SupChina.com: “Calls to end ‘China Initiative’ intensify after Anming Hu acquittal”
“The intentions behind the China Initiative might have served a purpose, but the program that is the China Initiative is a racial profiling witch hunt for theater and show that is ruining careers and turning peoples’ lives upside down.”
Calls to abolish the Trump-era China Initiative are escalating following the acquittal earlier this month of Anming Hu, a Canadian scientist at the University of Tennessee who was accused of wire fraud and making false statements.
On Tuesday, the Committee of 100, with attorney and South Texas College of Law Visiting Scholar Andrew Kim, published a study that analyzed 190 court filings from 1996 to 2020 under the Economic Espionage Act (EEA), the act under which espionage-related cases brought forward by the China Initiative would be charged. The research shows that 1 in 4 Asian Americans charged under the EEA were never convicted with a crime. The study also found that since 2009, a majority of people accused of spying were of Asian descent, and that people with Asian names received harsher punishments.
The numbers “give a distorted view of threats to the U.S. economy, both foreign and domestic,” Kim said, adding that “an overzealous rush” to target Chinese espionage in recent years could have led to implicit bias.
The new data is the latest development among growing calls to end the China Initiative — implemented by then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions in November 2018 to address Chinese economic espionage in the U.S. — among lawmakers, academics, lawyers, and activists who say it is fueling racial bias and profiling of Asian-American researchers and faculty. Last week, a group of 177 Stanford University faculty made public a letter asking U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland to terminate it.
“In recent years, the China Initiative (and some other actions of the federal government) have created an increasingly hostile atmosphere for Chinese Americans, visitors, and immigrants of Chinese origin, which has already discouraged many scholars from coming to or staying in the U.S. This seriously hampers our efforts to recruit the best Chinese students and postdoctoral scholars,” the Stanford letter states.
This summer, 90 other members of Congress signed a letter asking Garland for an investigation into the targeting of people of Asian descent under the initiative, and an update to department-wide implicit bias training.
“Chinese Americans are fearful,” said Lucca Wang, English communications director of United Chinese Americans (UCA). Wang says the initiative has only caused increased anxiety at a time when two-thirds of Americans have “cold feelings” toward China, and anti-Asian hate crimes in the U.S. have skyrocketed.
“Chinese professors feel the FBI is doing surveillance on their campuses. They were targeted without cause except that they are Chinese,” Wang said. “The professors are selecting projects or grants to avoid any potential connection with China, which has limited their funding sources or interest.”
Read more at https://supchina.com/2021/09/22/calls-to-end-china-initiative-intensify-after-anming-hu-acquittal/.
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United Chinese Americans (UCA) is a national nonprofit organization with the mission to empower all Chinese Americans. UCA encourages civic participation, political engagement, youth education, and the preservation of Chinese American heritage and culture. Incorporated in 2016 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., UCA is a fast-growing organization with 12 local chapters and over 30 community partners across nearly all 50 States. UCA activities have included: Food of Love, Town Halls, Youth Education and Mental Health initiatives, and more. To learn more about UCA, please visit https://ucausa.org/, and follow UCA on WeChat, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, and LinkedIn.
United Chinese Americans (UCA) 是一个全国性的非营利性组织，其使命是为所有美国华人争取权利。UCA鼓励公民参与政治，促进青少年教育以及保护中华传统文化。UCA总部设在Washington D.C., 在全美50个州拥有12个地方分会和30多个社区合作伙伴。UCA的活动包括但不限于：Food of Love, Town Halls, Youth Education and Mental Health Initiatives. UCA于2016年正式成立。了解更多关于UCA的信息，请访问：http://ucausa.org/, 并在微信，Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Youtube和LinkedIn上关注UCA.