The Committee for Rational Relations with China

The Committee for Rational Relations with China was formed in 1995 by George Koo and Lester Lee, two prominent members of the Chinese-American community. Other members include David Lam, Norm Matloff, David Sturdevant, Ron Unz and Vince Vasconi. Our group pursues the goal of facilitating U.S.-Chinese relations in a manner beneficial to both Chinese and American societies.

While we ourselves may be among China's strongest critics on certain human-rights and other issues, at the same time we believe that the American press and government have often engaged in unfair "China-bashing," holding China to much higher standards than those applied to American allies, and indeed higher than the standards the U.S. aplies to itself.

It is particularly unfortunate that much of the American rhetoric toward China is resented by the Chinese people themselves, both those in China and also many Chinese-Americans. A case in point is that of U.S. congressional threats to revoke China's Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status. While we Americans certainly have the right to weigh the positive and negative economic impacts of trade with China (say issues like the trade deficit or U.S. access to Chinese markets), it is dishonest and manipulative to call for restrictions on China trade on the grounds that such restrictions are aimed at helping the Chinese populace. Even the prominent China critic Orville Schell has stated that most people in China oppose such restrictions, and this sentiment has been echoed repeatedly in polls of Chinese foreign students in the U.S., immigrants who come to the U.S. from China, and so on.

The membership of the committee is:

• George Koo, CEO of International Strategic Alliances and Human Relations Commissioner of the City of Mountain View, CA.

• David Lam, founder of Lam Research (david@davidlam.com).

• David Lee, CEO of CMC Industries and a current member of the Board of Regents of the University of California.

• Lester Lee (), CEO of Recortec and a former member of the Board of Regents of the University of California.

• Norm Matloff, Professor of Computer Science, University of California at Davis and a longtime active participant in the Chinese-American community.

• David Sturdevant, venture capitalist.

• Ron Unz, CEO of Wall Street Analytics.

• Vince Vasconi, retired consultant.

• George Koo's article in the Harvard International Review describes the improvements, both economic and political, in the daily lives of Chinese citizens during the past 10 years. While fully acknowledging that China still has a long way to go in achieving U.S. levels in these areas, Dr. Koo's point is that the U.S. media's portrayal of China is highly distorted.

  Dr. Koo has written a number of op-ed pieces for AsianWeek, the nation's leading weekly on Asian-American issues.

  Also here is Dr. Koo's Chinese Community Forum article.

  A letter to Dr. Koo from a Chinese immigrant shows views which CRRC asserts are typical among immigrant Chinese-Americans.

• Norman Matloff's AsianWeek article chronicles the plight of Dr. Raymond Luh, a Chinese immigrant engineer who lost his federal government job and his career because of the hysteria caused by excessive China-bashing in the U.S. press and Congress, especially Rep. Nancy Pelosi.

  Also here is the expose' by Professor Matloff of Rep. Nancy Pelosi's coercion of the students from China in the U.S. regarding her MFN bill.

  In addition, here is the invited presentation by Dr. Matloff at the forum on U.S. Policy Towards China, December 2, 1995, moderated by the San Jose Mercury News.

Some significant newspaper and magazine articles, and so on:

• Sing Tao Daily poll, conducted by Dr. Matloff for Sing Tao. This newspaper is one of the two largest Chinese dailies in North America. In this reader survey, 80% of the respondents said that they were opposed to congressional proposals to revoke China's Most Favored Nation trading status.

• China News Digest poll. CND is a free, independent electronic news service, read mainly by students and scholars from China who are studying in the U.S. and other foreign countries. As will the Sing Tao poll above, this survey again showed that most Chinese students and scholars studying abroad oppose congressional proposals to revoke China's Most Favored Nation trading status.

• An excellent column by Bill Wong chiding the U.S. media and politicians for their often sensationalizing and self-serving China-bashing. Wong, an American native of Chinese descent, is a long-time Bay Area journalist and former commentator for the MacNeil-Lehrer Newshour. Wong writes, "As China's adaptation of a limited market economy has given rise to a remarkable economic story, the elite press has helped paint a menacing China portrait with myopic reports that carry headlines like these: `Plague Ravages Taiwan Pigs and Many Blame China,' `Foreign Monsters, False Alarms/Why the new China lobby spooks Americans,' and `Searching for an Enemy and Finding China.' He describes the American press coverage of China as having "taken on an air of hysteria."

• A New York Times book review of "Troublemaker", by Harry Wu, which notes that Wu is not widely supported by Chinese people, including by fellow dissidents. (Note: To access this page, you need to register for the New York Times online service, which is free of charge.)

• A white paper on U.S.-China relations by the Committee of 100. This organization consists of prominent Chinese-Americans such as architect I.M. Pei, author Amy Tan, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, educator Chang-Lin Tien, scientist David Ho, sculptor and architect Maya Lin, and Washington state governor Gary Locke. The committee notes in its white paper that

  [t]he Committee of 100, with the bicultural background of its membership, has a unique perspective on U.S.-China issues. This bicultural perspective, we believe, sheds much light on the origins of and the solutions to some of the misunderstandings that periodically threaten the relationship between the two countries.

  The paper makes a number of points similar to those made by us in the CRRC.

• A report on a visit to UCLA by Tiananmen Square protest leader Wang Dan. When Wang was asked whether he supports the U.S. imposing trade sanctions on China to pressure China to comply with U.S. human rights goals, Wang stated that he was opposed to such sanctions. To dramatize his point, he even mentioned to the audience that he was wearing a shirt made in China.

• An insightful policy paper by the Progressive Policy Institute, the research arm of the centrist Democratic Leadership Council, founded by Pres. Bill Clinton.

• A San Francisco Examiner profile of Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Congress' leading critic of China. CRRC members Koo and Matloff are quoted here, disputing Pelosi's claim to support the Chinese people.

• A San Francisco Examiner article describing Chinese-American support for Pres. Clinton's June 1998 trip to China, a trip which received strong criticism from Pelosi and various other members of Congress.

• A New Republic article by Peter Beinart, on the views of Chinese-Americans regarding China and U.S. policy toward China. CRRC members Koo, (Lester) Lee and Matloff are quoted. Beinart correctly points out that

  America's emerging conflict with the dictatorship of China differs from America's decades-long conflict with the dictatorships of the Soviet bloc in many ways, but among the least heralded is the different role being played by Americans of Chinese descent. During the cold war, denouncing communist Poland was a sure vote-getter in Chicago, and in Miami, candidates had to practically declare war on Cuba...But confronting China on human rights won't win you votes in the Bay area. Perhaps the biggest reason is nationalism. China's rise has heartened those Chinese-Americans with close ties to East Asia (and since two-thirds of Chinese-Americans were born in China, Taiwan or Hong Kong, most have close ties)...most ChineseAmericans don't see Jiang Zemin as illegitimate in the way Cuban-Americans see Fidel Castro as illegitimate.

  However, the article unfortunately goes on to suggest that money (in the form of profits made in China trade by some Chinese-Americans), not nationalism, is the main force at work here. This is obviously false---does Beinart think, for example, that all the thousands of Bay Area Chinese who signed a petition supporting holding the 2000 Olympics in Beijing (contrary to American policy) were China traders?

• A Prism magazine article with a similar theme to Beinart's piece. Here CRRC member Koo is interviewed on the subject of Harry Wu, and Wu is quoted in reply. Also quoted is San Francisco radio talk show host Edward Liu, who gives an interesting example of the double standard the U.S. applies to prison labor: "Prison labor in China? Who makes the license plates in California."

• A long op-ed piece by Fan Shidong, a Chinese dissident and former prisoner who is highly critical of Harry Wu. The Chinese Community Forum, a nonpartisan Internet newsletter, introduces Fan's article as follows: "As the world's foremost crusader against the `Laogai' system, Harry Wu presents himself a daring vanguard of Chinese prisoners' human rights. He is, however, challenged at several fronts by many who question his true motivation and credibility. Here we present the first half of an article by Mr. Fan Shidong [presented in full on this Web page--NM], who had been charged with penning dissident political views and meeting American Consulate Officials to give political intelligence, and had spent 12 years in jail between 1983 to 1994."

  Related to Fan's essay is an article by Shao Dan of the Chinese-language World Journal. She received an award from the New California Media in 1999 for this article.

Opposing viewpoints: Though CRRC asserts that its moderate view of China is representative of what immigrant Chinese-Americans feel, there are several organizations founded primarly by immigrant Chinese-Americans who have views opposite those of CRRC, such as the following.

• The Independent Federation of Chinese Students and Scholars. Though founded by foreign students studying in U.S. universities, a large portion of its membership has now become U.S. permanent residents, some even naturalized citizens. The IFCSS has strongly supported Rep. Pelosi's proposals to revoke China's MFN status. However, when Chinese dissident Harry Wu, who is controversial among the immigrant Chinese community, was arrested on a trip to China, the IFCSS was not active in pressing for his release, in contrast to SVDC (see below).

• Silicon Valley for Democracy in China. CRRC member Lester Lee was one of the founder of SVDC, but since that time has found that SVDC's views diverge widely from his own.

• Harry Wu's Laogai Research Foundation. A number of Mr. Wu's testimonies to Congress appear here, as well as much other information.

• From: Wendy Abraham
  Subject: Mandarin Interpreter Needed October 7th

  Dear Friends,

  On October 7th from 4-6 P.M. APARC and CEAS will be co-sponsoring a talk by a Chinese dissident on the PRC prison system, to be moderated by Prof. Stanley Lubman. (Further details will appear in the Weekly Newsletter.) We are now looking for someone to act as interpreter for the 2 hours, and have set aside some funds for that purpose.

  Please get in touch with me as soon as possible if you or anyone you know, would be interested. Thanks.

  Wendy Abraham

  P.S. - The first CEAS Weekly Newsletter of the season will begin the week of September 21st. We will also be sending everyone a copy of the Fall '98 East Asia Events and Lectures brochure that week as well, which will give you a good overview of what's being planned all around campus this quarter.