How Would Chinese-Americans Influence U.S.-China Relation

      How Would Chinese-Americans Influence U.S.-China Relation

耿莲 

上海政法学院    语言文化学院  上海  201701     

Abstract: Since Chinese Americans came to the US in 1840s, they have kept various strong transnational ties with their home country and their family left behind. This ties are economic, political, cultural and in other forms. This article aims to examine the political ties kept by Chinese Americans and the effects exerted on both China and US.

Key words: Chinese American; Transnational ties; Political ties; Effects

1 Chinese Americans’ Transnational Political Concern and Its Reasons

In recent years, ethnic groups that rarely had been involved in the articulation of U.S. foreign policy increasingly have focused on transnational interests. One such group is Chinese Americans. Although highly perse in ideological views, cultural identities, and social economic interests, Chinese Americans have expanded their involvement in China-related affairs in comparison with past experience and have become a new force that must be reckoned with. During the past two decades, Chinese American scholars have published important contributions related to U.S.-China relations in professional journals and books. Chinese scholars have served as go-betweens for Washington and Beijing. Some Chinese Americans have organized powerful lobbying campaigns. Chinese students, community activists, and representatives of dissent have appeared frequently on prime-time TV programs to offer their views concerning China-related issues. Organizations such as the Committee of 100(C-100), formed in 1990 by a group of prominent Chinese Americans striving to help improve U.S.-China relations, have been active in speaking out on issues of concern to Chinese Americans and in endeavoring to promote mutual understanding between the two countries.

Compared with the past, today’s globally connected society enables Chinese Americans to play more prominent part in shaping U.S. policy toward China and China’s policy toward the United States. At no other time in history have Chinese Americans been so active and articulate concerning relations between their adopted and former countries, so concerned about U.S. policy toward China, and so visible in the mainstream media regarding political affairs. U.S.-China relations have become a major political concern for many Chinese Americans.

One survey conducted by a Chinese American newspaper in New York during the 1996 presidential election, for instance, showed that 78 percent of Chinese Americans voters regarded candidates’ positions on U.S. policy toward China as an important consideration in deciding whom to vote for. 1 In 2000, Asian Americans increased their involvement in local and national elections. They organized a political action committee—the 80-20 Initiative—in an effort to convince 80 percent of all Asian Americans to vote as a bloc and elect a president deemed most attuned to their concerns. Members of the committee sent letters to the presidential nominees, asking them to address the specific concerns of Asian and Pacific Island Americans. These included immigration issues, racial profiling, the treatment of Wen Ho Lee and trading policies towards China. The fact that U.S.-China trade made the list suggests that U.S.-China relationships are a great concern of many Chinese Americans. When the presidential candidates responded, their comments were published in Chinese American newspapers and aired on ethnic televisions and radio stations，which attracted much attention from Chinese Americans.2 In recent years, moreover, Chinese American scholars and activists have participated extensively in debates over human rights in Chinese mainland, trade disputes, the U.S. role in China-Taiwan relations, and other transnational issues. Their talks on primetime TV programs and their works written from a Chinese perspective and published in mainstream newspapers and scholarly presses have helped shape U.S. elite and public opinions. 3

2 Transnational Improvement Associations

Besides the concerns for U.S.-China relations, Chinese Americans are taking actions to promote U.S.-China relations on both an associational and an inpidual basis. For example many Chinese Americans have engaged in associational activities directed toward the improvement of one or more aspects of China’s economic, social, and political conditions. Many transnational associations have been established to improve Chinese society as well as to promote mutual understanding between China and America. The 1990 Institute and the Committee of 100 are two famous and active ones among all the transnational improvement associations.

The 1990 Institute was formed by some Chinese Americans in San Francisco in 1990. Unlike those who supporting the idea of punishing China, the 1990 Institute sought a “nonpolitical” way to help the Chinese people. They diagnosed the turmoil of 1989 as a symptom of an insufficiently modern society. Therefore, they developed an organization to help China modernize. The Institute’s mission statement explains its purpose: “to enhance understanding of the economic and social problems that are impeding China’s modernization, and to contribute to the search for their solutions through independent, objective, and policy-oriented research for the benefit of people in China, and peace and prosperity of the world.” Under this mission stated, the 1990 Institute organized scholars from both China and America to make research on China’s economy and made a series of publications concerned with various aspects of China’s economy with an effort to offer solutions to China’s economic problems and promote economic reform. In 1993, the 1990 Institute published its first book China’s Economic Reform. Later it published a series of research monographs, each of which focused on one dimension of China’s reforms, which updated and expanded on the chapters in the first books. For example, it published Foreign Business Law in China: Past Progress & Future Challenges by Pitman Potter in 1995, China’s Ongoing Agricultural Reform by Colin Carter in 1996; and Fiscal Policy in China: Taxation and Intergovernmental Fiscal Problems by Roy Bahl in 1998, etc. Besides the publications based on research of China’s economy, the 1990 Institute has also sponsored, co-sponsored, or participated in many international conferences including some held in China. The topics of all these conferences were related with aspects of China’s reform. 4

Generally, the 1990 Institute’s agenda focuses on offering decision models for China’s policymakers and influencing China’s economic reform policies. Although it is difficult to tell how much effect The 1990 Institute has made in China’s economic reform and development, some of the economic-reform ideas set forth in The 1990 Institute’s publications found a receptive audience among China’s policymakers. In 1994, Chinese economist Wu Jinglian informed the Institute that Zhu Rongji, who served as Vice Premier of China at that time, had read

Institute Issue Paper No. 10, “Should China Tolerate High Inflation?” by Thomas Mayer. Wu reported that Zhu felt that this paper was very helpful and beneficial to this long term problem and should be read by more people in the academic and economic circles.5  

By their efforts to help Chinese economic reform through offering decision models for Chinese economic policymakers, members of The 1990 Institute aim to boost modernization of China so as to make it further integrated to international political and economic system, which enables China and America to have more common grounds for understanding and cooperation and decreases the chance of conflicts resulted from ideological disputes.

Another famous Chinese American Association is the Committee of 100 (C-100), which was founded in 1990 in New York. There is some relationship overlap between the two organizations and a substantial philosophical agreement about how to help China. However, C-100 has its own distinctive membership, target audience, mission and strategy. The most striking fact about the leadership of the Committee of 100 is their elite status. The chairman, Henry S. Tang, is the general manager and vice president of Salomon Brothers, Inc., a major investment-banking company. Among C-100 governors are Yo-Yo Ma and I.M. Pei, world famous musician and architect, respectively. Another governor, Shirley Yang, is a General Motors vice president, and former director Leeann Chin is a well-known and successful restaurateur. The Committee has a twofold mission. One part is domestic; the other, transnational. Government officials in the United States and China constitute its primary target audience. The domestic mission is to improve the environment for the full participation of Chinese Americans in all aspects of its life in the United States. And the transnational mission is to play a constructive role aimed at improving U.S.-China relations through serving as cultural ambassadors who can help each government better understand the motivations of the other 6

There are connections between the domestic mission and transnational missions of the Committee of 100. Despite the elite status of C-100 members, they find that there exist entrenched barriers to full participation by Chinese Americans in U.S. society—even the elites among them. Though Chinese Americans have higher entry rate to higher education institutions and professional positions, but they often encounter glass ceiling in terms of promotion and income compared with white Americans of the same education and professional skill background. A large part of the problems many Chinese Americans face, for example glass ceiling and racial prejudice, result from a largely popular perception and they are members of an alien group who lack the commitment to become loyal Americans. The three most prominent examples of the public perception toward Chinese Americans have been the Senate’s “Cox Report”(which implied all Chinese Americans are potential spies), sensational reporting of any illegal political fundraising involving Chinese Americans, and Wen Ho lee’s case of mishandling of Los Alamos nuclear secret. Further analysis of the cloud that hangs over Chinese Americans in particular makes clear the connection between the Committee’s domestic mission and its transnational mission. The mistrust towards Chinese Americans is a result of the U.S. government’s persistent suspicions of the PRC intensions over the last half-century from McCarthy Era to the Wen Ho Lee prosecution, which partly resulted from the misunderstanding and lack of communication between the two governments. Thus many elite Chinese Americans realize that they should make efforts to enhance the communication and understanding between U.S. and China so as to improve mutual relations, which can lead to the change of public perception of China and Chinese Americans and thus, help Chinese Americans to improve their social status.

With the twofold missions in mind, members of the Committee of 100 have made constant efforts to play a constructive role aimed at improving U.S.-China relations. From their Chinese American perspective, they seek to be cultural ambassadors who can help each government better understand the motivations of the other. Because of their elite social status, members of C-100 possess the social and political resources to help them open the doors to the halls of power in both the USA and the PRC. Committee members meet frequently with members of the legislative and executive branches of the U.S. government to share information and policy recommendations. For instance, following a 1994 trip to China, a small C-100 delegation met with White House National Security Council staff, Commerce Department officials, and Cabinet members to discuss the finding of their trip and the Wirthlin Report—a survey, co-sponsored by the Committee, that compared the attitudes of Hong Kong residents to those of Americans regarding the impending reunification of Hong Kong with China. This survey found that the majority of Americans who knew about the impending change assumed that the people of Hong Kong were worried about their future, while the majority of Hong Kong residents expressed their confidence about the changeover.

44 In contacts with Chinese leaders, C-100 members promote a peaceful solution to Taiwan issue, expanded cultural and economic relations with the United States, and bilateral collaboration on global defense and environmental issues.45 The Committee is well connected at the top—both in China and in the United States. It hosted a luncheon and “firstside chat” for President Jiang Zemin during his visit to the United States, and members have met periodically with other PRC leaders.7 Their knowledge and credibility also encourage the leader in both the United States and China to see them as helpful intermediaries, which enables the claims of the Committee to exert influence in U.S.-China relations.

The activities of these associations led by Chinese Americans who aim to improve U.S.-China relations through enhancing mutual understanding and cooperation are important complement to the official diplomatic activities by both governments. Though the effects of these nongovernmental activities are not so obvious, but their efforts to enhance mutual understanding and cooperation can improve the mutual perception by people in China and America as well as shape the governmental policy. By involving in the transnational political activities, Chinese Americans show American government their advantage to serve as intermediary roles between two countries with different ideology and long history of mutual mistrust. This will help Chinese Americans improve their image in the mind of American public and enable more competent Chinese Americans gain access to mainstream American politics.

Notes:

1. Joe Chung Fong, “Transnational Newspapers: The making of the Post-1965 Globalized/Localized San Gabriel Valley Chinese Community,”America Journal 22, No.3 (1996): 65-67
2. “Asian American Group Backs Gore for President,”Los Angeles Times, 28 August 2000, p.B1
3. Peter H. Koehn and Xiao-huang Yin, “Chinese American Transnationalism and U.S.-China Relations: Presence and Promise for Trans-Pacific Century” in the Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations: Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions, ed. By Peter H. Koehn and Xiao-huang Yin (New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 2002), p. xxii.
4. Norton Wheeler, “Improving Mainland Society and U.S.-China Relations” in the Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in U.S.-China Relations: Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions, ed. By Peter H. Koehn and Xiao-huang Yin (New York: M. E. Sharpe, Inc., 2002), p.188