EF "took the point" to defend the Chinese American community against the unfair allegations of the Hoover Institute Report. Our community and fair-minded compatriots responded. Together, we got the job done.
80-20 EF's Leadership Made the Difference
We urged attendance. Result? The 160 seat capacity hall was filled to standing room only.
There were 4 panelists. Two were authors of the HI Report, Larry Diamond and Elizabeth Economy. Two were very well-known China hands, Prof. Gordon Chang and David Mike Lampton. Both are also with the Stanford Univ. The two authors of course defended what they did. But the two neutral panelists criticized the report severely.
For you to get a feeling of the critiques stated by the two guest panelists &
a sense of their impact on the to-be-revised-version of HI Report, I'll give you
a summary of what Chang and Lampton each said, interspersed with Diamond's CONCLUDING response to their criticism.
Chang: Prof. Chang was openly critical of the tone and accuracy of the report. For example, he conferred with the folks in charge of the Confucius Institute at Stanford. They could not substantiate any of the accusations in the HI Report alleging nefarious activities in the Confucius Institute. He thought the report was a gross distortion of the relations between China and the US.
Diamond:
"Let me say, Gordon, I've taken very careful notes, and I'd welcome the chance
to get together with you, and go through it in greater detail....we don't want to say things that are wrong by assertion or implication...so, we want to address that and I appreciate your candor here. I will say there are many Chinese Americans who have approached us and thanked us, and that have concerns about this..I'm not going to name them, but some of them are very prominent in the Chinese American community...and they are worried about what they see as rising interference and pressure, and in some cases intimidation, and what it could mean for the Chinese American community going forward in the United States...so I just need to say that, we need to obviously proceed with the tone and documentation that doesn't contribute to what we want to avoid, and I take that to heart." (emphasis added)
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D. Mike Lampton: Dr. Lampton thought the report did not distinguish facts from non-facts, legitimate from illegitimate activities, when China is acting as provocateur from reacting to outside provocation. The report lacks balance and has put a target on the back of every member of the Chinese diaspora.
(emphasis added)
Diamond:
"I think Mike really said it very well, I spend a lot of time in my forthcoming book making the same point, that our biggest asset is our openness, our democratic values, our pluralism as a society, if we govern ourselves properly, those were
your words...I emphatically endorse that, Mike, I'll say again" (emphasis added)
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Former Sec. of Energy Steven Chu also critiqued the HI Report
Sec. Chu stood up and stated that the policy that the HI Report was advocating would drive out most of the top talents in science and technology who are of Chinese descent. So the HI Report was not balanced, since it didn't mention the "opportunity cost" to our nation. To which Mr. Diamond replied that what "Secretary Chu outlined is very justifiably (something we are) worried about."
Mr. Diamond ended his concluding remarks by pointing all the mistakes to China's recent changes. He said, "... we want to pre-empt the dangers."
Might Mr. Diamond have instead pre-emptively created dangers for the Ch-Am community, the U.S.A. for driving out a huge portion of its much needed STEM talents, and the world for his frenzy about BIG POWER politics?
The panel discussion on Feb. 14 at Hoover Institute is not as worthy. The panelists will all be authors of the HI Report plus a graduate student. However,
there is follow-up work to do. Is Mr. Diamond really going to significant revise
that report? If he doesn't then the HI Report will remain the least scholarly report ever written by a group of 32 China hands.
On behalf of the 80-20 EF Board, I want to thank all of you for your great help in turning back this threat. Don't relax. Things will likely get even worse, as we've repeatedly warned you since many months ago.
S. B. Woo
President and a volunteer for the past 20 years
80-20 Educational Foundation, Inc, a 501 C-3 organization,
Lieutenant Governor of Delaware (1985-89)
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