It's time the U.S. ponders anti-Asian racism

By Tom Plate

LOS ANGELES: With the formation of a new presidential administration presumably just weeks away, it is now time to take stock of America's relationship with Asians and Asian-Americans.

The most potent recent litmus test was the United States government's case against alleged nuclear spy Lee Wen Ho.

That spectacular case has virtually collapsed, and the initial concern, stirred up by what is known as the 1999 Cox Report on Chinese spying, which suggested there might be Chinese spies all over the place, has receded. But the bitter aftertaste of perceived anti-Asian racism lingers.

It was just this issue that America's most prominent communications and journalism school dean addressed in a major lecture two weeks ago.

Geoffrey Cowan, the well-known playwright, lawyer, former director of the Voice of America and "Friend of Bill", waded into the tricky waters of this issue that has been roiling the Asian- American community for more than a year.

Fortunately, Cowan, dean of the prominent Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Southern California, offered a nuanced critique of the performance of the U.S. news media that neither "scapegoated" nor whitewashed it.

A former newspaper columnist himself, he is well-versed in the American media's messy ways.

"In fairness," he told the packed lecture hall at UCLA, "the media never portrays anybody the way they want to be portrayed.

"It's simply a truism that everybody feels that the media is unfair. But I do think the media has been particularly unfair in its treatment of Asians and particularly of Asians in this country."

The anti-Asian frenzy that grew out of the Cox Report's spying charges, he said, can be viewed as a historic continuum -- a throwback to the hysteria of World War II, when any Japanese American could be deemed a Tokyo agent, or even to earlier in the century, when Chinese Americans in California were systematically mistreated.

He also referred to the campaign-financing allegations that at one point engulfed the Clinton administration in controversy.

"It turned out that a lot of people had given money improperly to President Clinton's campaign and to other officials and candidates. But there was a huge emphasis on the number of donors who came from Asia.

"This, in turn, led to and we know it -- to discriminatory treatment at the places where those people work. And it led to discriminatory kinds of investigations."

When put in this context, the media's treatment of Los Alamos physicist Lee, a Taiwan-born ethnic Chinese, suddenly makes more sense.

"When Lee was targeted by the government, many of the media's stories referred to him only as 'Chinese'," said Cowan.

"But consider: Who in the media today would say so-and-so target was a 'black' target or a 'Jewish' target or any other ethnic group target?"

He noted the extent of the media's ignorance about Asia.

"There is a serious lack of knowledge. There's this assumption that, well, he is Chinese, so of course he's going to give the secrets to the Chinese government.

"They don't ever stop to think, 'Hey, wait a minute, he is Taiwanese', and so wouldn't Beijing be the least likely group for him to give secrets to, if you want to focus on a person's country of origin as a way of determining motive?"

Perhaps worst of all, the U.S. news media -- despite its vaunted role as government watchdog -- unthinkingly swallowed the official conclusion that information was being sold to a "foreign government".

Cowan, a Los Angeles resident, is particularly aware of California's chequered history in its treatment of Asians.

"Through this last century, you see many times Asians who were treated very badly by the media in this country.

"They have endured painful experiences that sometimes are not well remembered by people today.

"It is very important for us to study this issue, just as we studied the way African-Americans are portrayed or Latinos are portrayed or Jews are portrayed or other groups are portrayed."

Whoever winds up as America's next president will need to think carefully about how to address legitimate security concerns without uncorking the stereotypes and prejudices that seem always to bob at the otherwise seemingly egalitarian surface of the American psyche.

For once unleashed, these deeply-rooted, xenophobia forces despoil the American dream of fairness and justice for all -- especially in the minds and hearts of those targets who feel irrevocably tainted by them.

America also needs to rise to a new level of sophistication on the spying question. Sure, no question, China spies on the United States! Who doesn't? But it is certainly ridiculous to suppose that all Chinese-American scientists or officials with access to secrets are automatic spy suspects. Why is this distinction so difficult to comprehend for America?

The writer is a UCLA professor, and founder of the Asia Pacific Media Network, which organized the Cowan lecture, and to which The Straits Times is a founding member.

-- The Straits Times/Asia News Network