Finally and most important of all, only after we break Wu's funhouse mirror can the West truly see and understand the actual conditions of Chinese prisons and human rights needs of the prisoners. The prison conditions are still harsh. Every minute, there will be many prisoners that will suffer from starvation, beatings and demeaning treatment. We need to work hard with not a minute to lose.
The dehumanizing treatment of prisoners will harden their hatred toward society and heighten their criminal tendencies. Upon release they are likely to commit greater crimes and thus increase the harm to society. This is a world wide problem. True prison reform must begin with basic respect for the human rights of the prisoner. We should take action not only for humanitarian reason but the future benefit of the society as a whole. This is particularly critical for China during its persent transitional period with high potential for instability and is the primary reason for my commentary.
Monday, March 16, 1998
Human Rights in Today's China
In November 1993, the chief executive and the vice president of sales and marketing of a small Tennessee firm visited Shanghai on my advice to explore a business relationship with a local company. We arrived on a Saturday evening to have the next day free to acclimate before serious business meetings got underway. Next afternoon, I took them for a walk on the famous Shanghai Bund by the Huangpu River. Being a warm, sunny Sunday afternoon, the walkway along the river was full of local people. Young couples wandered aimlessly or simply stood shoulder to shoulder to gaze across the river without really seeing the busy river traffic below. Children out with their parents ran around shouting, chasing after balls, or simply letting out their exuberance and delight. Senior folks sat in twos and threes watching the lively scene and sipping tea or eating a popsicle purchased from the many vendors stationed nearby.
While these American executives, visiting China for their first time, were soaking in the surrounding good cheer, I asked them if the scene before their eyes resembled the police state that has been depicted by the American media at home. They had to admit that what they saw did not fit with their preconceived notions about China.
In October 1996, another Chinese American and I were invited to Xian, the ancient capital of China, to present some lectures. Over a casual lunch with some local government officials in the presence of an official from Beijing, the conversation was informal and lighthearted. One of the senior officials reminisced about how he was successful in pursuading some of the student leaders to tone down their protest during the "June 4 movement"--Chinese euphemism for the Tiananmen protest. Thus their political activism did not lead to arrests though costing them chances for promising careers in government. Instead they became highly successful entrepreneurs, the official noted with a touch of paternal pride.
While sightseeing in the countryside, a funeral dirge wafted from the PA system of a nearby village. One of the accompanying young officials in our group said, "Hey, who died? This is the funeral music played whenever somebody important dies. May be it is for Lao Deng (meaning old Deng Xiaoping)." Another member of the group replied, "Probably not. Nowadays anybody can use that music, including anyone in the village." Sure enough, at the conclusion of the solemn piece, the village disc jockey said that he simply played it for enjoyment. The official who took the music to heart became the butt of some good-natured ribbing from his colleagues.
These were casual conversations that could not have taken place a few years ago. They served as barometers of how relaxed a place China has become. Americans with the opportunity to visit China invariably comes home saying they saw the vitality of a purposeful people but did not see or feel the presence of a police state. Sadly, not enough Americans can go and see for themselves and must depend on the words of pundits and politicians, many in perpetual pout and harshly critical of China ever since the Tiananmen protest in 1989.
My first visit to China was a personal visit with family members in 1974 when China was still tightly controlled by the now reviled Gang of Four. China then was drab and its people wore the same blue or white shirt or blouse. While the people were friendly, they were guarded in what they said and with each other. Old classmates and close friends from their youth did not socialize with each other except on the rare occasions as welcoming a returning classmate from America as was the case with my father-in-law.
When I started to advise American companies on doing business in China in 1978, China was just beginning to emerge from the sameness and drabness that I saw in 1974. There were no high speed expressways, only a few locally made "Shanghai" sedans, and no traffice jams, no fancy Hongkong-style restaurants, no 5-star hotels, no high class department stores with shelves of imported luxury goods, no McDonalds, and nobody wearing anything that could be described as plain much less fashionable. Thanks to its near double digit economic growth since China instituted reform in 1979, all of those things became common place. Twenty years ago, foreign visitors shopped in state designated "friendship stores" that were off limits to local people. Today those same friendship stores are fighting to survive against the proliferation of fancy department stores that are joint ventures with outside participation. Local citizens are no longer barred from friendship stores but prefer the high fashions of stores operated by owners from Hong Kong or Japan.
The one constant about China over the last twenty years is change. Nothing stays the same and the economic reform has been the driving force. While the economic change is the easiest to spot, the change has been accompanied by pervasive social and political changes. While the China bashers dwell on and are fixated by the images from the Tiananmen on June 4, 1989, China has moved on.
At the national level, the National People's Congress (NPC), used to be known as a rubber stamp of the Chinese Communist Party, has been taking more independent action and getting away with it. In April 1995 for the first time, an unprecedented one-third of the delegates rejected Jiang Chunyun for vice premier notwithstanding that he was Chairman Jiang Zemin's nomination. In the latest pro forma election of Li Peng as the president of the Congress, several hundred showed their displeasure by abstaining. In early 1997, NPC drafted and passed amendments to the criminal procedure code greatly liberalizing the provisions handling criminals. These procedures were passed despite opposition and displeasure from the Ministry of Public Security.
Henry Rowen, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and former official of the Bush administration, said in the 1996 Fall issue of National Interest, "The National People's Congress is rewriting the criminal laws to state that defendants shall not be presumed guilty, that they shall have lawyers, and that the police shall no longer be able to hold them without charge. Doubtless, for some time to come these new laws will often be observed in the breach, but their passage is an indicator of the growing demand for democratic procedure."
Locally, China has been holding elections in the countryside in recent years, some villages having started earlier than others. Most recent ones were observed by representatives from the Carter Center sent from the U.S. The essential point of these elections is not whether they meet Western standards --most probably they do not-- but that they are taking place. The eventual plan is to hold elections at the township and county level and perhaps continuing to even higher level. The countryside still represents 75% of China's population. By their learning the democractic process, China is taking an important step to having true political reform. Other nations with predominant rural populations that adopted elections hastily without an electorate properly trained about the process are only practicing sham democracy. A largely uneducated and ignorant population is easily manipulated by a crafty and corrupt few.
Most of these progressive developments in China have been under-reported in western media and over shadowed by the focus on human rights abuses as perceived by the West. For example, most of the American public do not know that China's Minister of Justice, Xiao Yang has publicly stated that China needs to govern all its affairs by the rule of law. He also admitted that China is not there yet. In the June 18, 1996 issue of China Daily, the quasi-official English daily of Beijing government, Xiao indicated that "the aim is to ensure over 80% of the villages, 80% of State-owned enterprises and 70% of other institutions conscientiously administer affairs by law by year 2000."
Upon hearing about Xiao's remarks, the most likely American reaction would be: If China recognizes the need for rule of law, why not 100% now? Such an American expectation typifies the American's lack of understanding of the complexities of today's China. Accompanying the economic reform has been a steady loosening of control by the central government. No longer can Beijing rule by edict and expect immediate compliance. On the other hand, the rise of regional control is uneven as is local commitment to rule of law. Some local courts are fair and professional while others are still not trained in the legal niceties and may be more partial to local parties independent of the merits of the dispute.
American impatience at China's pace of reform overlooks its own history. (+++) Compare to the U.S. experience on can argue that China has actually been lightening quick.
Impatience aside, China's priority on human rights also differs from that of the West. While the U.S. considers the rights of the individual sacred, China along with many other Asian nations prizes the stability of the entire society over the welfare of the individual. Recently, in Zhengzhou, a former head of public security, equivalent to the chief of police in the U.S., was executed for driving under the influence of alcohol and killing a 15 year old boy by hitting him and dragging him for a distance and then driving off without rendering assistance. No doubt this is a harsh sentence from the American perspective. Even worse, I am certain a similar incident in another locale would not likely end up with the same fate. However, visitors to China will agree that the roads congested with many inexperienced by reckless drivers could stand more law and order. If the execution has the desired sobering effect on the drivers of Zhengzhou, who's to say that the road kills avoided do not outweigh the hapless life of one?
China also looks at human rights at a more basic level including such rights as right to life, freedom from starvation, right to shelter and clothing, the right to an education, and right to employment and thus gain the means to support themselves. I contend that when individuals are deprived of these basic rights, and many in economically backward countries do suffer from such deprivation, they are not going to care about voting and having the freedom to express their opinion. With economic growth, the general population begin to enjoy a higher standard of living. When they have their basic human rights satisfied, then and only then do they start to look for more and demand more. They expect more alternatives and choices in lifestyle if not for themselves then for their children. The progressive liberalization that follows may not be part of the plans of the political leaders, but it has been inevitable.
However, U.S. critics insist on dwelling on the treatment of a handful of prominent dissidents, to the exclusion of objective evaluation of the total picture in China. A particular odious example has been the so-called human rights activist, Harry Wu, a man with a distinctly murky past, who has been making some of the most outlandish comments and outrageous statements about China, none of which could stand up to casual scrutiny. (For example, he claimed to have personally videotaped the removal of kidneys from prisoners in China's prison before these prisoners were led away to be executed. The adoring American interviewer did not think to ask Wu how he got invited to such a photo-op.)
Wu has been making a big deal about China's "laogai," a Chinese abbreviation for "labor through education." Based on his personal experiences in the 1960's when he was thrown in prison for stealing, he campaigns tirelessly in the West representing China's prison system as hell on earth. To my knowledge, he has never measured the heavenly index of the U.S. prison system for contrast. Yet the U.S. has 565 prisoners per 100,000 ranking first in the world and is more than five times the number China admits to be in their prisons. The failure of the American prison system is well known. Recidivism in the U.S. has remained over 40%, 50-70% of juvenile deliquents commit another crime within 12 months of release. The only response from government officials is to enact three strikes laws which will reduce recidivism by keeping more of the criminals in jail for longer stays and thus assure the building of new jails as the latest growth industry. China claims to have one of the lowest recidivism rate in the world at between 6-8%. Someone more objective than Wu is needed to make a determination whether America has something to learn from China's approach to reforming convicts.
Finally this year, the Clinton administration has decided to forego the futile annual attempt to censure China through the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Last year the effort ended in dismal failure when countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Japan declined to join the U.S. backed resolution fronted by Denmark. This year even Denmark has decided not to get into this act. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi promptly criticizes the move as one motivated by money at the expense of American values in human rights. She couldn't be more wrong. Western participation in China's economy has done more for improving China's human rights than all the carping and posturing about human rights abuses.
Apart from helping to raise the standard of living in China by investing in China, multinational corporations insist on clear guidelines that would protect their investments. Consequently, Beijing's drive for joint ventures with foreign companies has led to the formation of laws and regulations on foreign owned ventures. These laws are not perfect but represents a huge step in getting China accustomed to the benefits of rule of law. Similar economic pressures have also led to the formation of laws protecting intellectual property and subsequently the enforcement of such laws. The drive to put economic laws on the books spilled over to a host of new civil and criminal laws in China. In fact, China today has become the only country other than the U.S. where the courts will hear class action suits-- perhaps has China gone too far?
Joint ventures with western partners are also important stimuli for change. By having Americans working in China and giving some of the Chinese staff an oppportunity to receive training outside, the Chinese gained an opportunity to directly witness and appreciate American's egalitarian attitudes, concerns for the environment, views on equal opportunity, sense of fair play and other values. With daily contact, Americans in the joint ventures are in a strongest position to introduce American values by example --rather than by rhetoric-- and influence the thinking of the Chinese people.
On one occasion, while driving a group of visitors from China around the San Franisco area, I pulled into a rest area on the Interstate highway and told my guests the story of a homeless priest who took shelter there and acted as the unpaid caretaker/gardener of the rest stop. The state highway authority initially wanted to evict the homeless priest but was turned completely around by the vocal protests of the people in support of the priest. Now the authority wants to use this case as a model for beautification of other rest areas. Why did I stop to tell the story? Because I believe these anecdotal, see-for-themselves incidents are much more effective in promoting their understanding of America than the holier-than-thou lectures that people in Congress like to give. As long as there are cordial relations between the two countries, there are millions of opportunities for these show-and-tells.
I am of course not suggesting in the slightest that China is free from human rights problems but I do believe that China's problems will become increasingly similar to the problems in America. Economic boom has led to widening gap between haves and have nots. Consequently, there is now as many as 100 million migrant workers from the rural areas seeking work in the urban areas. They frequently sleep in hovels or in the open as do homeless in the U.S. With the threatened wholescale closing of inefficient state-owned enterprises, the prospects loom of a huge unemployed workforce clashing with the migrant workers. Unscrupulous outside investors have already taken advantage of the cheap labor and absence of regulations on labor protection to set up sweat shops that operate under inhumane conditions. With loosening of government control, drug addiction is also becoming a problem, a problem thought to have been eradicated when the communists took over.
Will familarity of China's human rights problem bring about sympathy instead of castigation? I don't have any idea, but it is well to bear in mind the observation made by Professor John Bryan Starr, author of a recent and highly readable book on Understanding China. He said, "In looking at conditions in another country, Americans often measure real conditions abroad against an idealized vision of conditions at home, and thus seem blind to violations of human rights in their own society at the same time that they ferret out evidence of violations elsewhere."
-----------------------------------
A version published in Harvard International Review, Summer 1998, page 68ff
While these American executives, visiting China for their first time, were soaking in the surrounding good cheer, I asked them if the scene before their eyes resembled the police state that has been depicted by the American media at home. They had to admit that what they saw did not fit with their preconceived notions about China.
In October 1996, another Chinese American and I were invited to Xian, the ancient capital of China, to present some lectures. Over a casual lunch with some local government officials in the presence of an official from Beijing, the conversation was informal and lighthearted. One of the senior officials reminisced about how he was successful in pursuading some of the student leaders to tone down their protest during the "June 4 movement"--Chinese euphemism for the Tiananmen protest. Thus their political activism did not lead to arrests though costing them chances for promising careers in government. Instead they became highly successful entrepreneurs, the official noted with a touch of paternal pride.
While sightseeing in the countryside, a funeral dirge wafted from the PA system of a nearby village. One of the accompanying young officials in our group said, "Hey, who died? This is the funeral music played whenever somebody important dies. May be it is for Lao Deng (meaning old Deng Xiaoping)." Another member of the group replied, "Probably not. Nowadays anybody can use that music, including anyone in the village." Sure enough, at the conclusion of the solemn piece, the village disc jockey said that he simply played it for enjoyment. The official who took the music to heart became the butt of some good-natured ribbing from his colleagues.
These were casual conversations that could not have taken place a few years ago. They served as barometers of how relaxed a place China has become. Americans with the opportunity to visit China invariably comes home saying they saw the vitality of a purposeful people but did not see or feel the presence of a police state. Sadly, not enough Americans can go and see for themselves and must depend on the words of pundits and politicians, many in perpetual pout and harshly critical of China ever since the Tiananmen protest in 1989.
My first visit to China was a personal visit with family members in 1974 when China was still tightly controlled by the now reviled Gang of Four. China then was drab and its people wore the same blue or white shirt or blouse. While the people were friendly, they were guarded in what they said and with each other. Old classmates and close friends from their youth did not socialize with each other except on the rare occasions as welcoming a returning classmate from America as was the case with my father-in-law.
When I started to advise American companies on doing business in China in 1978, China was just beginning to emerge from the sameness and drabness that I saw in 1974. There were no high speed expressways, only a few locally made "Shanghai" sedans, and no traffice jams, no fancy Hongkong-style restaurants, no 5-star hotels, no high class department stores with shelves of imported luxury goods, no McDonalds, and nobody wearing anything that could be described as plain much less fashionable. Thanks to its near double digit economic growth since China instituted reform in 1979, all of those things became common place. Twenty years ago, foreign visitors shopped in state designated "friendship stores" that were off limits to local people. Today those same friendship stores are fighting to survive against the proliferation of fancy department stores that are joint ventures with outside participation. Local citizens are no longer barred from friendship stores but prefer the high fashions of stores operated by owners from Hong Kong or Japan.
The one constant about China over the last twenty years is change. Nothing stays the same and the economic reform has been the driving force. While the economic change is the easiest to spot, the change has been accompanied by pervasive social and political changes. While the China bashers dwell on and are fixated by the images from the Tiananmen on June 4, 1989, China has moved on.
At the national level, the National People's Congress (NPC), used to be known as a rubber stamp of the Chinese Communist Party, has been taking more independent action and getting away with it. In April 1995 for the first time, an unprecedented one-third of the delegates rejected Jiang Chunyun for vice premier notwithstanding that he was Chairman Jiang Zemin's nomination. In the latest pro forma election of Li Peng as the president of the Congress, several hundred showed their displeasure by abstaining. In early 1997, NPC drafted and passed amendments to the criminal procedure code greatly liberalizing the provisions handling criminals. These procedures were passed despite opposition and displeasure from the Ministry of Public Security.
Henry Rowen, a senior fellow of the Hoover Institution and former official of the Bush administration, said in the 1996 Fall issue of National Interest, "The National People's Congress is rewriting the criminal laws to state that defendants shall not be presumed guilty, that they shall have lawyers, and that the police shall no longer be able to hold them without charge. Doubtless, for some time to come these new laws will often be observed in the breach, but their passage is an indicator of the growing demand for democratic procedure."
Locally, China has been holding elections in the countryside in recent years, some villages having started earlier than others. Most recent ones were observed by representatives from the Carter Center sent from the U.S. The essential point of these elections is not whether they meet Western standards --most probably they do not-- but that they are taking place. The eventual plan is to hold elections at the township and county level and perhaps continuing to even higher level. The countryside still represents 75% of China's population. By their learning the democractic process, China is taking an important step to having true political reform. Other nations with predominant rural populations that adopted elections hastily without an electorate properly trained about the process are only practicing sham democracy. A largely uneducated and ignorant population is easily manipulated by a crafty and corrupt few.
Most of these progressive developments in China have been under-reported in western media and over shadowed by the focus on human rights abuses as perceived by the West. For example, most of the American public do not know that China's Minister of Justice, Xiao Yang has publicly stated that China needs to govern all its affairs by the rule of law. He also admitted that China is not there yet. In the June 18, 1996 issue of China Daily, the quasi-official English daily of Beijing government, Xiao indicated that "the aim is to ensure over 80% of the villages, 80% of State-owned enterprises and 70% of other institutions conscientiously administer affairs by law by year 2000."
Upon hearing about Xiao's remarks, the most likely American reaction would be: If China recognizes the need for rule of law, why not 100% now? Such an American expectation typifies the American's lack of understanding of the complexities of today's China. Accompanying the economic reform has been a steady loosening of control by the central government. No longer can Beijing rule by edict and expect immediate compliance. On the other hand, the rise of regional control is uneven as is local commitment to rule of law. Some local courts are fair and professional while others are still not trained in the legal niceties and may be more partial to local parties independent of the merits of the dispute.
American impatience at China's pace of reform overlooks its own history. (+++) Compare to the U.S. experience on can argue that China has actually been lightening quick.
Impatience aside, China's priority on human rights also differs from that of the West. While the U.S. considers the rights of the individual sacred, China along with many other Asian nations prizes the stability of the entire society over the welfare of the individual. Recently, in Zhengzhou, a former head of public security, equivalent to the chief of police in the U.S., was executed for driving under the influence of alcohol and killing a 15 year old boy by hitting him and dragging him for a distance and then driving off without rendering assistance. No doubt this is a harsh sentence from the American perspective. Even worse, I am certain a similar incident in another locale would not likely end up with the same fate. However, visitors to China will agree that the roads congested with many inexperienced by reckless drivers could stand more law and order. If the execution has the desired sobering effect on the drivers of Zhengzhou, who's to say that the road kills avoided do not outweigh the hapless life of one?
China also looks at human rights at a more basic level including such rights as right to life, freedom from starvation, right to shelter and clothing, the right to an education, and right to employment and thus gain the means to support themselves. I contend that when individuals are deprived of these basic rights, and many in economically backward countries do suffer from such deprivation, they are not going to care about voting and having the freedom to express their opinion. With economic growth, the general population begin to enjoy a higher standard of living. When they have their basic human rights satisfied, then and only then do they start to look for more and demand more. They expect more alternatives and choices in lifestyle if not for themselves then for their children. The progressive liberalization that follows may not be part of the plans of the political leaders, but it has been inevitable.
However, U.S. critics insist on dwelling on the treatment of a handful of prominent dissidents, to the exclusion of objective evaluation of the total picture in China. A particular odious example has been the so-called human rights activist, Harry Wu, a man with a distinctly murky past, who has been making some of the most outlandish comments and outrageous statements about China, none of which could stand up to casual scrutiny. (For example, he claimed to have personally videotaped the removal of kidneys from prisoners in China's prison before these prisoners were led away to be executed. The adoring American interviewer did not think to ask Wu how he got invited to such a photo-op.)
Wu has been making a big deal about China's "laogai," a Chinese abbreviation for "labor through education." Based on his personal experiences in the 1960's when he was thrown in prison for stealing, he campaigns tirelessly in the West representing China's prison system as hell on earth. To my knowledge, he has never measured the heavenly index of the U.S. prison system for contrast. Yet the U.S. has 565 prisoners per 100,000 ranking first in the world and is more than five times the number China admits to be in their prisons. The failure of the American prison system is well known. Recidivism in the U.S. has remained over 40%, 50-70% of juvenile deliquents commit another crime within 12 months of release. The only response from government officials is to enact three strikes laws which will reduce recidivism by keeping more of the criminals in jail for longer stays and thus assure the building of new jails as the latest growth industry. China claims to have one of the lowest recidivism rate in the world at between 6-8%. Someone more objective than Wu is needed to make a determination whether America has something to learn from China's approach to reforming convicts.
Finally this year, the Clinton administration has decided to forego the futile annual attempt to censure China through the UN Human Rights Commission in Geneva. Last year the effort ended in dismal failure when countries such as Australia, Canada, France, Germany and Japan declined to join the U.S. backed resolution fronted by Denmark. This year even Denmark has decided not to get into this act. Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi promptly criticizes the move as one motivated by money at the expense of American values in human rights. She couldn't be more wrong. Western participation in China's economy has done more for improving China's human rights than all the carping and posturing about human rights abuses.
Apart from helping to raise the standard of living in China by investing in China, multinational corporations insist on clear guidelines that would protect their investments. Consequently, Beijing's drive for joint ventures with foreign companies has led to the formation of laws and regulations on foreign owned ventures. These laws are not perfect but represents a huge step in getting China accustomed to the benefits of rule of law. Similar economic pressures have also led to the formation of laws protecting intellectual property and subsequently the enforcement of such laws. The drive to put economic laws on the books spilled over to a host of new civil and criminal laws in China. In fact, China today has become the only country other than the U.S. where the courts will hear class action suits-- perhaps has China gone too far?
Joint ventures with western partners are also important stimuli for change. By having Americans working in China and giving some of the Chinese staff an oppportunity to receive training outside, the Chinese gained an opportunity to directly witness and appreciate American's egalitarian attitudes, concerns for the environment, views on equal opportunity, sense of fair play and other values. With daily contact, Americans in the joint ventures are in a strongest position to introduce American values by example --rather than by rhetoric-- and influence the thinking of the Chinese people.
On one occasion, while driving a group of visitors from China around the San Franisco area, I pulled into a rest area on the Interstate highway and told my guests the story of a homeless priest who took shelter there and acted as the unpaid caretaker/gardener of the rest stop. The state highway authority initially wanted to evict the homeless priest but was turned completely around by the vocal protests of the people in support of the priest. Now the authority wants to use this case as a model for beautification of other rest areas. Why did I stop to tell the story? Because I believe these anecdotal, see-for-themselves incidents are much more effective in promoting their understanding of America than the holier-than-thou lectures that people in Congress like to give. As long as there are cordial relations between the two countries, there are millions of opportunities for these show-and-tells.
I am of course not suggesting in the slightest that China is free from human rights problems but I do believe that China's problems will become increasingly similar to the problems in America. Economic boom has led to widening gap between haves and have nots. Consequently, there is now as many as 100 million migrant workers from the rural areas seeking work in the urban areas. They frequently sleep in hovels or in the open as do homeless in the U.S. With the threatened wholescale closing of inefficient state-owned enterprises, the prospects loom of a huge unemployed workforce clashing with the migrant workers. Unscrupulous outside investors have already taken advantage of the cheap labor and absence of regulations on labor protection to set up sweat shops that operate under inhumane conditions. With loosening of government control, drug addiction is also becoming a problem, a problem thought to have been eradicated when the communists took over.
Will familarity of China's human rights problem bring about sympathy instead of castigation? I don't have any idea, but it is well to bear in mind the observation made by Professor John Bryan Starr, author of a recent and highly readable book on Understanding China. He said, "In looking at conditions in another country, Americans often measure real conditions abroad against an idealized vision of conditions at home, and thus seem blind to violations of human rights in their own society at the same time that they ferret out evidence of violations elsewhere."
-----------------------------------
A version published in Harvard International Review, Summer 1998, page 68ff
Monday, December 1, 1997
Harry Wu, an American Contradiction
When Harry Wu returned from captivity in China in 1995, he declared to the western news media, such as the San Jose Mercury News, that he saw nothing wrong with lying to the Chinese. Not obvious at the time is that lying comes easily with Wu.
Admiral Mike Boorda's detractors hounded him for a couple of service ribbons he may not have earned and he paid the ultimate price by committing suicide. Judge James Ware had to withdraw from consideration for a higher judicial appointment when the media uncovered the borrowing of a childhood racial incident onto his autobiography. Even Ambassador Larry Lawrence's remains were disinterred from Arlington for military service he claimed but apparently not served.
Telling the truth is sacred to the American culture. Thus the American media has been harshly critical of these men that otherwise had distinguished careers in public service. Why such standard does not apply to Wu, the most flagrant spinner of tall tales, is a puzzle that seems peculiarly American.
Last fall, Wu backed out of his speaking commitment to the Mountain View Rotary Club by claiming a sudden call to jury duty. When a World Journal reporter called his office the same day, she was told that Wu had to go to Los Angeles. That would make Wu the first northern California resident to serve in an L.A. jury.
During the holiday shopping season, Wu was seen on local television harassing Super K Mart on behalf of organized labor. If Wu can be believed, just about everything imported from China are prison made goods. Just last summer James Seymour of Columbia University, a human rights supporter and author of a recently published book on China's prison system, revealed in Washington Post that total production from Chinese prisons amounts to less than one-fifth of one percent of China's G.N.P. Hardly enough to account for even the toys imported from China much less apparel, house ware, engines and everything else Wu claims to be prison made.
In a Playboy interview (2/96 issue), he said, "I videotaped a prisoner whose kidneys were surgically removed while he was alive, and then the prisoner was taken out the next day and shot. The organs remain fresher that way. The tape was broadcast by BBC." Why doesn't someone ask him how did he get to do the filming? And why such a clip could not be found in the BBC program?
How long will this man continue to strut on stage without having to answer to the public for his lies? Why are others condemned for their incidental indiscretions but Wu is allowed unlimited blank checks?
Last year, ABC's Nightline presented "www.hoax.com," a program on the power of urban tales from cyberspace. One Internet story warned the unwary that visiting strange bars in New Orleans can lead to their waking up next morning with their kidneys missing. The Nightline program indicated that even though there is no shred of evidence, the Internet story has resulted in dramatic cancellation of convention bookings in New Orleans. Certainly, Wu also understands the dramatic impact of kidney harvesting.
His latest escapade was his participation in an FBI sting resulting in the arrest of two Chinese nationals in New York. They were accused of offering kidneys for transplant. The Western media immediately made Wu a hero and concluded that the Chinese government has agents trafficking organs on the streets of New York. The attorney of one of the accused claimed that his client was set up by Wu. This was overlooked by most of the media. The arrest took place late in February. The wheels of justice grind slowly and the two accused organ peddlers have yet to be tried. When they are tried, we may yet find out where the facts lie. Of course when it comes to matters related to Wu, there is always less than initially meets the eye. We may not find out what really happened if the case drags on and is eventually dismissed.
Although some people are still willing to shift for grains of truths from Wu's skillfully constructed mound of plausible lies, the tarnish on Wu's persona becomes more evident with increasing public exposure. Erosion of his credibility began in November 1996 when an article in Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine revealed that Ramon Myers, Curator of Hoover Institution, repudiated Wu for his obvious lack of objectivity. Myers was quoted saying, "I regret, frankly, that he was ever at Hoover," and Myers was the one that gave Wu the original grant that launched his China bashing career.
Besides Wu's willingness to distort and exaggerate, he will go under cover to impersonate a Chinese policeman, pretend to be a businessman to steal documents from offices in China, pose as wealthy Chinese seeking a kidney transplant for a non-existing uncle to secretly video a hospital operating room--a patient undergoing open heart surgery became "background" for the BBC hit piece on kidney transplants.
However despite his strenuous efforts, public opinion is beginning to change because with the recent Hong Kong handover, Jiang Zemin's visit and President Clinton's return visit, the media now have real issues and events to cover. The substance they find just doesn't resonate with the stories that Wu tells.
Not to be underestimated, however, is Wu's backing. Organized labor, Christian right, knee-jerk liberals, both extreme wings of Congress are among the supporters. Many in the Chinese American community even speculate that Wu must be getting secret support from the CIA or some other undercover government agency. It is on the record (4/5/98, Yazhou Zhoukan) that Wu's laogai foundation received $73,600 from the National Endowment for Democracy in 1997. This endowment is funded by Congress.
With the support of the China bashing camp, Wu not only has financial support for a staff but access to media exposure that keeps him before the public. Eventually, of course, truth will outlast Wu. Preparatory to that day of reckoning, it's time to take note of all those that stand with this man, a man without scruples or veracity.
Admiral Mike Boorda's detractors hounded him for a couple of service ribbons he may not have earned and he paid the ultimate price by committing suicide. Judge James Ware had to withdraw from consideration for a higher judicial appointment when the media uncovered the borrowing of a childhood racial incident onto his autobiography. Even Ambassador Larry Lawrence's remains were disinterred from Arlington for military service he claimed but apparently not served.
Telling the truth is sacred to the American culture. Thus the American media has been harshly critical of these men that otherwise had distinguished careers in public service. Why such standard does not apply to Wu, the most flagrant spinner of tall tales, is a puzzle that seems peculiarly American.
Last fall, Wu backed out of his speaking commitment to the Mountain View Rotary Club by claiming a sudden call to jury duty. When a World Journal reporter called his office the same day, she was told that Wu had to go to Los Angeles. That would make Wu the first northern California resident to serve in an L.A. jury.
During the holiday shopping season, Wu was seen on local television harassing Super K Mart on behalf of organized labor. If Wu can be believed, just about everything imported from China are prison made goods. Just last summer James Seymour of Columbia University, a human rights supporter and author of a recently published book on China's prison system, revealed in Washington Post that total production from Chinese prisons amounts to less than one-fifth of one percent of China's G.N.P. Hardly enough to account for even the toys imported from China much less apparel, house ware, engines and everything else Wu claims to be prison made.
In a Playboy interview (2/96 issue), he said, "I videotaped a prisoner whose kidneys were surgically removed while he was alive, and then the prisoner was taken out the next day and shot. The organs remain fresher that way. The tape was broadcast by BBC." Why doesn't someone ask him how did he get to do the filming? And why such a clip could not be found in the BBC program?
How long will this man continue to strut on stage without having to answer to the public for his lies? Why are others condemned for their incidental indiscretions but Wu is allowed unlimited blank checks?
Last year, ABC's Nightline presented "www.hoax.com," a program on the power of urban tales from cyberspace. One Internet story warned the unwary that visiting strange bars in New Orleans can lead to their waking up next morning with their kidneys missing. The Nightline program indicated that even though there is no shred of evidence, the Internet story has resulted in dramatic cancellation of convention bookings in New Orleans. Certainly, Wu also understands the dramatic impact of kidney harvesting.
His latest escapade was his participation in an FBI sting resulting in the arrest of two Chinese nationals in New York. They were accused of offering kidneys for transplant. The Western media immediately made Wu a hero and concluded that the Chinese government has agents trafficking organs on the streets of New York. The attorney of one of the accused claimed that his client was set up by Wu. This was overlooked by most of the media. The arrest took place late in February. The wheels of justice grind slowly and the two accused organ peddlers have yet to be tried. When they are tried, we may yet find out where the facts lie. Of course when it comes to matters related to Wu, there is always less than initially meets the eye. We may not find out what really happened if the case drags on and is eventually dismissed.
Although some people are still willing to shift for grains of truths from Wu's skillfully constructed mound of plausible lies, the tarnish on Wu's persona becomes more evident with increasing public exposure. Erosion of his credibility began in November 1996 when an article in Los Angeles Times Sunday Magazine revealed that Ramon Myers, Curator of Hoover Institution, repudiated Wu for his obvious lack of objectivity. Myers was quoted saying, "I regret, frankly, that he was ever at Hoover," and Myers was the one that gave Wu the original grant that launched his China bashing career.
Besides Wu's willingness to distort and exaggerate, he will go under cover to impersonate a Chinese policeman, pretend to be a businessman to steal documents from offices in China, pose as wealthy Chinese seeking a kidney transplant for a non-existing uncle to secretly video a hospital operating room--a patient undergoing open heart surgery became "background" for the BBC hit piece on kidney transplants.
However despite his strenuous efforts, public opinion is beginning to change because with the recent Hong Kong handover, Jiang Zemin's visit and President Clinton's return visit, the media now have real issues and events to cover. The substance they find just doesn't resonate with the stories that Wu tells.
Not to be underestimated, however, is Wu's backing. Organized labor, Christian right, knee-jerk liberals, both extreme wings of Congress are among the supporters. Many in the Chinese American community even speculate that Wu must be getting secret support from the CIA or some other undercover government agency. It is on the record (4/5/98, Yazhou Zhoukan) that Wu's laogai foundation received $73,600 from the National Endowment for Democracy in 1997. This endowment is funded by Congress.
With the support of the China bashing camp, Wu not only has financial support for a staff but access to media exposure that keeps him before the public. Eventually, of course, truth will outlast Wu. Preparatory to that day of reckoning, it's time to take note of all those that stand with this man, a man without scruples or veracity.
Wednesday, November 13, 1996
A Troubling Review of Harry Wu's Latest Book
"You can fool some of the people all the time, all the people some of the time but you can't fool all the people all the time," according to Abraham Lincoln, arguably the most famous of all advocates for human rights. Nonetheless, judging from his latest book, Troublemaker, Honest Abe's admonition has not deterred Harry Wu from trying to pull the wool over the public's eye. Written in collaboration with George Vecsey, a New York Times reporter, the polished prose is an interesting read in the tradition of a potboiler. Unfortunately, the book is supposed to be a factual account of Harry Wu's latest adventure in China--not a work of fiction.
Wu takes obvious pride in his self-acclaimed label as a trouble maker, hence the title of his book, and he sets out early in his book to stake his claim. Wu confesses that even in grade school he was "a bit of a troublemaker." His biology teacher had asked the class to go to the school yard and bring back any randomly selected plants for the teacher to identify, and thus show off his knowledge. Wu stuck a small piece from one plant into the stem of another in an attempt to fool the teacher. He was spanked for his troubles, by the teacher at school and then by his father at home, but apparently the lesson did not stick. Perhaps that was a prophetic indication of the kind of person to come. At his trial in Wuhan, Wu was accused of yihuajiemu, i.e., splicing a flower onto another stick--a Chinese saying for someone skilled at embellishing the facts and telling plausible lies.
Indeed, Wu's book is full of careless and florid statements without any substantiation and consequently raised more questions than answers. For example, he says that the Beijing government admitted to China having 1.2 million prisoners in 685 camps in 1995, but he counters with 1155 camps and 6-8 million prisoners as being more accurate. Wu offers no explanation or evidence for his numbers, but expects the reader to take his word for them. Of course, depending on his mood and the venue, I have seen Wu publicly proclaimed as many as ten million prisoners in China. So, why the embellishment? According to an article in the New York Times (11/7/95), there were more than 1.4 million inmates in the American prison system in 1995. Perhaps Wu feels it unseemly that a country with five times the U.S. population should claim to have fewer prisoners. He may have felt compelled to boost the numbers so as to reinforce America's preconceived negative image of China.
In Troublemaker, Wu reiterates his claim to having protested the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary as "a violation of international law." A young student journalist from San Francisco State University interviewed Wu in 1995, after Wu's release from Wuhan, and asked him about his alleged protest of the invasion as the original cause of his being branded a trouble maker by the Chinese authorities. The reporter asked why there was no mention of Hungary in his earlier memoir, Bitter Winds. Wu's response was to blame the error on "a mistake in translation." (Prism, SFSU, November 1995)
I among many others have pointed out that Wu was only 19 at the time of the invasion and graduated from college three years later, apparently uneventfully. Wu has been portraying himself as an undergraduate activist majoring in geology with expertise in international law. An alternate explanation that I believe to be more credible, is that Wu became aware of the West's sympathy towards the Hungarians after the first book was written. He proceeded to burnish his credentials by adding the protest to his resumé. In my view, it is another example of pinning on a flower to dress up a plain stump.
Unfettered by the need to provide footnotes and citation of sources, Wu's book is full of provocative but dubious statements. If he had any documents to prove that "Zhou Enlai had gone scurrying to Moscow to convince Nikita Khrushchev to send tanks and troops to Budapest to crush the Hungarians," Wu does not share them in this book. Later in the book, Wu claims, "Some hospitals advertised their kidney transplant operations in Hong Kong and other cities. You could even express interest by sending a fax." Given Wu's self proclaimed wide network of supporters in Hong Kong, I am surprised that the book contained not one example of such advertisements nor a list of fax numbers.
Many of Wu's statements are designed to deceive, even if for gratuitous reasons. He begins one of the chapters with "On July 10, I was one meal into starving myself to death when the guards announced a surprise." A dramatic statement indeed. Careful reading reveals that what Wu meant was that he had missed one meal before ending his fast that might have led him to his maker. Elsewhere in the book, Wu provides his analysis of the "pro-democracy movement at Tiananmen." He concludes by the reassurance that "I had nothing to do with Tiananmen Square," as if anyone could make such a mistake and identify him with the student-led protest of 1989.
Name dropping is another of Wu's favorite techniques. He wastes no time linking himself with Hillary Clinton in the second chapter and a page later with Wei Jingsheng. He has never met Wei and has nothing in common with Wei. In fact he admitts, "I do not have the courage of Wei Jingsheng, speaking his mind, writing stinging criticisms of Deng Xiaoping." Yet the one name he mentions most frequently throughout his book is Wei, as if frequency could substitute for intimacy, for the linkage he craves. Wu sprinkles Wei's name liberally throughout the book down to the very last page.
Wei is the best known name in the West for his pro-democracy advocacy, for speaking his mind and for openly standing on his beliefs. Whether one agrees with all his views or his approach, few would question his integrity or his sincerity. Wei has not been known to lie or distort. Wei has not been known as a master of splicing facts and rumors and outright fabrications into plausible lies. By making this unauthorized and obsessive association with Wei, I believe, Wu hopes to gain some trickle-down legitimacy to his own position.
Wu needs to invoke Wei to partly compensate for the conspicuous lack of empathy for him from the community of students and scholars from China that are residing in the U.S. Many were given the opportunity to remain in the U.S. by the Bush Administration in response to Tiananmen. Some were activists and protesters. As a group, they are at best neutral and hardly sympathizers of the Beijing government. Yet they hold Wu in disdain and do not rally to his cause. Wu explained the phenomenon this way, "I suspect that the Chinese government is mobilizing all its students who are in the States. I don't mind. Let's have an open debate--no holds barred." To my knowledge, he has yet to accept any invitation to public debates where his views would be subject to scrutiny and challenge.
The most amusing passage is Wu's account of the interrogation during his incarceration in Wuhan in 1995 prior to his release and return to the U.S. The Chinese authorities apparently used a documentary from Taiwan as basis for their accusations which Wu claimed was spliced from various sources. "Look at it carefully," Wu told the interrogator, "Why do they put Chinese characters on the script, have outside people making comments? Don't you listen? The original was in English. There's no sound in this one. No dialogue. How can it become evidence? The Taiwanese translation is different from the British original. You better get the original Yorkshire film. You want to use Taiwan rumors?" At last I find in Wu's plea to his interrogator something with an authentic ring. Discerning viewers will find the very same techniques that he was protesting in Wuhan used in documentaries on China produced by Wu. Obviously Wu is trading on insider knowledge.
At least from Troublemaker, the reader can find a logical explanation for Wu's actions. Wu arrived in the U.S. on a fluke based on his alleged expertise in geology. Supposedly, he published a paper on a paper he read on "a very advanced French design for a drill that would transmit information into a computer." The paper caught the eye of someone at Berkeley, that Wu did not identify, who extended him an invitation to come to the U.S. After his arrival, Wu was eking out an existence by staying with a grudging older sister in San Francisco that barely tolerated his imposition. He gave his first talk on China at U.C. Santa Cruz in 1986, and his break came when he received a $18,000 research grant from Hoover Institution. In 1991, with the help of Jeff Fiedler, secretary-treasurer of Food & Allied Services Trade department of AFL-CIO, Wu founded Laogai Research Foundation and discovered his pot of gold.
Wu proudly states that he now owns a house in Milpitas with a swimming pool and two cars. There can be no doubt that becoming a professional China basher has been extremely lucrative for Wu personally. Readers may wish to buy Wu's book and supplement his income but should only expect entertainment value in exchange. This is not a book where one can readily distinguish facts from fiction, and therefore Wu's book cannot be considered a reliable commentary on today's China.
Wu takes obvious pride in his self-acclaimed label as a trouble maker, hence the title of his book, and he sets out early in his book to stake his claim. Wu confesses that even in grade school he was "a bit of a troublemaker." His biology teacher had asked the class to go to the school yard and bring back any randomly selected plants for the teacher to identify, and thus show off his knowledge. Wu stuck a small piece from one plant into the stem of another in an attempt to fool the teacher. He was spanked for his troubles, by the teacher at school and then by his father at home, but apparently the lesson did not stick. Perhaps that was a prophetic indication of the kind of person to come. At his trial in Wuhan, Wu was accused of yihuajiemu, i.e., splicing a flower onto another stick--a Chinese saying for someone skilled at embellishing the facts and telling plausible lies.
Indeed, Wu's book is full of careless and florid statements without any substantiation and consequently raised more questions than answers. For example, he says that the Beijing government admitted to China having 1.2 million prisoners in 685 camps in 1995, but he counters with 1155 camps and 6-8 million prisoners as being more accurate. Wu offers no explanation or evidence for his numbers, but expects the reader to take his word for them. Of course, depending on his mood and the venue, I have seen Wu publicly proclaimed as many as ten million prisoners in China. So, why the embellishment? According to an article in the New York Times (11/7/95), there were more than 1.4 million inmates in the American prison system in 1995. Perhaps Wu feels it unseemly that a country with five times the U.S. population should claim to have fewer prisoners. He may have felt compelled to boost the numbers so as to reinforce America's preconceived negative image of China.
In Troublemaker, Wu reiterates his claim to having protested the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary as "a violation of international law." A young student journalist from San Francisco State University interviewed Wu in 1995, after Wu's release from Wuhan, and asked him about his alleged protest of the invasion as the original cause of his being branded a trouble maker by the Chinese authorities. The reporter asked why there was no mention of Hungary in his earlier memoir, Bitter Winds. Wu's response was to blame the error on "a mistake in translation." (Prism, SFSU, November 1995)
I among many others have pointed out that Wu was only 19 at the time of the invasion and graduated from college three years later, apparently uneventfully. Wu has been portraying himself as an undergraduate activist majoring in geology with expertise in international law. An alternate explanation that I believe to be more credible, is that Wu became aware of the West's sympathy towards the Hungarians after the first book was written. He proceeded to burnish his credentials by adding the protest to his resumé. In my view, it is another example of pinning on a flower to dress up a plain stump.
Unfettered by the need to provide footnotes and citation of sources, Wu's book is full of provocative but dubious statements. If he had any documents to prove that "Zhou Enlai had gone scurrying to Moscow to convince Nikita Khrushchev to send tanks and troops to Budapest to crush the Hungarians," Wu does not share them in this book. Later in the book, Wu claims, "Some hospitals advertised their kidney transplant operations in Hong Kong and other cities. You could even express interest by sending a fax." Given Wu's self proclaimed wide network of supporters in Hong Kong, I am surprised that the book contained not one example of such advertisements nor a list of fax numbers.
Many of Wu's statements are designed to deceive, even if for gratuitous reasons. He begins one of the chapters with "On July 10, I was one meal into starving myself to death when the guards announced a surprise." A dramatic statement indeed. Careful reading reveals that what Wu meant was that he had missed one meal before ending his fast that might have led him to his maker. Elsewhere in the book, Wu provides his analysis of the "pro-democracy movement at Tiananmen." He concludes by the reassurance that "I had nothing to do with Tiananmen Square," as if anyone could make such a mistake and identify him with the student-led protest of 1989.
Name dropping is another of Wu's favorite techniques. He wastes no time linking himself with Hillary Clinton in the second chapter and a page later with Wei Jingsheng. He has never met Wei and has nothing in common with Wei. In fact he admitts, "I do not have the courage of Wei Jingsheng, speaking his mind, writing stinging criticisms of Deng Xiaoping." Yet the one name he mentions most frequently throughout his book is Wei, as if frequency could substitute for intimacy, for the linkage he craves. Wu sprinkles Wei's name liberally throughout the book down to the very last page.
Wei is the best known name in the West for his pro-democracy advocacy, for speaking his mind and for openly standing on his beliefs. Whether one agrees with all his views or his approach, few would question his integrity or his sincerity. Wei has not been known to lie or distort. Wei has not been known as a master of splicing facts and rumors and outright fabrications into plausible lies. By making this unauthorized and obsessive association with Wei, I believe, Wu hopes to gain some trickle-down legitimacy to his own position.
Wu needs to invoke Wei to partly compensate for the conspicuous lack of empathy for him from the community of students and scholars from China that are residing in the U.S. Many were given the opportunity to remain in the U.S. by the Bush Administration in response to Tiananmen. Some were activists and protesters. As a group, they are at best neutral and hardly sympathizers of the Beijing government. Yet they hold Wu in disdain and do not rally to his cause. Wu explained the phenomenon this way, "I suspect that the Chinese government is mobilizing all its students who are in the States. I don't mind. Let's have an open debate--no holds barred." To my knowledge, he has yet to accept any invitation to public debates where his views would be subject to scrutiny and challenge.
The most amusing passage is Wu's account of the interrogation during his incarceration in Wuhan in 1995 prior to his release and return to the U.S. The Chinese authorities apparently used a documentary from Taiwan as basis for their accusations which Wu claimed was spliced from various sources. "Look at it carefully," Wu told the interrogator, "Why do they put Chinese characters on the script, have outside people making comments? Don't you listen? The original was in English. There's no sound in this one. No dialogue. How can it become evidence? The Taiwanese translation is different from the British original. You better get the original Yorkshire film. You want to use Taiwan rumors?" At last I find in Wu's plea to his interrogator something with an authentic ring. Discerning viewers will find the very same techniques that he was protesting in Wuhan used in documentaries on China produced by Wu. Obviously Wu is trading on insider knowledge.
At least from Troublemaker, the reader can find a logical explanation for Wu's actions. Wu arrived in the U.S. on a fluke based on his alleged expertise in geology. Supposedly, he published a paper on a paper he read on "a very advanced French design for a drill that would transmit information into a computer." The paper caught the eye of someone at Berkeley, that Wu did not identify, who extended him an invitation to come to the U.S. After his arrival, Wu was eking out an existence by staying with a grudging older sister in San Francisco that barely tolerated his imposition. He gave his first talk on China at U.C. Santa Cruz in 1986, and his break came when he received a $18,000 research grant from Hoover Institution. In 1991, with the help of Jeff Fiedler, secretary-treasurer of Food & Allied Services Trade department of AFL-CIO, Wu founded Laogai Research Foundation and discovered his pot of gold.
Wu proudly states that he now owns a house in Milpitas with a swimming pool and two cars. There can be no doubt that becoming a professional China basher has been extremely lucrative for Wu personally. Readers may wish to buy Wu's book and supplement his income but should only expect entertainment value in exchange. This is not a book where one can readily distinguish facts from fiction, and therefore Wu's book cannot be considered a reliable commentary on today's China.
Friday, April 26, 1996
Are National Strategies in the Asia Pacific Relevant?
The Monterey conference on National Strategies in the Asia-Pacific sponsored by The National Bureau of Asian Research was the first of its kind that I had ever attended. I found the program informative, stimulating and entertaining and the speakers knowledgeable, articulate, opinionated and persuasive. That was my first reaction. My second reaction was: What a shame and what a waste that so little of this will trickle down to the level that can really have an impact on public opinion. In a private conversation, Rich Ellings, Executive Director of NBR, assured me that NBR publications are widely distributed and well received among the policymakers in Washington. Unfortunately, that was not my point.
Policymakers, whether they are in Congress or in the executive branch, are subject to political pressures exerted by the public. A poorly informed public is easily manipulated by special interest groups for the purpose of supporting (or withholding support for) certain causes. A better informed public would be more resistant to crass and willful manipulations. Rational policies can then be formulated free from unwarranted pressure. A challenge before NBR is to find the means of gaining maximum leverage from the work being done under its sponsorship and conclusions being reported at conferences, such as the recent one in Monterey. Just reaching the policymakers and political leaders is not enough. NBR needs to find ways of reaching the public directly and help shape the public opinion so as to be more consistent with the real world.
Inviting members of the media to attend was just one step in the right direction. However, a large number of them in attendance is needed in order to openly examine and debate the ideas being presented and reach some consensus. From the reassurance of a consensus, some individuals of the media may then be suitably emboldened to break new ground and introduce the real Asia to their audience.
Harry Wu is a case in point. Since his return from his arrest in China, he has testified before Congress, appeared before the United Nations and made a keynote speech before the national convention of the AFL-CIO. No one can deny that abetted by the media shower of publicity, his public clout "normalized" against his real and imagined credentials far surpasses that of such esteemed scholars as Dwight Perkins or national policy makers as Douglas Paal. Comparing Wu with persons of such illustrious academic record or distinguished government service would be ludicrous were it not so tragic. Tragic because Wu and his handlers are pushing U.S. towards what William Overfelt* called "an utterly gratuitous second cold war." Wu's success in getting his views conveyed to the general public should be a constant and embarrassing reminder that the voices of real China experts are rarely heard above Wu's din. The media picks up Wu's skewed but sensational charges about China with the greatest of ease, but rarely ever asks the China experts to explain their queasy assessments of Wu's exaggerations and distortions.
The China expert's reluctance to publicly confront the likes of Wu seems only partly due to the fear of soiling one's credentials. The rules of academia also work against such participation. Apparently academicians are graded by their symposium presentations and publication in prestigious proceedings --such as the NBR. Some quarters apparently even look askance at Foreign Affairs as not being sufficiently esoteric. Yet it is the informed op-eds in local newspapers and national magazines that will do more to influence public opinion than profound expositions in journals that the public does not see. More not fewer Michel Oksenbergs are needed to write for Newsweeks and compete for the minds of the uninformed.
China is not the only country the American public peers through warped lenses. All of Asia is poorly understood by essentially an Eurocentric public easily exploited with bits of partial truths and distorted views. Few Americans appreciate that Asia now has as much or more impact on U.S. national policies as Europe, be it trade, export related jobs, security, environment, human rights, or nuclear non-proliferation. Even many members of Congress are poorly informed having never ventured to that part of the world.
If the rules of the profession do not allow the authentic experts to get down on the mat and engage the likes of Harry Wu in open debate, --and, there's no doubt in my mind, blowing him away-- then NBR has an invaluable role to play. NBR can and must spread the message beyond the exclusive --and comfortable-- circle of policymakers and get to the public directly. By taking on the role of educating the public, NBR will enhance its relevance and greatly expand its support base. The point of the facetious title of this piece is that national strategies do not become policies if the public does not understand and support them. Even if the political leaders understand the stakes, they need easily digestible and readily available factual ammunition, sound bites if necessary, to give them the courage to explain the issues to their constituents. The American public needs to understand that the United States is as much a Pacific Rim nation as it is an Atlantic one. NBR has much to contribute to that endeavor.
Policymakers, whether they are in Congress or in the executive branch, are subject to political pressures exerted by the public. A poorly informed public is easily manipulated by special interest groups for the purpose of supporting (or withholding support for) certain causes. A better informed public would be more resistant to crass and willful manipulations. Rational policies can then be formulated free from unwarranted pressure. A challenge before NBR is to find the means of gaining maximum leverage from the work being done under its sponsorship and conclusions being reported at conferences, such as the recent one in Monterey. Just reaching the policymakers and political leaders is not enough. NBR needs to find ways of reaching the public directly and help shape the public opinion so as to be more consistent with the real world.
Inviting members of the media to attend was just one step in the right direction. However, a large number of them in attendance is needed in order to openly examine and debate the ideas being presented and reach some consensus. From the reassurance of a consensus, some individuals of the media may then be suitably emboldened to break new ground and introduce the real Asia to their audience.
Harry Wu is a case in point. Since his return from his arrest in China, he has testified before Congress, appeared before the United Nations and made a keynote speech before the national convention of the AFL-CIO. No one can deny that abetted by the media shower of publicity, his public clout "normalized" against his real and imagined credentials far surpasses that of such esteemed scholars as Dwight Perkins or national policy makers as Douglas Paal. Comparing Wu with persons of such illustrious academic record or distinguished government service would be ludicrous were it not so tragic. Tragic because Wu and his handlers are pushing U.S. towards what William Overfelt* called "an utterly gratuitous second cold war." Wu's success in getting his views conveyed to the general public should be a constant and embarrassing reminder that the voices of real China experts are rarely heard above Wu's din. The media picks up Wu's skewed but sensational charges about China with the greatest of ease, but rarely ever asks the China experts to explain their queasy assessments of Wu's exaggerations and distortions.
The China expert's reluctance to publicly confront the likes of Wu seems only partly due to the fear of soiling one's credentials. The rules of academia also work against such participation. Apparently academicians are graded by their symposium presentations and publication in prestigious proceedings --such as the NBR. Some quarters apparently even look askance at Foreign Affairs as not being sufficiently esoteric. Yet it is the informed op-eds in local newspapers and national magazines that will do more to influence public opinion than profound expositions in journals that the public does not see. More not fewer Michel Oksenbergs are needed to write for Newsweeks and compete for the minds of the uninformed.
China is not the only country the American public peers through warped lenses. All of Asia is poorly understood by essentially an Eurocentric public easily exploited with bits of partial truths and distorted views. Few Americans appreciate that Asia now has as much or more impact on U.S. national policies as Europe, be it trade, export related jobs, security, environment, human rights, or nuclear non-proliferation. Even many members of Congress are poorly informed having never ventured to that part of the world.
If the rules of the profession do not allow the authentic experts to get down on the mat and engage the likes of Harry Wu in open debate, --and, there's no doubt in my mind, blowing him away-- then NBR has an invaluable role to play. NBR can and must spread the message beyond the exclusive --and comfortable-- circle of policymakers and get to the public directly. By taking on the role of educating the public, NBR will enhance its relevance and greatly expand its support base. The point of the facetious title of this piece is that national strategies do not become policies if the public does not understand and support them. Even if the political leaders understand the stakes, they need easily digestible and readily available factual ammunition, sound bites if necessary, to give them the courage to explain the issues to their constituents. The American public needs to understand that the United States is as much a Pacific Rim nation as it is an Atlantic one. NBR has much to contribute to that endeavor.
Wednesday, April 17, 1996
Open Letter to Harry Wu
April 17, 1996
Mr. Harry Wu, guest speaker
Stanford University, School of Law
Stanford, California
Dear Mr. Wu:
Now that you have become a person of international renown, isn't it time for you to clarify some confusions in the public mind that were direct results of your remarks and activities? All of the questions I would like to ask you are based on information in the American media, not Xin Hua News Agency or other sources from China.
(1) In the Playboy interview appearing in the February 1996 issue, you said: "I videotaped a prisoner whose kidneys were surgically removed while he was alive, and then the prisoner was taken out the next day and shot. The organs remain fresher that way. The tape was broadcast by BBC." The BBC broadcast in fact has no such footage. What was the reason for you to lie to the interviewer?
(2) Your Laogai Foundation now claims that BBC's use of the open heart surgery scene clandestinely taken by Sue Lloyd Roberts in Chengdu was not intended to deceive the viewing public. If the intention was not deception, what was the reason for taking the video and then presenting it in the broadcast?
(3) At the AFL-CIO National Convention last year, didn't you say, "The strike by Boeing members is really a strike against the Chinese government. It is a strike which the American labor movement must win." Isn't your Laogai Foundation based in the AFL-CIO headquarter building in Washington D.C.? Aren't you being paid by organized labor to help stop imports from China?
(4) When you were arrested upon entering from Kazakstan last summer, there was a young woman with you. ABC Nightline reported that she was employed by the AFL-CIO. What was the reason for her being on the trip?
(5) You have entered China under at least three different names. How were you able to get three different U.S. Passports when the rest of us are entitled to only one?
(6) Recently you were at Columbia University to receive another of many awards you have coming to you. Did you not have a private conversation with a law student there by the name of Li Qiang in Shanghainese? Did you not admit to Li that human rights conditions in China are better now than ever in 50 years but the "Americans don't know anything"?
(7) In your speech at Cal State Hayward this February, you seem to imply to the audience that in 1994, you real wife as well as Sue Roberts, the free lance reporter who posed as your wife, went to Chengdu with you for the BBC assignment. How many "wives" did you actually take to Chengdu?
(8) You like to claim that you first got in trouble for protesting the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956. You were only 19 years old then, so did the Chinese authorities kindly allow you to complete your college education before throwing you in jail?
(9) You claim to be in Chinese prison for 19 years, which is most of your adult life before coming to the U.S. If this is the case, how did you come to know some of the most obscure places in China like the back of your hand?
(10) Can you tell the public as to what credentials and circumstances were used initially to become a Hoover scholar?
I believe most Americans prefer truth and reality to hyprocrisy and phony causes. If you are able to respond to above question with truthful answers, I am sure the public would enjoy seeing it. In the meantime I will continue to collect inconsistencies and dubious statements from your public appearances and do my best to call them to the public's attention if not to your attention.
George Koo
A concerned U.S. citizen
Mr. Harry Wu, guest speaker
Stanford University, School of Law
Stanford, California
Dear Mr. Wu:
Now that you have become a person of international renown, isn't it time for you to clarify some confusions in the public mind that were direct results of your remarks and activities? All of the questions I would like to ask you are based on information in the American media, not Xin Hua News Agency or other sources from China.
(1) In the Playboy interview appearing in the February 1996 issue, you said: "I videotaped a prisoner whose kidneys were surgically removed while he was alive, and then the prisoner was taken out the next day and shot. The organs remain fresher that way. The tape was broadcast by BBC." The BBC broadcast in fact has no such footage. What was the reason for you to lie to the interviewer?
(2) Your Laogai Foundation now claims that BBC's use of the open heart surgery scene clandestinely taken by Sue Lloyd Roberts in Chengdu was not intended to deceive the viewing public. If the intention was not deception, what was the reason for taking the video and then presenting it in the broadcast?
(3) At the AFL-CIO National Convention last year, didn't you say, "The strike by Boeing members is really a strike against the Chinese government. It is a strike which the American labor movement must win." Isn't your Laogai Foundation based in the AFL-CIO headquarter building in Washington D.C.? Aren't you being paid by organized labor to help stop imports from China?
(4) When you were arrested upon entering from Kazakstan last summer, there was a young woman with you. ABC Nightline reported that she was employed by the AFL-CIO. What was the reason for her being on the trip?
(5) You have entered China under at least three different names. How were you able to get three different U.S. Passports when the rest of us are entitled to only one?
(6) Recently you were at Columbia University to receive another of many awards you have coming to you. Did you not have a private conversation with a law student there by the name of Li Qiang in Shanghainese? Did you not admit to Li that human rights conditions in China are better now than ever in 50 years but the "Americans don't know anything"?
(7) In your speech at Cal State Hayward this February, you seem to imply to the audience that in 1994, you real wife as well as Sue Roberts, the free lance reporter who posed as your wife, went to Chengdu with you for the BBC assignment. How many "wives" did you actually take to Chengdu?
(8) You like to claim that you first got in trouble for protesting the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956. You were only 19 years old then, so did the Chinese authorities kindly allow you to complete your college education before throwing you in jail?
(9) You claim to be in Chinese prison for 19 years, which is most of your adult life before coming to the U.S. If this is the case, how did you come to know some of the most obscure places in China like the back of your hand?
(10) Can you tell the public as to what credentials and circumstances were used initially to become a Hoover scholar?
I believe most Americans prefer truth and reality to hyprocrisy and phony causes. If you are able to respond to above question with truthful answers, I am sure the public would enjoy seeing it. In the meantime I will continue to collect inconsistencies and dubious statements from your public appearances and do my best to call them to the public's attention if not to your attention.
George Koo
A concerned U.S. citizen
Friday, April 12, 1996
Is Harry Wu Capable of Telling the Truth?
The publicity attendant upon his arrest in China last summer endowed Harry Wu with far more influence than he possessed before his attempted clandestine entry. He is now running amuck appearing everywhere to disrupt and disturb American foreign policy towards China. He has challenged the World Bank on their investment policy in China and told Boeing how they should not do business with China and is telling how Congress should vote on China's MFN status and even predicting a subsequent overriding veto from the President. With constant media attention, there is no stopping this fellow now.
Unfortunately overlooked by the media is Harry Wu's web of deceit built on grains of half truths elaborated with outright lies. One only has to review Harry Wu's own words already in the public domain to come to this conclusion. Normally the veracity of any one person is not worth fussing about. In Wu's case, he is capable of doing considerable damage to public interest, especially in the coming months as the national policy towards China come to forefront of debate. Thus, the public has the right to know the dubious pulpit from which Wu is bullying governments, corporations and other legitimate organizations.
One simple example of his propensity to lie is to look at his own statement in the Playboy interview appearing in the February 1996 issue. He said, "I videotaped a prisoner whose kidneys were surgically removed while he was alive, and then the prisoner was taken out the next day and shot. The organs remain fresher that way. The tape was broadcast by BBC." One has to wonder about the professional qualifications of the interviewer to record such an outrageous statement unchallenged. Organ transplant from prisoners has been one of Wu's most dramatic accusations about China and pivots on the evidence presented by the BBC broadcast.
Recently I had the opportunity to review a videotape of that infamous BBC telecast and can find nothing that comes close to depicting any organ removal. It did include a snippet taken by the Sue Lloyd-Roberts, the freelance reporter pretending to be Wu's wife, of an open heart surgery taking place in a Chengdu hospital. Publicly, Wu has admitted that the scene from the civilian hospital had nothing to with organ removal from prisoners and attributed the use of the footage to error in editing by BBC.
After his return last summer, the Laogai Research Foundation, of which he is the executive director, issued the claim that no attempt to mislead was intended, since BBC never claimed the incision in the middle of the chest cavity to be related to kidney removal or implantation. ("Laogai" is an abbreviated Chinese term for "reform through labor.") According to the statement released by the Foundation: "The operating room video was used as a background shot." The disclaimer did not explain why Wu and his "wife" took the trouble of surreptitiously filming such a non-relevant and innocuous scene. They certainly didn't need to go all the way to China for a "background shot."
Wu frequently made the claim, including in the Playboy interview, that it was his protest of the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956 that got him in trouble with the Chinese authorities. It took a reporter from San Francisco State University to point out to Wu that he was 19 and in college at the time. (In the context of the 1956 environment in China, he would have been exceptionally precocious--at least politically, predating Wei Jingsheng by about a quarter of a century.) When Mike Mattis questioned him about the accuracy of attributing his political problems to the purported protest, Wu's response was to deny ever making such a protest and shift the blame to "a mistake in translation" of his statements. This interview was published in November, 1995 issue of Prism, a monthly publication of SFSU.
Inconsistencies and shifting statements abound from Wu's public utterances and activities. The issue isn't that they exist and is pointless to analyze every one of the inaccuracies. The real puzzle is why and how the media have so willingly swallowed Wu's utterances. I believe there is more to this behavior than simply that today's media are overcome by the tabloid mentality and are too lazy to conduct the necessary due diligence. I believe Wu has sponsors and supporters with vested interests in containing China through public opinion, irrespective of truth and facts. One of Wu's more obvious sponsors is the AFL-CIO.
Shortly after Wu's arrest in China became known, an ABC Nightline program revealed that his clandestine trip into China via Kazakstan was financed by the AFL-CIO, and the attorney who accompanied Wu was on the AFL-CIO payroll. After the two were detained, she was promptly released and that was how the world first heard about Wu's arrest. In retrospect, she was an essential part of Wu's cover and protection.
An article covering Wu's participation in the picket line at Boeing, in the November 30, 1995 issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, quoted Wu as saying, "The strike by Boeing members is really a strike against the Chinese government. It is a strike which the American labor movement must win." Matt Bates, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, on whose behalf Wu was appearing, said, "Clearly, a major part of the fight here is over the loss of jobs to overseas producers." With a 15-year suspended sentence awaiting him, Wu is unlikely to return to China, not even under cover. Consequently, Wu is now more useful to the AFL-CIO by becoming a public anti-China spokesperson on behalf of American labor.
When I tried to find out more about the Laogai Research Foundation, I found out that the Foundation is in the AFL-CIO's Washington D.C. headquarter building. Directory assistance for area code 202 (Washington area) cannot provide a listing for the Foundation. I then tried to reach the Foundation via the AFL-CIO. The headquarter switchboard transferred my call to their Food and Allied Services Trade who then switched the call over to a line with a recorded message representing the Foundation.
The AFL-CIO's motivation is naive but transparent. The AFL-CIO seems to believe that by stopping imports from China, they can preserve American jobs. For example, organized labor accused Boeing of exporting jobs to China. Actually, as Boeing's spokesman rebutted, by subcontracting certain sections of the 737 to the Chinese, Boeing is assured of continued future sales. Keeping all the manufacturing at home won't do any good, if China's orders for planes all go to European Airbus. Conversely continued sales to one of the largest markets in the world would allow Boeing and the Machinist Union to keep more jobs. It is not very complicated logic or economics, but has so far eluded the American labor leadership.
According to data presented to the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee in May 1995 by Robert Kapp, president of the Washington-based US-China Business Council, America exported $9.3 billion worth of goods to China in 1994, equivalent to the support of approximately 187,000 jobs. According to Department of Commerce data presented at the same testimony, China will be buying $90 billion worth of power generation equipment, $65 billion worth of commercial jets, $40 billion of telecommunication equipment, $18.2 billion of oil field and gas machinery and $4.3 billion of computers in the coming years. Getting a fraction of that business will create many more jobs than the low cost goods imported from China that AFL-CIO objects to but America can no longer produce competitively.
AFL-CIO'S agenda on China and its dependence on Wu is no secret; the media simply have not seen fit to report the matter. In a testimony before the House of Representatives in July, 1995, Peggy Taylor, Director of Department of Legislation of AFL-CIO, made specific mention of "this lucrative trade" in organ transplants from prisoners as reason to deny Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status to China. There is no need to speculate as to where her "data" came from.
At the airport interviews immediately upon his release and return to the United States, Wu freely admitted to the San Francisco Bay area reporters that lying, stealing, impersonating a police officer and adopting other underhanded means were perfectly acceptable while undercover in China. He has never responded on whether it is also acceptable to lie to the American public. However, he was at Columbia University recently to receive another of many awards. He was delighted to discover a fellow native of Shanghai in Li Qiang, a law student. He spoke to Li in Shanghai dialect and according to Li, Wu admitted that human rights conditions in China now has been the best in recent 50 years, but, he added, the Americans don't know anything.
While the Clinton Administration is working to open foreign markets and promote trade as the surest means of creating jobs, the AFL-CIO is working to undermine such efforts by sneaking Wu across the Chinese border. The public has the right to know the truth. Cut through all the hypocrisy about defending human rights, and one sees Wu performing dubious activities to support AFL-CIO in their efforts to stopping the flow of low cost goods from China. It's lucrative work for Wu and that's all there is to it.
AFL-CIO needs to review its policy towards China. The issue before the leadership is whether such a broad brush smearing of one of the America's major trading partners would not simply erode its credibility and neutralize the potency of the organization on those occasions when they actually need to intervene in specific trade issues.
Responsible journalism requires a willingness to look at all sides of the issues. Being a gullible pushover for easy to digest sensationalism is hardly discharging its duty to the public. Too much is at stake for someone not to take up the challenge and set the record straight.
Unfortunately overlooked by the media is Harry Wu's web of deceit built on grains of half truths elaborated with outright lies. One only has to review Harry Wu's own words already in the public domain to come to this conclusion. Normally the veracity of any one person is not worth fussing about. In Wu's case, he is capable of doing considerable damage to public interest, especially in the coming months as the national policy towards China come to forefront of debate. Thus, the public has the right to know the dubious pulpit from which Wu is bullying governments, corporations and other legitimate organizations.
One simple example of his propensity to lie is to look at his own statement in the Playboy interview appearing in the February 1996 issue. He said, "I videotaped a prisoner whose kidneys were surgically removed while he was alive, and then the prisoner was taken out the next day and shot. The organs remain fresher that way. The tape was broadcast by BBC." One has to wonder about the professional qualifications of the interviewer to record such an outrageous statement unchallenged. Organ transplant from prisoners has been one of Wu's most dramatic accusations about China and pivots on the evidence presented by the BBC broadcast.
Recently I had the opportunity to review a videotape of that infamous BBC telecast and can find nothing that comes close to depicting any organ removal. It did include a snippet taken by the Sue Lloyd-Roberts, the freelance reporter pretending to be Wu's wife, of an open heart surgery taking place in a Chengdu hospital. Publicly, Wu has admitted that the scene from the civilian hospital had nothing to with organ removal from prisoners and attributed the use of the footage to error in editing by BBC.
After his return last summer, the Laogai Research Foundation, of which he is the executive director, issued the claim that no attempt to mislead was intended, since BBC never claimed the incision in the middle of the chest cavity to be related to kidney removal or implantation. ("Laogai" is an abbreviated Chinese term for "reform through labor.") According to the statement released by the Foundation: "The operating room video was used as a background shot." The disclaimer did not explain why Wu and his "wife" took the trouble of surreptitiously filming such a non-relevant and innocuous scene. They certainly didn't need to go all the way to China for a "background shot."
Wu frequently made the claim, including in the Playboy interview, that it was his protest of the Russian invasion of Hungary in 1956 that got him in trouble with the Chinese authorities. It took a reporter from San Francisco State University to point out to Wu that he was 19 and in college at the time. (In the context of the 1956 environment in China, he would have been exceptionally precocious--at least politically, predating Wei Jingsheng by about a quarter of a century.) When Mike Mattis questioned him about the accuracy of attributing his political problems to the purported protest, Wu's response was to deny ever making such a protest and shift the blame to "a mistake in translation" of his statements. This interview was published in November, 1995 issue of Prism, a monthly publication of SFSU.
Inconsistencies and shifting statements abound from Wu's public utterances and activities. The issue isn't that they exist and is pointless to analyze every one of the inaccuracies. The real puzzle is why and how the media have so willingly swallowed Wu's utterances. I believe there is more to this behavior than simply that today's media are overcome by the tabloid mentality and are too lazy to conduct the necessary due diligence. I believe Wu has sponsors and supporters with vested interests in containing China through public opinion, irrespective of truth and facts. One of Wu's more obvious sponsors is the AFL-CIO.
Shortly after Wu's arrest in China became known, an ABC Nightline program revealed that his clandestine trip into China via Kazakstan was financed by the AFL-CIO, and the attorney who accompanied Wu was on the AFL-CIO payroll. After the two were detained, she was promptly released and that was how the world first heard about Wu's arrest. In retrospect, she was an essential part of Wu's cover and protection.
An article covering Wu's participation in the picket line at Boeing, in the November 30, 1995 issue of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, quoted Wu as saying, "The strike by Boeing members is really a strike against the Chinese government. It is a strike which the American labor movement must win." Matt Bates, a spokesman for the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, on whose behalf Wu was appearing, said, "Clearly, a major part of the fight here is over the loss of jobs to overseas producers." With a 15-year suspended sentence awaiting him, Wu is unlikely to return to China, not even under cover. Consequently, Wu is now more useful to the AFL-CIO by becoming a public anti-China spokesperson on behalf of American labor.
When I tried to find out more about the Laogai Research Foundation, I found out that the Foundation is in the AFL-CIO's Washington D.C. headquarter building. Directory assistance for area code 202 (Washington area) cannot provide a listing for the Foundation. I then tried to reach the Foundation via the AFL-CIO. The headquarter switchboard transferred my call to their Food and Allied Services Trade who then switched the call over to a line with a recorded message representing the Foundation.
The AFL-CIO's motivation is naive but transparent. The AFL-CIO seems to believe that by stopping imports from China, they can preserve American jobs. For example, organized labor accused Boeing of exporting jobs to China. Actually, as Boeing's spokesman rebutted, by subcontracting certain sections of the 737 to the Chinese, Boeing is assured of continued future sales. Keeping all the manufacturing at home won't do any good, if China's orders for planes all go to European Airbus. Conversely continued sales to one of the largest markets in the world would allow Boeing and the Machinist Union to keep more jobs. It is not very complicated logic or economics, but has so far eluded the American labor leadership.
According to data presented to the House Ways and Means Trade Subcommittee in May 1995 by Robert Kapp, president of the Washington-based US-China Business Council, America exported $9.3 billion worth of goods to China in 1994, equivalent to the support of approximately 187,000 jobs. According to Department of Commerce data presented at the same testimony, China will be buying $90 billion worth of power generation equipment, $65 billion worth of commercial jets, $40 billion of telecommunication equipment, $18.2 billion of oil field and gas machinery and $4.3 billion of computers in the coming years. Getting a fraction of that business will create many more jobs than the low cost goods imported from China that AFL-CIO objects to but America can no longer produce competitively.
AFL-CIO'S agenda on China and its dependence on Wu is no secret; the media simply have not seen fit to report the matter. In a testimony before the House of Representatives in July, 1995, Peggy Taylor, Director of Department of Legislation of AFL-CIO, made specific mention of "this lucrative trade" in organ transplants from prisoners as reason to deny Most Favored Nation (MFN) trading status to China. There is no need to speculate as to where her "data" came from.
At the airport interviews immediately upon his release and return to the United States, Wu freely admitted to the San Francisco Bay area reporters that lying, stealing, impersonating a police officer and adopting other underhanded means were perfectly acceptable while undercover in China. He has never responded on whether it is also acceptable to lie to the American public. However, he was at Columbia University recently to receive another of many awards. He was delighted to discover a fellow native of Shanghai in Li Qiang, a law student. He spoke to Li in Shanghai dialect and according to Li, Wu admitted that human rights conditions in China now has been the best in recent 50 years, but, he added, the Americans don't know anything.
While the Clinton Administration is working to open foreign markets and promote trade as the surest means of creating jobs, the AFL-CIO is working to undermine such efforts by sneaking Wu across the Chinese border. The public has the right to know the truth. Cut through all the hypocrisy about defending human rights, and one sees Wu performing dubious activities to support AFL-CIO in their efforts to stopping the flow of low cost goods from China. It's lucrative work for Wu and that's all there is to it.
AFL-CIO needs to review its policy towards China. The issue before the leadership is whether such a broad brush smearing of one of the America's major trading partners would not simply erode its credibility and neutralize the potency of the organization on those occasions when they actually need to intervene in specific trade issues.
Responsible journalism requires a willingness to look at all sides of the issues. Being a gullible pushover for easy to digest sensationalism is hardly discharging its duty to the public. Too much is at stake for someone not to take up the challenge and set the record straight.
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