Review: ‘Nirvana in Fire,’ a historical drama from China

This item first appeared in Asia Times.

In my college days, one of the activities that bound the community of Chinese students whether from Hong Kong, Taiwan or the US was the circulation of wuxia novels to be enjoyed by those able to read Chinese. Mostly published from Hong Kong and Taiwan, this genre of stories portrayed heroes and heroines with mastery of martial arts and a peerless sense of chivalry. They would go around the country, which they called jianghu, righting wrongs and injustices, defending the weak, fighting corrupt officials and battling all kinds of evildoers. In stories with historical settings, the kung fu masters were volunteer defenders of their kings against usurpers and barbarians.

Many of the popular stories were serialized and published in daily installments by the newspaper or in weekly wuxia magazines. The story lines were always intricate, complex and non-linear. When the story was gripping, the reader would be hooked and held fanatical vigils at the newsstand to snatch each installment as it appeared in the newsstand. The length of some novels was of biblical proportions. Popular authors, such as Harvard grad Jin Yong, became multi-millionaires.

On YouTube

Nirvana in Fire official poster

I was recently doused with nostalgia as I watched the 54 episodes of Nirvana in Fire on YouTube. I don’t know how Lang Ya Bang in Putonghua became Nirvana in Fire in English. But I found the Mandarin version gripping and entertaining and reminded me of my youth when I was an avid reader of wuxia anthologies.

The story supposedly took place in the 6^th century Liang dynasty, one of the short-lived regimes in China’s history that coexisted with many other contending kingdoms in an era known as Northern and Southern dynasties—with the Yangtze River as demarcation, it was itself an indicator of a divided China. It was one of the chaotic periods in China’s history, and thus a convenient setting to take liberties with history.

Nirvana told a story of massive betrayal that ambushed a loyal army of 70,000 and how one lone survivor returned to painstakingly plot the step-by-step liquidation of the traitors and complicit court officials, and to eventually achieve ultimate redemption more than 13 years after the massacre.

The story opened with an ancient take of a thoroughly modern idea that information can be monetized and distilled from big data. It seemed a mysterious organization collected information sent from the four corners of China via messenger pigeons and employed a room full of clerks to compile and organize the amassed data. It was known as the place to inquire for answers to any question, rendered to those willing to pay the fee.

Two contending princes of the Liang court sent emissaries to Lang Ya Shan wishing to know the best master strategist available to help each overcome the other and ascend the throne. The answer to both princes was the same: Namely, find someone by the name of Mei Chang Su. And the tale unfolded from there.

Unlike Hollywood portrayals of super heroes from comic books, none of the characters were two-dimensional cutouts. Just the opposite, each character was attributed with a certain psychological profile and personality that gradually became clear with succeeding episodes. The Chinese subtitles made it easy to follow the dialogue and thus the plot development as exhibited by the thoughts and schemes of various protagonists.

Dazzling sword fights

With impressive cinematography of the imperial court and countryside, beautiful costumes, dazzling sword fights and superb acting from a large cast, the story unfold bit by delicious bit, meticulously paced but never dragged. Going from one episode to the next was just like scarfing down one installment of a wuxia story and then on to the next.

Actress Liu Tao plays Mu Nihuang

The script paid careful attention to details. Over the 54 episodes, inconsistencies were rare. Each character had logical reasons and motivation for his/her actions. The dialogue was subtle and nuanced abetted by sophisticated acting. It was a terrific TV serial that put Chinese culture on display.

Two examples came to mind. Early in the story, the survivor, Su Zhe, who lost his martial prowess on the battlefield, came back 12 years later as a physically frail, scholarly counselor. He amazed everyone in the court when he boasted that he could train three 12 year-old boys with no prior exposure to martial arts for five days to array in powerful proprietary formations that could defeat the reigning kung fu master. Later in the story, while Su and the crown prince were waiting for reports of the outcome of various skullduggeries orchestrated by them, Su lit and used the burning of a single joss stick as the ancient form of a Chinese hourglass. Those touches were drawn from classic stories of martial arts.

The episodes contained elements of greed, betrayal, loyalty, suspicion, love, revenge, lust for power, implications of genocide, jealousy, honor, integrity, murder, cruelty, kindness, generosity and mixtures of these qualities in conflict and contradiction. The closest hint of sex was when the star-crossed couple held hands and on rare occasions tearfully embraced. The underlying theme in Nirvana was the Chinese tradition that one’s most sacred duty was to honor one’s ancestor and protect the reputation of the family name.

Battle scene from Nirvana in Fire

Korean version

The twists and turns of the story enthralled not just the audience in China but also captured a global following. The Korean version of the serial has captured prime time viewing in South Korea, reversing the usual export of TV drama from Korea to China. The YouTube and other video versions are being viewed around the world.

China has rapidly evolved to become the most important market for movies and television programs second only to the US. Indeed, to capture major market share in both countries, a conglomerate like Wanda has been making major investments in America such as buying AMC, one of the major chains of cinema theaters in the US as well as taking major stakes in Hollywood studios to help them produce movies that will appeal to the Chinese audience.

Certainly with Wanda’s knowledge of the Chinese consumer taste, their investment can steer its Hollywood partners away from the vapid series of Kung Fu Panda 1, 2 ad nauseam into producing movies of substance that would appeal to the more sophisticated Chinese palate.

Nirvana for US audiences?

Similarly, by owning the largest or nearly largest chain of movie theaters in America, Wanda is in the perfect position to introduce quality productions such as of the Nirvana genre to the American audience. I am guessing that the American audience would welcome a change from the super heroes that require huge leaps of faith and drastic suspension of reality and from the stomach churning gore of fantasy monsters and walking dead.

In a recent debate on whether China or India has more effective tools to wield soft power around the world, the pundit arguing on behalf of India asserted that Bollywood movies from India emanate soft power to a greater degree than anything in China’s toolkit. I believe the powerful stories of the Nirvana genre would capture audiences around the world far more effectively than movies from India that entertain the audience with sudden bursts of song and dance.

For readers interested in a sample of Nirvana in Fire, the first episode with Chinese subtitles can be found on YouTube,  https://youtu.be/VHXIfAmHOC4

or with English subtitles below*:

*Sine my original post, I've been told that the English subtitle version has been removed.
As indication of the worldwide popularity, there is yet another site that offers the serial in eighteen different languages including English,

https://www.viki.com/tv/22943c-nirvana-in-fire

As Tsai Ing-wen takes over Taiwan, the reality sets in

This was first posted on Asia Times.

Taiwan’s Tsai Ing-wen handily won the January election to become the next president of Taiwan. Now comes the hard part; on May 20 she will take office and govern.

Tsai ran on the platform of keeping the status quo but not accepting the one China principle and not recognizing the 1992 consensus. She is going to find out that there is a price to having status quo across the Taiwan Straits.

“One China” is short hand for the recognition that Taiwan is part of China, a fact confirmed by the U.N. Resolution No. 2758 enacted in 1971. The “1992 consensus” refers to the last summit meeting between the representatives of Beijing and Taipei held in Hong Kong where both sides agreed to “one China” but each according their interpretation as to exactly what that means.

The mutually accepted ambiguity inherent in the consensus allowed Ma Ying-jeou to establish closer ties and economic cooperation with the mainland when he came into office in 2008.

When Ma came into office, Taiwan was in terrible shape. Chen Shui-bian, Ma’s predecessor mismanaged the economy and tried hard to agitate for the U.S. to step in and confront the mainland, a move that only deepened the antipathy of then President, George W. Bush, had for Chen.

There was no communication or economic linkage between Taiwan and the mainland and no respect for Chen. Aside from his hard-core supporters, it was clear that Chen and his family was thoroughly corrupt. As soon as Chen was out of the office and lost his immunity from prosecution, he was sent to jail convicted of a variety of criminal charges.

The eight years under Ma has dramatically altered the cross-strait relationship.  Cross-strait trade has increased to nearly $190 billion in 2015. Since both sides signed the Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in 2010, bilateral trade has increased by 70% and surplus grown from roughly 2 to 1 every year to more than 3 to 1 in Taiwan’s favor in 2015.

Under Chen’s regime, there were no tourist from the mainland and no direct flights. Now there are 890 cross-straits flights per week from 61 destinations on the mainland. With over 4 million tourist visits, mainland visitors make up 40% of all visits and half of Taiwan’s earnings from tourism.

Unhappily for Ma and his party KMT, he failed to fully explain the benefits of cross-strait collaboration and because of the global financial crisis that coincided with his coming into office, Ma under-delivered on the economic benefits of economic cooperation with the mainland as compared to his campaign promises.

Instead of growing closer to the mainland, the people of Taiwan, especially the younger generation became more antagonistic over the fear of mainlanders dominating the Taiwan economy. It did not helped that the younger generation has been raised on textbooks revised under Chen’s administration—textbooks that refute the historical and cultural ties between the people of Taiwan and the mainland.

Tsai’s dilemma will be finding a way of pleasing her core supporters that do not believe in collaborating with the mainland while somehow maintaining the status quo across the straits. Beijing has already hinted to Tsai that there is no automatic granting of status quo if she is unwilling to concede to the one China principle.

Recently Ma’s lame duck government received an invitation from the World Health Organization to send observers to the World Health Assembly, an annual gathering of nations to discuss problems related to public health. The invite was referred to Tsai’s incoming administration to handle.

For the first time since 2007 when Chen was president, the invitation explicitly mentioned that the invitation was extended to Taiwan under UN resolution 2785. The significance is that accepting the invitation is equivalent to the Tsai government accepting the principle that Taiwan is part of China.

Now that KMT has become the opposition, they are jeering at Tsai’s having to handle the first of likely many hot potatoes. They said that DPP used to castigate Ma for agreeing to the 1992 consensus and now Tsai doesn’t even have the advantage of ambiguity as cover.

Tsai will feel the sting of Taiwan’s lacking international recognition as a sovereign state in other ways.

Recently, a group of citizens of Taiwan were arrested in Kenya and accused of conducting some kind of scam. Before Taipei can intervene, the accused were sent to Beijing for adjudication because Kenya like most members of the UN has no diplomatic relations with Taipei.

Even Japan has not treated Taiwan kindly. Recently, the Japanese Navy seized a Taiwanese fishing boat and demanded the posting of bail bond before releasing the captain of the boat. Some people in Taiwan observed that Japan would not have dared to seize a PRC fishing boat much less demanded a ransom.

On the top of it all, the latest imbroglio being debated in Taiwan is whether Chen Shui-bian will accept Tsai’s formal VIP invitation and attend Tsai’s inaugural banquet. One view is that Chen has been released from jail on medical grounds. Therefore if he is well enough to attend the public event, he is healthy enough to be sent back to jail post haste.

Another view is that Chen’s presence on the head table among former presidents will draw all the media’s attention and deprive Tsai the limelight that she deserves. Chen’s son publicly questioned as to why Taiwan can’t be more like the U.S. where former presidents are honored as a group irrespective of political party affiliation, overlooking his father’s criminal record.

The fountain of pettiness from the Chen’s family never runs dry and continues to spew forth and feed the Taiwan’s morbid curiosity about the former first family.

Tsai is trained in economics and international law. She is bright enough to know that if she cannot successfully stimulate Taiwan’s economy, everything else won’t matter much and she will be a likely one-term president.

The KMT is in such tatters that it’s an opposition that won’t be bothersome to her. Her concern will be finding a way to continue to collaborate with Beijing. Taiwan’s economy is integrated with and dependent on the mainland. She won’t be able to do much to Taiwan’s economy without being an integral part of China’s economy.

The people of Taiwan and on the mainland will be listening intently to her forthcoming inauguration speech to understand her vision of a thriving Taiwan future in interesting times.

Notes of a Chinese American Tourist in Iran

Originally posted in Asia Times.

A 17-day tour of Iran does not a country expert make, but it’s certainly enough to form some meaningful impressions of a country that has been virtually blacked out from Americans’ consciousness since the Iranian Islamic revolution of 1979. As our first visit to Iran, we took a custom tour from Kerman in the south to the oldest port on the Caspian Sea. Thus we got a more in-depth look at Iran than the more customary 10-11 day tours of “history and culture.“

On our first day, we landed at Tehran’s international airport from Dubai via Emirates Air. The morning flight was delayed and by the time we finished lunch, we only had time for one of Tehran’s lesser attractions, the Iran National Museum. As we entered the front garden of the museum, a group of young girls in their school uniforms on an outing saw us and came running to surround us and to give us a raucous welcome. Being on our first day in Iran, we were unprepared for the warm and enthusiastic response.

School girls at the National Museum

We soon got accustomed to being “accosted” by locals in public places. As we walked on sidewalks, cars would screech to a halt and the (invariably male) driver would lean his head out of the window and shout, “Hello, welcome,” and sometimes “where from?” before driving away. Females took a different approach; they would seek out the women in our group and invite them to be part of their family photos. Being a mixed group of Asians and Caucasians, I think the women viewed us as somewhat of a special souvenir to add to their photo collections.

The Iranians love to take pictures. The younger generation of men and women all seem to have a camera phone, many at the end of a photo stick. Marion of our group quickly caught on and would walk up to groups of women and proactively offered, “Would you like a selfie?” She would be promptly invited to be part of their group photo. They would take the photo with their phone and also one with her smart phone as reciprocating mementos.

Marion So (in white hat) with and Iranian architecture students in Tabriz

We were to have interesting encounters with professional Iranian men and women at many of the famous tourist attractions. We met a pair of twins and their woman friend at the citadel in Shiraz and found out that the parents of the twins live in San Diego. We met two women at the tomb of Artaxerxes II high above the ruins of Persepolis. One of them, the audiologist, was to join us for dinner at our last night in Tehran. They had taken the bus from Tehran, close to 600 miles away, to visit Persepolis. A young couple was spending their honeymoon visiting Masuleh, the one thousand year old, mountainside village, and they approached me to have my photo taken with them. 

Despite the rate of unemployment at over 20%, I got the impression that the Iranians who could afford it, like to spend their time off visiting Iran’s many parks, gardens and other tourist attractions. We saw them at all the stops on our tour. At no time did we feel unwelcome or receive any feelings of unfriendliness from the people we encountered.

Bashing DAESH

The closest conversation we had that could be considered as political was with a mullah at the Quran School in Shiraz with the help of Hassan, our guide who acted as our interpreter. The mullah said Islam is about peace and love of fellow humankind. He pointed out that the Jews, Christians and the Muslims all believe in the same God. He rejected DAESH, his term for ISIS, as an illegitimate form of Islam that must be eradicated. As for Israel, the problem is the continued occupation of Palestinian land by the Israelis. The beginning of the solution has to begin with the return of the land that belongs to the Palestinians, he said.

Mullah at a madrasah in Shiraz

We stayed in Tehran, a car congested and noisy city just long enough to visit the Golestan Palace and the crown jewels collection before flying to Kerman, our southernmost destination, to begin our drive back north. From Kerman, our coach took us westward to Shiraz, then northeast to Yazd and west again to Isfahan, then due north to Tehran again. The last leg was northwestward to Zanjan and Tabriz before returning east and south back to Tehran by way of the coast of Caspian Sea. Each leg was 200-300 miles apart. Our zigzag tour left out the northeastern part of the country but covered the heartland of Iran’s historical and cultural heritage.

Tapping qanat tech

As we drove through central Iran and saw endless stretches of arid desert country surrounded by treeless mountains, it dawned on me that qanat was likely the most important engineering invention that the ancient Persians contributed to the world. Aside from being a handy word for the Scrabble player to know, qanat is an irrigation system that can draw water from snow-capped mountains down to towns and villages miles away. The channel has to be carefully sized and gently graded so the water flow will remain smooth (what engineers called “laminar flow”) and not surge or become turbulent and the channel has to be kept underground to minimize evaporation and contamination en route to the final destination. Regularly spaced vertical shafts from the surface allowed for maintenance of the qanats.

The 19^th century Shahzadeh Garden in Mahan, where we had lunch on our first outing out of Kerman, was an excellent example of how a qanat can create a beautiful oasis in the middle of the desert. Gushing water cascaded down terraces feeding the flowers and trees that lined both sides of the fountains. The water then exited the garden at the bottom of the hillside and went on to serve the people in Mahan. We were to see other working qanats on other segments of our tour. The qanats reminded me of the karezes in Turfan that we saw while on a tour of China’s Silk Road — same idea with a different name that most likely originated from ancient Persia. 

The Persian qanat is arguably even more significant to the development of the human civilization than the Roman aqueduct. Without the ingenuity of qanats, the arid and desiccated land of central Asia would remain sparsely inhabited to uninhabited, and could not become cradles of kingdoms and civilizations. The idea of the qanat spread from Persia to Syria, Egypt and Morocco in one direction and to Afghanistan and China in the other. The UN finds relevance in today’s working qanats as case studies to help solve the world’s challenges with polluted water.

By the time our coach pulled into Isfahan and drove along the river that bisected the city into northern and southern halves, the parks that lined both shores prompted me to modify my impression of Iran as one endless arid landscape. Tabriz to the northwest was even greener. From Tabriz as we emerged from a long tunnel on the way to Ardabil, we were surrounded by lush forest and were greeted by fog and rain. The countryside along the coast of the Caspian Sea was checkerboards of rice paddies as if we were in China. Because our tour included Tabriz and the Caspian shore, we formed a more complete impression of Iran than those that only saw Shiraz, Yazd, Isfahan and Tehran.

China and Iran

From the sampling of exhibits from museums we visited, I got the impression that the Neolithic people in Iran were capable of producing sophisticated forms of pottery — to my amateur eye, every bit as advanced as those from China and perhaps even more advanced. Later, Persians got to be quite skilled working with stone as can be seen at Persepolis. By the same period as Persepolis, China had already developed the technology for intricate bronze casting that seemed to be missing in the Persian culture.

A Neolithic drinking vessel

Persians’ skill at pottery making may have served as the basis to later develop the technology for producing brilliant blue and green ceramic tiles. This was to be an extremely useful attribute for producing the tiles needed to build mosques and mausoleums according to Islamic design after the Arabs conquered Persia in the 7^th century CE. In fact the mosques and mausoleums in Iran reminded me of the Islamic structures I saw in Samarkand and elsewhere in Central Asia. This should not be a surprise, since at times in history, parts of Central Asia were part of the Persian Empire and other times the ruling dynasty came from Central Asia.

Iran today reminds me of China in the early ‘90s. Iran’s highway system is already first rate and far superior to what China had then but most city streets are as unattractive as any in the third world, full of mom and pop store fronts, randomly arranged with no apparent logic. Some shopping malls are said to be under construction but we did not see any in actual operation. I did see a fair amount of construction activity in the cities, such as building metro stations and high-rise residential buildings. 

A typical street in Tehran

No transgender toilet issue

Public toilets are reasonably available next to mosques and other tourist attractions as well as the customary service stations. Just look for the ubiquitous “WC” signs. It’s not always clear which side is male and which is female but it doesn’t really matter. Every stall has a door for total privacy. In a way, this is unintentionally more progressive than some parts of the US that debate about which toilets transgenders should go to. In Iran it does not matter. The bad news about toilets in Iran is that they are smelly, nearly as bad as those in China or India. Most are the squat kind and the western sit-down kind is not always available.

The hotels in Iran are not quite ready for prime time. Even the 5-star hotels in the big cities miss certain essential features such as washbasins with working stoppers or face cloths. The sewer system can’t handle toilet paper. The hotels seemed to work on fixed rules: If it’s April, there is only heat and no cool air. The bedding comes with a cozy comforter that can only render a warm room even more stifling. 

If you can overlook some of the less than luxurious aspects of being a tourist in Iran, now is the time to go before all the tourist facilities get built up and the sameness of Europe or the US becomes part of travelling around Iran. It’s also possible that local Iranians will someday not find foreign tourists a novelty and lose their keenness to interact with them. Right now, the Iranians warmly welcome foreign tourists and Iran represents a novel destination for the international traveler.

At present, it’s not possible for Americans to travel in Iran as individual tourists but have to be part of a guided tour. I met a young man from China who was travelling by himself. He had quit his job as a water treatment engineer in Singapore to see the world. He had been through Nepal and India and had already spent 20 days in Iran riding public inter-city buses from south to north and found travel in Iran “easy.” I met Mr. Gong in Masuleh, a World Heritage village not on most tours. He will be crossing the borders to go on to Armenia and then Turkey and Lebanon to complete his personal journey. It’s nice to be young and adventurous.

In China, the foremost must visit attraction is the Great Wall. For Iran it’s Persepolis. Qinshihuang started the Great Wall and united China about 2,300 years ago. Darius built Persepolis as his seat to receive tribute from far flung corners of his empire 300 years earlier than the Chinese emperor. Despite being burned down by Alexander of Macedonia a mere two hundred years later, the remains continue to impress visitors with the grandeur of the Achaemenid empire and the artistry of the stone masons in that era. 

Our tour was designed and arranged by the Seattle-based Caravan-Serai and our guide was Hassan Azadi, a veteran tour guide now an independent contractor living in Toronto who flies to Iran twice a year to work during the high season. Both have been outstanding to work with.

Sidebar: Medical prowess in Tabriz with an American aside

I had the dubious pleasure of having to take advantage of Iran’s medical care system. In the middle of the trip, I experienced pain and swelling on my right wrist. A week of icing and anti-inflammatory medication did not help. When we got to Tabriz, a major city, I asked our guide to take me to a hospital that deals with broken bones. I asked Michael, my brother-in-law, who’s a family practice doctor, to come along.

We got to Shahryar Hospital after 6 pm, Hassan checked with a few windows before finding the X-ray department. He made a prepayment and the female technician took two X-rays of my wrist. A physician on duty reviewed the results and determined that I had a hairline fracture in my capitate bone and recommended a CT scan of the region. Hassan again paid for the CT scan and another technician took the scan. By then it was after 7 pm and the doctors that would put on the wrist splints had left for the day.

The next morning, we went back to Shahryar and Hassan asked to jump the queue because we were part of a waiting tour group. The doctor in charge looked at the X-ray (didn’t bother with the CT scan) and his assistant proceeded to slip a cotton liner over my hand, wrist and forearm. The doctor then went on to apply a quick setting fiber cast over the lining. This middle-aged man had a twinkle in his eye and his demeanor was friendly and reassuring. As he was wrapping the impregnated fiberglass fabric around my arm, I joshed by telling him that I was a professional tennis player. He smiled and rubbed my elbow and said, “Ah, tennis elbow.” We were in and out in 20 minutes and I was, at last, pain free.

My entire medical bill including the unnecessary CT scan came up to $590. The day after I came home I contacted my health care provider, one of the best in the Bay Area, and found out that it would be more than three weeks before the orthopedic specialists would have an opening to see me.

Author getting his wrist cast in Tabriz

Is racial bias to blame for the high number of Asian Americans charged with espionage?

This co-authored piece first appeared in the Los Angeles Times.

In recent years, federal prosecutors have brought a number of high-profile criminal cases against Asian Americans accused of economic espionage or theft of trade secrets. Announced with great fanfare, many of these cases later collapsed.

Is it possible that these prosecutions were driven — at least in part — by racial profiling rather than solid evidence? Last year, more than 40 members of Congress sent a letter to Atty. Gen. Loretta Lynch asking that question. The Justice Department has not yet responded, but last month it adopted a new policy requiring experienced national security prosecutors in Washington, instead of local U.S. attorneys, to oversee all espionage-related cases. It's of course too early to know whether this change will reduce the number of problematic cases brought against Asian Americans.

Although theft of trade secrets by foreign countries certainly occurs, the government has focused overwhelmingly on China. Of the 55 trade secret and economic espionage cases involving a foreign country brought since 1997, more than 70% targeted China. The government, however, seems to have a hard time bringing these cases to a successful conclusion, suggesting that such disproportionate attention is misplaced.

From 1997 to 2015, federal prosecutors had an average conviction rate of about 91% for all criminal cases. In federal white-collar cases, the conviction rate was more than 90%. But of the 39 trade secret and economic espionage cases involving China since 1997, federal prosecutors won convictions in only 66.7% of cases. In contrast, for cases involving other countries, prosecutors had a conviction rate much closer to its other cases — about 87%.

Is it possible that these prosecutions were driven — at least in part — by racial profiling, rather than solid evidence?

Under pressure to stop Chinese spying, prosecutors seem to file espionage-related charges without fully understanding the facts.

Last May, Xiaoxing Xi, former head of the physics department at Temple University, was arrested by FBI agents, who burst into his suburban Philadelphia home with guns drawn. Xi was handcuffed in front of his family and charged with sharing schematics for a piece of “secret” laboratory equipment, which it later turned out was not secret at all. Four months later, prosecutors dropped the case, saying “additional information came to the attention of the government.”

In the very first economic espionage case to go to trial, in San Jose in 2009, prosecutors accused two Chinese American engineers of seeking to “benefit” the Chinese government, simply because the engineers had applied for research funding from Chinese agencies to help their startup. The jury rejected the prosecutors' argument and concluded that this was just normal business activity. One recurring issue in Chinese trade secret cases is that local U.S. attorneys, many of whom know little about the major role that state institutions play in the Chinese economy, misinterpret normal contacts with government banks or research institutes as evidence of spying.

To many observers, the government's unjustified suspicion of Asian Americans became apparent in 1999, when Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese American nuclear physicist employed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was accused of sharing nuclear secrets with China.

Lee, who was included on a shortlist of suspects because of his frequent trips to Asia and his access to classified information — and, critics claim, his ethnicity — consistently denied he had given sensitive information to China. The case fell apart, and seven years later, Lee won a civil judgment against the prosecutors and media organizations that had tarnished his reputation.

In case after case, the government's allegations of improper motives — perhaps fed by suspicions of China — have failed to withstand scrutiny. In 2014, a jury found former Texas Instruments engineer Ellen Chen Yeh not guilty of all charges in a trade secret case. Yeh, who had left Texas Instruments to work at a company in China, was accused of wrongfully downloading computer chip designs and taking them to China with the intent to steal them. Yeh explained that she kept the designs — which she had developed herself — because she hoped to resume working with Texas Instruments someday. The jury believed her.

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The way prosecutors bring China-related trade secret cases causes immense damage to those accused. By publicizing these cases before they can prove them, prosecutors destroy reputations. In October 2014, Sherry Chen, a 60-year-old Chinese American water scientist, was arrested by FBI agents at a National Weather Service office in Ohio. Chen, who had been a U.S. citizen for more than 15 years, was accused of downloading data on U.S. dams and passing it to a Chinese government official. The charges against her carried 25 years in prison and a $1-million fine. Prosecutors dropped the charges against Chen shortly before her trial was set to start because they realized they had misinterpreted the evidence, but that did not undo damage to her good name. Undeterred by the collapse of its case, the government says it still intends to bar Chen from her job, a decision she is fighting.

There is also growing evidence that prejudice may affect the sentencing process for those found guilty of trade secret theft. An analysis of cases over the last two decades shows that, for individuals convicted of trade secret theft, the average sentence for people with Chinese surnames is more than twice that for those with non-Chinese surnames. This translates to an average of an extra 17 months in prison for Chinese Americans.

The strength of the U.S. economy is based largely on innovation and competition. A more careful approach to these prosecutions can protect the rights of Asian Americans, minimize wrongful prosecutions and help ensure an economic environment that continues to foster innovation.

George Koo is a global business advisor. Daniel Olmos is a criminal defense attorney who has successfully defended several trade secret cases at trial.

The nuclear summit is merely a small win for Obama, in face of huge challenges in foreign policy

Edited version of this blog has been posted on China US Focus and re-posted in Asia times.

By initiating and organizing the nuclear security summit, history might just decide that President Obama’s show of statesmanship was worthy of the Nobel Peace Prize hastily bestowed on him at the beginning of his presidency. The Norway based peace prize committee could hardly wait to show the warmongering axis of hubris, namely Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld, the exit door and anoint the incoming president as the peacemaker to be.

Whereas his predecessor’s reign depended on confrontation and intimidation to get their way around the world, Obama at least seemed to recognize that uncontrolled proliferation of fissionable material was not in America’s interest. While the former administration thought shock and awe was enough to maintain world order, Obama at least saw that the problem was too big for any one country, even a superpower, to handle alone.

At the just concluded nuclear summit, the fourth in a series initiated by him, Obama welcomed more than 50 world leaders emphasizing collaboration and cooperation. He wanted a united world to work against terrorist groups, in his word, to prevent the world’s most dangerous networks from obtaining the world’s most dangerous weapons.

Obama honored China’s leader Xi Jinping with the only one-on-one side meeting at the summit. Xi returned the favor by reaffirming his support for Obama’s effort to reduce the threat of nuclear terrorism. To show bilateral solidarity, the two parties issued a 10-point joint statement, in which, among other things, was the agreement to establish a training center in Beijing related to nuclear security, with assistance from the U.S., that would serve as a regional training center for other countries. Both leaders also affirmed that the two countries would work together to prevent smuggling of nuclear materials and to continue the collaboration after the conclusion of the summit.

Somehow it’s almost impossible for the U.S. not to insist on having its way on some other issues in lieu of pure collaboration between peer nations. In the case of Xi’s latest visit, on the one hand the Obama administration welcomed Xi and enumerated the common ground between the two nations. But at the same time, the White House spokesman assured the public that in the closed-door meeting, Obama fully intended to bring up matters related to human rights, South China Sea and cyber security.

Even when the U.S. is looking to work closely with another, the U.S. seems to expect, even insists, that Americans reserve the right to criticize as the working relationship plods along.

Apparently, Obama has not discovered that mixing the spirit of collaboration with a dollop of confrontation is not the best way of building international trust. A clear example is the absence of Vladimir Putin at the summit. Although Obama spokesperson professed being puzzled by Putin’s absence, it’s obvious that no one would feel welcomed while regarded as an enemy. MK Bhadrakumar rather undiplomatically pointed out in his commentary[1] that 97% of the world’s nuclear stockpile is under military control and not having Russia present takes away any meaningful substance from the summit.

Rightly, Obama is most concerned over nuclear weapons or radioactive material falling into terrorists’ hands. Yet it is his approach to dealing with terrorism in the Middle East that is most muddled. Former DoD official and one time member of the National Security Council, Christina Lin, calls it a schizophrenic approach[2]: the US fighting al-Qaeda in Afghanistan while arming al-Qaeda affiliates in Syria, arming Shiíte militia in Iraq while arming Sunni militia against them in Syria. To boot, the US is arming Syrian Kurds fighting ISIS while selling new weapons to Turkey to bomb the Iraqi Kurds fighting ISIS.

In Lin’s piece, she also pointed out that the U.S. is also asking China to join in the fight against radical Islam at the expense of China’s own interests. The U.S. is supporting an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria because this group is aiming to topple Assad. There may be a thousand Uighurs from China fighting in this group, and thus hardly a group China would want to be allied. She said, “It isn’t clear why Washington believes China would join the US-led coalition that supports anti-Chinese militants.”

I think America’s unrealistic insistence that all other nations follow the U.S. even against their own self-interest comes from the my-way-or-the-highway legacy mindset that Obama has inherited from his predecessor and has not disavowed. We see the same mentality with regard to North Korea. Washington’s response to each new North Korean nuclear development is to impose harsher sanctions and increase the tension. Washington seems oblivious to China’s dilemma, which is not wishing to see a nuclear Korean peninsula but also not wanting a collapse of the North Korean regime. As I have suggested previously, the U.S. need to rethink about this situation. Obama is betting on an alignment with Japan and South Korea to pressure North Korea, which isn’t going to work. Only by including China on the alliance is there hope.[3]

Obama is not without some originality in his approach to foreign policy. In the waning days of his term of office, he has struck a nuclear non-proliferation deal with Iran and he has taken his family to visit Cuba (though he couldn’t resist commenting on Cuba’s human rights problem to Raul Castro, but Castro was tactful enough not to respond by comparing Cuba’s long established universal health care program with the one on life-support in the U.S.)

So long as he is willing to take independent courses of action in U.S. foreign policy, Obama should consider leaving a lasting legacy for his successor by overhauling the basis for dealing with China. Instead of confronting China by thinking of what to do with China or what China should do to satisfy the U.S., he should think about how and why getting along with China is in the American self interest.

From Ukraine southward through the Middle East to sub-Sahara Africa, by my back of the envelope calculation, roughly 1/7^th of the earth land mass and 1/8^th of the population is facing strife and turmoil. Except for Ukraine, all of the other parts of the region stem from conflict between nation states and radical Islam. Through interventionist misadventures in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, the U.S. has been a major contributing factor in the unrest and has proven incapable of maintaining peace and order by its own effort. Terrorism arising from religious fanaticism is the common enemy of all nations. It’s time for the U.S. to swallow some pride and admit that America needs to put ideology aside and work with all nations to combat a common adversary.

China has a non-confrontational approach to international relations and can be an effective partner in complementing the U.S. in anti-terrorism efforts. China has been able to bring the Taliban and the Afghan government to the table for an exchange of views and discussion, something the U.S. could never do. Through its one-belt and one-road initiatives, China is working with countries from Asia to Africa and Europe on infrastructure projects that promise to improve the livelihood of the local people and thus remove a motivation for suicide bombers.

Europe (led by U.K.[4]) has long recognized the merits of getting along with China even if the U.S. has been slow on the uptake. Just the opposite is happening with Washington. As Lin pointed out, despite the U.S. national debt approaching $21 trillion, the U.S. defense outlay has not made the world a safer place. With enough real fires to put out around the world, it doesn’t make sense for the U.S. to double down by sending two fleets to South China Sea and roil the waters there. Aside from burning a lot of money in the process, and adding a new incendiary spot to the world map, it’s going to hamper working with China on truly critical issues.

[1] http://atimes.com/2016/04/obamas-nuclear-legacy-is-a-mirage/

[2] http://atimes.com/2016/03/a-bipolar-us-policy-towards-china-and-syria/

[3] http://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/no-end-to-north-korean-conundrum-in-sight/

[4] http://atimes.com/2016/02/qa-author-martin-jacques-explains-uks-pivot-to-china/

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[1] http://atimes.com/2016/04/obamas-nuclear-legacy-is-a-mirage/

[2] http://atimes.com/2016/03/a-bipolar-us-policy-towards-china-and-syria/

[3] http://www.chinausfocus.com/peace-security/no-end-to-north-korean-conundrum-in-sight/

[4] http://atimes.com/2016/02/qa-author-martin-jacques-explains-uks-pivot-to-china/