[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 37 (Thursday, March 20, 1997)]
[Senate]
[Pages S2619-S2624]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




      ASIAN-AMERICANS AND THE POLITICAL FUNDRAISING INVESTIGATION

  Mr. AKAKA. Mr. President, as we prepare for hearings on campaign 
fundraising irregularities, I would like to express concern about the 
negative impact that this issue is having on the image of the Asian-
American community.
  Mr. President, Asian-Americans are an important part of our body 
politic. They have made significant contributions to politics, 
business, industry, science, sports, education, and the arts. Men and 
women like Senator Dan Inouye, Kristy Yamaguchi, Tommy Kono, I.M. Pei, 
David Henry Hwang, An Wang, and Ellison Onizuka have enhanced and 
invigorated the life of the Nation.
  Indeed, Asian-Americans have played a fundamental part in making this 
country what it is today. Asian immigrants helped build the great 
transcontinental railroads of the 19th century. They labored on the 
sugar plantations of Hawaii, on the vegetable and fruit farms of 
California, and in the gold mines of the West. They were at the 
forefront of the agricultural labor movement, especially in the 
sugarcane and grape fields, and were instrumental in developing the 
fishing and salmon canning industries of the Pacific Northwest. They 
were importers, merchants, grocers, clerks, tailors, and gardeners. 
They manned the assembly lines during America's Industrial Revolution. 
They operated laundries, restaurants, and vegetable markets. They also 
served our Nation in war: the famed all-nisei 100th/442d combat team of 
World War II remains the most decorated unit in U.S. military history.
  Despite their historical contributions, Asian immigrants and Asian-
Americans have suffered social prejudice and economic, political, and 
institutional discrimination. They were excluded from churches, barber 
shops, and restaurants. They were forced to sit in the balconies of 
movie theaters and the back seats of buses. They were required to 
attend segregated schools. They were even denied burial in white 
cemeteries--in one instance, a decorated Asian-American soldier killed 
in action was refused burial in his hometown cemetery. Rather than 
receive equal treatment, Asians on the whole were paid lower wages than 
their white counterparts, relegated to menial jobs, or forced to turn 
to businesses and industries in which competition with whites was 
minimized.
  For more than 160 years, Asians were also refused citizenship by a 
law that

[[Page S2620]]

denied their right to naturalize, a law that remained in effect until 
1952. Without citizenship, Asians could not vote, and thus could not 
seek remedies through the Tammany Halls or other political 
organizations as did other immigrant groups. The legacy of this 
injustice is seen today in the relative lack of political influence and 
representation of Asian-Americans at every level and in every branch of 
government.
  Additionally, Asians were denied immigration rights. The Chinese 
Exclusion Act of 1882 singled out Chinese on a racial basis, and the 
Gentlemen's Agreement of 1908 and the National Origins Act of 1924 
prohibited Japanese immigration--while permitting the annual entry of 
thousands of immigrants from Ireland, Italy, and Poland. The 1924 law 
also allowed European immigrants to bring their wives from their 
homelands, but barred the entry of women from China, Japan, Korea, and 
India. Even Asians who were United States citizens were prohibited from 
bringing Asian wives into the country. Conversely, the 1922 Cable Act 
provided that any American woman who married an Asian would lose her 
citizenship. It was not until the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act 
eliminated immigration by national origins that the vestiges of these 
legal restrictions were lifted.
  Asians were also targeted by laws prohibiting them from owning 
property. The alien land laws passed by California and other Western 
and Southern States earlier this century, fostered by nativists and 
envious competitors, placed heavy obstacles in the path of struggling 
Asian immigrants and their children that were not faced by others.
  Perhaps most egregiously, Asians were denied civil rights guaranteed 
under the Constitution. The relocation of Asian-Americans from the west 
coast and Hawaii and their detention in internment camps between 1941 
and 1946 is one of the worst civil rights violation in our history. One 
hundred twenty thousand men, women, and children of Japanese descent, 
two-thirds of them citizens, were incarcerated behind barbed wire 
fences, without due process or evidence of wrongdoing, under the grim 
view of machine gun towers. German-Americans or Italian-Americans did 
not suffer a similar fate. In the process, Americans of Asian ancestry 
were torn from their friends, their loved ones, their property, and 
their faith in the American dream. It was only in 1988, through 
legislation sponsored by Senator Inouye, Senator Stevens, and others 
who serve in this body today, that the U.S. Government officially 
apologized for this injustice.
  The reasons for historical prejudice and discrimination against 
Asians are complex, often involving economic or political motives. For 
example, at one time European immigrant labor groups felt threatened by 
cheap Asian labor and staged strikes and acts of violence against 
Asians. Employers cultivated such ethnic antagonism as a stratagem to 
depress wages for all workers, Asian and European. Nativists used 
Asians as a foil for their racist philosophies. Politicians cynically 
exploited anti-Asian sentiment to maintain power. And the press used 
the ``Yellow Peril'', the specter of unlimited ``oriental'' 
immigration, to sell papers. But at heart, the reasons for anti-Asian 
practices remain far simpler: Asians looked different, they 
had accents, they worshipped different gods. They came from cultures 
and spoke languages that were beyond the narrow experience of 
traditional, white America.

  Thus, Asians and Asian-Americans were targets. Unlike other 
contemporaneous immigrants--Irish, Italians, Poles, Jews--Asians stood 
out; they could not blend into the majority white population. Asians 
were naturally suspect for their skin color and appearance: they looked 
different so many Americans believed they must be different; that is to 
say, somehow less than true-blooded American. In many instances, the 
reaction of Asians was to turn inward, to establish their own 
communities or ghettoes, like Chinatown or Japantown, or turn to small 
businesses or farms where they did not have to compete for employment 
against Caucasians--further isolating and insulating their communities 
from the rest of American society.
  In time, however, Asians became more integrated in American life. The 
progeny of immigrants were born citizens, spoke only English, watched 
television and went to the movies, danced to the latest music, and felt 
they earned their place in society through workplace contributions and 
military service. As they assimilated, Asian-Americans enjoyed success 
in many areas of endeavor; in fact, they have been so successful that 
Asian-Americans have been cited as the ``model minority.'' Today, 
Asian-Americans tend to have high educational achievement, some are 
prominent in business and the professions, and they have been cited by 
social scientists for having community spirit, a sense of fiscal 
responsibility, and a strong work ethic.
  But the model minority image is mythical in many respects. On 
average, Asian-Americans earn less than Caucasians. There is a 
significant income disparity between Asians and whites with equal 
education. Asian-Americans also tend to be located in secondary labor 
markets, where wages are low and prospects minimal, and occupy lower or 
technical positions, where income potential is not as great as in the 
executive ranks. Proportionately fewer Asian-Americans are managers 
than is the case with other population groups; they constitute less 
than half of 1 percent of the officers and directors of the Nation's 
thousand largest companies. In corporate America, Asian-Americans have 
their own ``glass ceiling.''
  In addition, many Americans mistakenly view the successful 
assimilation of more established, affluent groups such as Chinese-
Americans and Japanese-Americans as the community norm. They do not 
realize that the community is extremely diverse in terms of ethnicity 
and recency of immigration. The more recent arrivals from Southeast 
Asia--for example, Vietnamese, Thais, Cambodians, Laotians--have 
significantly lower levels of income, education, and occupational 
advancement.

  Perhaps because of their success, perceived and otherwise, Asian-
Americans continue to suffer for their minority status. They are 
periodically targets of hate crimes. The 1982 baseball bat killing of 
Vincent Chin in Detroit, a scapegoat for the Detroit auto industry's 
inability to compete with Japan, illustrated America's ignorance about 
Asian-Americans--Chin was of Chinese, not Japanese, heritage--and the 
inequality of justice for Asian-Americans--the killers paid a fine of 
$3,780 and never served jail time. In 1987, teenagers chanting, 
``Hindu, Hindu,'' beat a young Indian-American to death. These are not 
isolated incidents. Last year, a report by the National Asian Pacific 
American Legal Consortium found that hate crimes against Asian Pacific-
Americans grew from 335 incidents in 1993 to 458 incidents in 1995, a 
37 percent increase in just two years.
  These violent incidents have been paralleled and surely fed by a 
growing national xenophobia. The fear of things foreign has manifested 
itself in cutbacks in international programs; the growth of the English 
only movement; and the passage of California's proposition 187 and 
Federal legislation to curtail social services to undocumented aliens 
and legal residents. Fear of Asians and other minorities is also seen 
in proposals to rollback minority language provisions of the Voting 
Rights Act and in broadbased attacks on affirmative action in 
education, employment, and contracting.
  I recall that only a few years ago, during the height of the debate 
over the budget deficit, much was made of the fact that a significant 
portion of our debt was held by Japan, but overlooked was the fact that 
both the British and Dutch had far greater investments in United States 
debt and property than the Japanese. Likewise, Japanese purchases of 
signature properties like Pebble Beach and Rockefeller Center received 
sensationalized coverage, but few stories traced the decline and 
eventual sale of these high-profile investments to other owners.
  Today, with the hype and hoopla surrounding Asians and Asian-
Americans involved in the fundraising controversy, we see hints of the 
kinds of anti-Asian treatment that have been practiced in the past.
  The first and most obvious of these is the inappropriate and 
misguided attention paid by the media, commentators, and public figures 
to the ethnic heritage of those involved in the fundraising

[[Page S2621]]

controversy. For example, an early Washington Post front page headline 
trumpeted an ``Asian Funds Network.'' However, upon a careful 
examination of the article, the reader found the article was 
principally concerned with Asian-Americans, not Asians. Clearly, in 
some quarters, ``Asian'' and ``Asian-American'' are synonymous, unlike 
the case with Europeans and European-Americans. In fact, the term 
``European'' Americans is rarely heard in public discourse, because the 
ethnic origin of European Americans is not presumed to have a bearing 
on their patriotism.

  Despite the fact that Asian-Americans have paid taxes, lived and 
worked here for several generations, and died in military service, a 
different standard applies: Asian-Americans are still deemed to have an 
extraordinary, perhaps sinister, connection to their countries of 
origin.
  Mr. President, I think that I speak for the entire Asian-American 
community in expressing the hope that we can get to the bottom of this 
whole controversy, wherever the cards may fall. Those responsible for 
violations of laws or improper conduct should be identified and 
appropriately dealt with by the relevant authorities. However, I know 
that Asian-Americans also agree that the gratuitous attention to the 
heritage and citizenship of John Huang and other fundraisers is unjust 
and destructive. According to the press and others, John Huang isn't 
simply a DNC fundraiser or even an Asian-American fundraiser; rather, 
he is referred to as a ``Taiwan-born naturalized citizen with ties to 
an Indonesian conglomerate'' or, worse, ``an ethnic Chinese with 
overseas connections.''
  Last fall, during an appearance at the University of Pennsylvania, 
Presidential candidate Ross Perot erroneously referred to John Huang as 
an ``Indonesian businessman.'' Later, alluding to the fundraising 
controversy, Mr. Perot rhetorically asked his audience, ``Wouldn't you 
like to have someone out there named O'Reilly? Out there hard at work. 
You know, so far we haven't found an American name.'' The implication 
of these and other characterizations is that being Asian and 
naturalized, rather than of European stock and native born, somehow 
renders one less American.
  Mr. President, this hyphenation or qualification of citizenship 
status is one of the subtle ways in which Asian-Americans are cast as 
different and therefore suspicious. To some, Asians and Asian-Americans 
are the Fu Manchus of Hollywood legend--evil, cunning, and inscrutable 
Easterners who march in lockstep to some hidden agenda. According to 
this view, being of Filipino or Thai or Pakistani heritage is all the 
same--if your skin is yellow or brown, you are alleged to share certain 
invidious characteristics of your race; your individualism fades into a 
kind of monolithic group identity.
  Thus, all Asians and Asian-Americans are, by extension, responsible 
for John Huang's or Charlie Trie's or Johnny Chung's alleged misdeeds. 
Furthermore, goes this circular reasoning, since it is accepted that 
Asians lack individualism, John Huang, Charlie Trie, and Johnny Chung 
must be part of an Asian conspiracy.

  A columnist for the New York Times played on this stereotype when, in 
a series of editorials last year, he wrote of the ``penetration of the 
White House by Asian interests'' and characterized John Huang as ``the 
well-subsidized Lippo operative placed high inside Clinton Commerce.'' 
The columnist also referred to an ``Asian connection'' which provided 
contributions through ``front men with green cards.'' Even the 
respected Wall Street Journal described some of John Huang's donations 
as coming from ``people with tenuous connections to this country,'' 
although it is unclear whether it was referring to Asian residents or 
Asian-Americans.
  A more recent manifestation of this stereotype can be found on this 
week's cover of the National Review, which depicts President Clinton 
and Mrs. Clinton with slanted eyes, buckteeth, and wearing a coolie hat 
and Mao cap, respectively, over the headline, ``The Manchurian 
Candidates.'' This is a true low for reporting standards, more 
reminiscent of William Randolph Hearst's Yellow Press than of modern 
journalism. Some irresponsible publications, in the interests of 
sensationalism, are obviously more than willing to conflate racist 
stereotypes with modern standards of objective journalism. The 
President, Mrs. Clinton, and the Asian-American community are owed an 
apology for this gross affront to decency and taste.
  Mr. President, a second major fallout of the fundraising affair is 
the impression fostered by the media and commentators that legal Asian-
American participation in the political process is illegitimate. 
Charges of undue influence on the part of the Asian-American community 
have been raised with regard to immigration policy, specifically, the 
``fourth preference'' category that allows siblings of citizens to 
immigrate.
  The press makes much of the fact that Asian-Americans who are 
concerned about this matter also contributed money to the campaign. 
Certainly Asian-Americans, the majority of whom are immigrants, wish to 
be reunited with their families. However, it is improper to imply that 
contributions to political campaigns by Asian-Americans should be held 
to a higher standard or any more suspect than contributions by other 
Americans. This is tantamount to suggesting that the practice of giving 
to political campaigns should be limited only to non-Asians.
  A third troublesome impact of the fundraising allegations is the 
overhasty and excessive reaction to the issue of legal contributions by 
permanent residents. In the wake of the ``Asian donor'' story, 
proposals have been made to eliminate their eligibility to make 
political contributions. Alarmed by the public fallout of the 
controversy, the Clinton administration and the Democratic National 
Committee have preemptively decided not to accept contributions from 
permanent residents or U.S. subsidiaries of foreign corporations. And a 
number of Members of Congress have returned contributions made by 
permanent residents who are Asian, not because the contributions were 
illegal but because they feared the public's reaction to their 
accepting ``Asian'' money.

  Mr. President, I acknowledge that there are legitimate concerns 
regarding the wisdom of allowing permanent residents to make 
contributions to political campaigns, apart from the possibility that 
proscribing such contributions may violate the free speech rights 
accorded all residents, citizens and aliens alike, by the Constitution. 
As my colleagues know, the Supreme Court has held that campaign 
contributions are an activity protected by the first amendment, and 
that the first amendment rights of legal residents are fully protected.
  In this instance, however, I am more concerned by the possibility 
that the only reason why campaign contributions by permanent residents 
has become an issue now is because, for the first time, Asians and 
Asian-Americans happen to be involved in a major way. Evidence of this 
perhaps can be seen in the DNC's private audit of supposedly suspect 
contributions.
  Reportedly, DNC auditors asked Asian-American donors whether they 
were citizens, how they earn their money, if they would provide their 
tax returns, and other intrusive questions, while threatening to tell 
the press if the donors did not cooperate. Some of the Asian-Americans 
contacted were longtime political contributors with impeccable 
reputations, who were naturally outraged. The DNC audit clearly smacked 
of selective harassment of those who happened to have Asian surnames; 
it underscores the Asian-American community's fear that they are being 
asked to pay for the alleged transgressions of a handful of individuals 
who happen to be of Asian heritage.
  Mr. President, a fourth major concern of the fundraising affair is 
that it has undermined Asian-American leadership opportunities in 
Government. According to some analyses, the fundraising affair impelled 
the Clinton administration to drop from consideration the names of 
University of California-Berkeley Chancellor Chang-Lin Tien and former 
U.S. Congressman Norm Mineta for the positions of Secretary of Energy 
and Secretary of Transportation, respectively. Thus far, no Asian-
American has ever held Cabinet rank, and only a handful are represented 
in the senior ranks of Government.

[[Page S2622]]

  Furthermore, I would not be surprised to learn that every Asian-
American candidate for political appointment is currently being 
scrutinized for contacts he or she may have had, no matter how 
innocent, with the Asian and Asian-American principals in the 
fundraising investigation. As a consequence, I greatly fear that 
promising Asian-American candidates for responsible Federal office will 
fall by the wayside, victims of guilt by association.
  A fifth and perhaps most serious impact of the fundraising story, 
however, is its long-term effect on Asian-American participation in the 
political process. Last year, a record 75,000 Asian-Americans 
registered to vote, a sign of the Asian-American community's newfound 
confidence and political maturity. I am deeply concerned that biased 
scrutiny of Asians and Asian-Americans by the press, politicians, and 
investigators will kill this initial flowering of a historically 
quiescent and apolitical community, a flowering that led to the 
historic election of an Asian-American to governorship of a mainland 
State.
  Will this scandal confirm Asian-Americans' fears that the system is 
rigged against them, discouraging them from participating in the 
development of public policy in a meaningful way? If so, this would be 
tragic for a community that is by far the fastest growing in the 
Nation, which is expected to comprise 7 percent of the population by 
2020, and which has so many skills and experiences to offer our 
country. This tragedy would be compounded for those immigrants recently 
escaped from the yoke of authoritarianism, who might find the 
consequences of political activism reminiscent of the penalties 
experienced in their countries of origin.
  In conclusion, Mr. President, as we investigate the fundraising 
affair, let us remember the bigotry, prejudice, and discrimination 
faced by Asian immigrants and Asian-Americans as they struggled for 
acceptance in the New World. Let us recall how they overcame steep 
social, economic, and institutional barriers to become valuable, 
contributing members of society.
  With this in mind, Mr. President, let us keep our attention on 
matters of substance--the laws that were possibly broken, the processes 
and procedures that were bent, the individuals who circumvented or 
corrupted the system, and most of all what we can do to prevent abuses 
in the future. These are the real issues at hand.
  By the same token, Mr. President, let us avoid focusing on such 
irrelevancies as the ethnicity of the participants in this affair. Let 
us cease characterizing individuals by meretricious stereotypes; 
conversely, let us avoid judging an entire community by the actions of 
a few individuals. To do otherwise, Mr. President, would be a grave 
disservice to the seven million Americans of Asian ancestry who are 
valued and rightful participants in our great democratic experiment.
  Thank you, Mr. President. I ask unanimous consent that the text of 
articles by Robert Wright and Frank Wu addressing Asian-Americans and 
the fundraising controversy be printed in the Record following my 
remarks.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                   [From Legal Times, Feb. 10, 1997]

 The Asian-American Connection--the Campaign Contributions Fiasco and 
                          Racial Stereotyping

                            (By Frank H. Wu)

       As Congress prepares for hearings on the campaign fund-
     raising fiasco arising from the work of Democratic Party 
     official John Huang, the racial aspects of the controversy 
     have become obvious to many Asian-Americans, if not to the 
     general public. But to combat the problem of racial 
     stereotyping in this matter, its presence first must be 
     acknowledged.
       Consider the following evidence:
       Before the November election, independent presidential 
     candidate Ross Perot commented about the controversy: ``You 
     know, so far we haven't found an American name.'' And: 
     ``Wouldn't you like to have someone out there named O'Reilly? 
     Out there hard at work.'' Likewise, during the campaign. 
     Republican candidate Robert Dole and House Speaker Newt 
     Gingrich warned of foreigners buying the White House. After 
     Bill Clinton's re-election, auditors from the Democratic 
     National Committee began contacting Asian-American donors, 
     asking whether they are citizens, how they earn their money, 
     and if they will provide their tax returns, all the while 
     threatening to tell the press if the donors do not cooperate.
       Meanwhile, New York Times columnist William Safire, who 
     seems to have written about nothing else since introducing 
     this scandal to the mainstream media, dubs the controversy 
     the ``Asian connection''--the title itself revealing a 
     perceived racial element to the matter. The Wall Street 
     Journal, in its initial series of articles, described Asian-
     Americans as ``people with tenuous connections to this 
     country.'' Huang himself is almost always referred to as an 
     ``ethnic Chinese'' with overseas connections, despite his 
     U.S. citizenship and low-key assimilationist approach.
       Imagine how odious the same stories would be with a 
     different racial or religious group standing in for Asian-
     Americans. If Jewish politicos were described as having a 
     ``Jewish connection'' or portrayed as traitors who 
     represented Israeli interests, many more people might be 
     troubled by the anti-Semitic implications. When Pat Buchanan 
     and Gore Vidal began to verge on such claims in the 1980's, 
     none other than William F. Buckley was prompted to publish a 
     book of essays discussing the ``new'' anti-Semitism.
       Furthermore, nobody has suggested that the ethical lapses 
     of Speaker Gingrich can be traced to his ancestry. Nor do 
     people believe that the disgrace of consultant Dick Morris 
     reflects on his entire racial group. Yet the leading 
     newspapers and television networks continue to focus almost 
     exclusively on Asian-Americans who are alleged to have given 
     money improperly, attributing their behavior to their racial 
     backgrounds, while giving only passing notice to campaign 
     contribution transgressions by whites, (In this past 
     election, after all, it was a Dole adviser who received the 
     heaviest fine ever assessed for a proven case of money-
     laundering.)
       Recently, journalists Robert Wright and Michael Kelly 
     argued over whether l'affaire Huang was an incident of 
     ``yellow peril'' revisited. Writing in the online magazine 
     Slate, Wright suggested that racism had been used to 
     transform a minor scandal into a case of alleged major 
     wrongdoing. Kelly responded in The New Republic that this 
     view was merely a ploy by the Democrats to avoid answering 
     questions about misconduct.
       Despite this focus, Asian-Americans are strangely missing 
     from the scene, the silent subjects of the debate. Asian-
     Americans cannot afford simply to stand by and allow the 
     attacks on Huang to proceed, without at least asking people 
     to pause before assuming he represents all of us. By the very 
     nature of the allegations, however, Asian-American (as well 
     as Democratic) commentators are assumed to be self-interested 
     or covering up. Moreover, if we do speak out, we look like we 
     are defending not only the behavior of a monolithic community 
     but also the actions of foreign companies. We're in a classic 
     Catch-22 situation.
       There have been a few exceptions to this silence. As the 
     scandal was developing last October, the nonpartisan 
     Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus Institute 
     (CAPACI) held coordinated press conferences in Washington, 
     Chicago, and Los Angeles to denounce the treatment of the 
     Huang matter. Yet the only coordinated Asian-American 
     response to the crisis was given minimal media coverage.
       Similarly, the day before CAPACI held its event, the Rev. 
     Jesse Jackson called a press conference in New York. The 
     Rainbow Coalition leader was as supportive of Asian-American 
     political empowerment as he was critical of Indonesian 
     government labor policies. His statements attracted even less 
     attention than did CAPACI's.
       Despite the intense media interest in Asian-American 
     involvement in campaign contributions, our positive electoral 
     accomplishments are ignored. Until the president praised him 
     in his State of the Union message last week, how many 
     Americans were aware that Gary Locke, the son of Chinese 
     immigrants, was the first person of Asian descent to win a 
     governorship on the continental United States when he was 
     elected to head the state of Washington last November? Nor 
     was it widely reported that in the last election, Asian-
     American civil rights and community groups organized an 
     unprecedented nationwide naturalization drive to ensure that 
     eligible individuals became citizens and exercised their 
     rights. Or that a record number of Asian-Americans voted. 
     These stories and others received a fraction of the coverage 
     that the Huang spectacle has attracted.
       The nature of the impropriety alleged against Huang also 
     belies a racial bias, or at least a lack of understanding of 
     what constitutes valid national vs. improper special 
     interests. Initially, the nexus between the contributions and 
     public policy decisions was said to be some vague influence 
     on American foreign policy by multinational companies or 
     Asian governments. Later, the alleged ``payoff'' for campaign 
     contributions was alleged to be related to immigration 
     matters--an issue that clearly is of particular interest to 
     the Asian-American community, but also one of national 
     concern.
       Indeed, last year, immigration was the issue dividing the 
     country. The Clinton administration's strategy, like that of 
     moderates in Congress, was to distinguish between legal and 
     illegal immigration: Save the legal immigrants by sacrificing 
     the illegal immigrants.
       As it happens, Asian-Americans--a majority of whom are 
     immigrants--generally supported family-based immigration. 
     Like other Americans, many Asian-Americans were especially 
     concerned with protecting the so-

[[Page S2623]]

     called fourth preference, which allows citizens to sponsor 
     their brothers and sisters as immigrants.
       Huang recognized the obvious. He organized a dinner 
     bringing together Asian-Americans and the Democratic Party at 
     a lucrative fund-raiser, a dinner at the Hay-Adams Hotel in 
     Washington at $25,000 per couple. President Clinton himself 
     attended the fete.
       Huang wrote a briefing memo prior to the dinner stating 
     that immigration would be a key issue for Asian-American 
     voters. President Clinton denies that he ever read the memo. 
     In any event, his administration had already made the 
     strategically sensible decision to oppose abolition of the 
     fourth preference.
       Critics have suggested that this series of events 
     demonstrates that the president ``flip-flopped'' on the 
     fourth preference, sacrificing the interests of the American 
     public in controlling the borders for an infusion of foreign 
     money to his campaign. Such a view, of course, ignores the 
     fact that the people who seek to bring over their relatives 
     are themselves citizens. And the view is based on an 
     erroneous understanding of what the administration's position 
     had been.
       In fact, in the past, the Clinton administration had sought 
     only to suspend use of the fourth preference temporarily, 
     until the waiting list was cleared out. It never pushed for 
     outright elimination of the provision. Thus, a 
     misunderstanding of the distinction between interrupting use 
     of the fourth preference and abolishing it may have produced 
     the appearance of impropriety.
       Indeed, the scandal is not that Asian-Americans were able 
     to voice our views on immigration, but that we had to look 
     like we were potential donors of large sums of money before 
     we would be heard. Assuming that Asian-American contributors 
     helped save the national tradition of immigration, there is 
     nothing shocking about people trying to bring together their 
     families or actively participating in politics in an effort 
     to do so.
       Immigration connects our nation to the rest of the world. 
     Much as the rules of immigration affect citizens along with 
     their immigrant relatives, they also turn on domestic 
     politics blended with foreign affairs. If Asian-Americans and 
     others who care about allowing immigrants to come to this 
     country are motivated by some sort of racial self-interest, 
     then the same might be said of whites and others who wish to 
     close the borders.
       There is a better way than to allow political disagreements 
     to degenerate into such suspicions. Otherwise, genuine issues 
     of campaign finance reform will be obscured by racial 
     accusations and counter-accusations.
                                                                    ____


 Slanted--Racial Prejudice Is Part of What Fuels the Clinton Campaign 
                                Scandal

                           (By Robert Wright)

       The New York Times runs a lot of headlines about scandals, 
     but rarely does it run a headline that is a scandal. On 
     Saturday, Dec. 28, it came pretty close. The headline over 
     its lead Page One story read: ``Democrats Hoped To Raise $7 
     Million From Asians in U.S.'' On the inside page where the 
     story continued, the headline was: ``Democrats' Goal: 
     Millions From Asians.'' Both headlines were wrong. The story 
     was actually about a 1996 Democratic National Committee 
     document outlining a plan to raise (as the lead paragraph put 
     it) ``$7 million from Asian-Americans.''
       Memo to the New York Times: ``Asian-Americans'' are 
     American citizens of Asian ancestry. ``Asians,'' in contrast, 
     are Asians--citizens of some Asian nation. And ``Asians in 
     U.S.'' are citizens of some Asian nation who are visiting or 
     residing in the United States. This is not nit-picking. It 
     gets at the heart of the subtle, probably subconscious racial 
     prejudice that has turned a legitimately medium-sized scandal 
     into a journalistic blockbuster.
       Would a Times headline call Polish-Americans ``East 
     Europeans in U.S.''? (Or, in the jump headline, just ``East 
     Europeans''?) And the headline was only half the problem with 
     Saturday's story. The story itself was wrongheaded, implying 
     that there's something inherently scandalous about Asian-
     Americans giving money to a political campaign. In fact, the 
     inaccurate headline was necessary to prevent the story from 
     seeming absurd. Can you imagine the Times running--over its 
     lead story--the headline ``Democrats Hoped To Raise Millions 
     From U.S. Jews''?
       Political parties target ethnic groups for fund-raising all 
     the time (as Jacob Weisberg recently showed in these pages). 
     They target Hispanics, they target Jews, they pass the hat at 
     Polish-American dinners. To be sure, the Asian-American fund-
     raising plan was, in retrospect, no ordinary plan. It went 
     quite awry. Some of the projected $7 million--at least $1.2 
     million, according to the Times--wound up coming in the form 
     of improper or illegal donations (which, of course, we 
     already knew about). Foreign citizens or companies funneled 
     money through domestic front men or front companies. And 
     sometimes foreigners thus got to rub elbows with President 
     Clinton. For all we know, they influenced policy.
       But the truly scandalous stuff was old news by Dec. 27. 
     What that day's story added was news of the existence of this 
     document outlining a plan to raise money from Americans of 
     Asian descent. And that alone was considered worthy of the 
     high-scandal treatment.
       Leave aside this particular story, and consider the 
     ``campaign-gate'' scandal as a whole. What if the same thing 
     had happened with Europeans and Americans of European 
     descent? It would be just as improper and/or illegal. But 
     would we really be so worked up about it? Would William 
     Safire write a column about it every 15 minutes and use the 
     loaded word ``aliens'' to describe European noncitizens? If 
     Indonesian magnate James Riady looked like John Major, would 
     Newsweek have put a huge, ominous, grainy black-and-white 
     photo of him on its cover? (``Clinton's European connection'' 
     wouldn't pack quite the same punch as ``Clinton's Asian 
     connection''--the phrase that Newsweek put on its cover and 
     Safire has used 16 times in 13 weeks.) Would the Times be 
     billing minor investigative twists as lead stories?
       Indeed, would its reporters even write stories like that 
     Saturday's? The lead paragraph, which is supposed to 
     crystallize the story's news value, is this: ``A White House 
     official and a leading fund-raiser for the Democratic 
     National Committee helped devise a strategy to raise an 
     unprecedented $7 million from Asian-Americans partly by 
     offering rewards to the largest donors, including special 
     access to the White House, the committee's records show.'' 
     You mean Democrats actually offered White House visits to 
     Americans who cough up big campaign dough? I'm shocked. Wait 
     until the Republicans discover this tactic! The Friday after 
     Christmas is a slow news day, but it's not that slow. And as 
     for the ``unprecedented'' scale of the fund-raising goal: 
     Virtually every dimension of Clinton's 1996 fund-raising was 
     on an unprecedented scale, as we've long known.
       There are some interesting nuggets in the Times story. But 
     among them isn't the fact, repeated in the third paragraph, 
     that fund-raisers told Asian-American donors that ``political 
     contributions were the path to power.'' And among them isn't 
     the fact, repeated (again) in the fourth paragraph, that 
     ``the quid pro quo promised'' to Asian-American donors was 
     ``in many cases a face-to-face meeting with the President.'' 
     And, anyway, none of these nuggets is interesting enough to 
     make this the day's main story. The only way to do that is to 
     first file Asian-Americans in the ``alien'' section of your 
     brain. That's why the story's headline is so telling.
       The funny thing about this scandal is that its root cause 
     and its mitigating circumstance are one and the same. Its 
     root cause is economic globalization--the fact that more and 
     more foreign companies have an interest in U.S. policy. But 
     globalization is also the reason that the scandal's premise--
     the illegality of contributions from ``foreign'' interests--
     is increasingly meaningless. Both the Times and the 
     Washington Post (in its blockbuster-lite front-page story, 
     the next day) cited already-reported evidence that a $185,000 
     donation (since returned) may have originated ultimately with 
     the C.P. Group. The C.P. Group is ``a huge Thai conglomerate 
     with interests in China and elsewhere in Asia'' (the Times) 
     and is ``among the largest foreign investors in China'' (the 
     Post). But of course, Nike, Boeing, General Motors, 
     Microsoft, IBM, and so on are also huge companies with 
     interests in China and elsewhere in Asia. They, no less than 
     Asian companies, at times have an interest in low U.S. 
     tariffs, treating oppressive Asian dictators with kid gloves, 
     and so on. Yet it is perfectly legal for them to lubricate 
     such lobbying with big campaign donations.
       Why no journalistic outrage about that? Well, for starters, 
     try looking at a grainy newsweekly-sized photo of Lou 
     Gerstner and see if it makes you remember Pearl Harbor. (By 
     the way, neither the Times nor the Post noted that the 
     ominous C.P. Group is involved in joint ventures with Ford 
     and Nynex.)
       You might think that, in an age of globalization and with 
     the United States' fate increasingly tied to the fate of 
     other nations, the United States' best newspaper would be 
     careful not to run articles that needlessly feed xenophobia. 
     Guess again. Six weeks ago a Times op-ed piece by political 
     scientist Lucian Pye explored the formidable mindset that 
     governs China today. Current Chinese leaders have 
     ``distinctive characteristics'' that give them ``significant 
     advantages'' over the United States in foreign policy. They 
     ``see politics as exclusively combative contests, involving 
     haggling, maneuvering, bargaining and manipulating. The 
     winner is the master of the cleverest ploys and strategems 
     [sic].'' Moreover, Chinese leaders are ``quick to find fault 
     in others'' and try ``always to appear bold and fearless.'' 
     Finally (``in a holdover from classical Chinese political 
     theory''), China's leaders ``insist on claiming the moral 
     high ground, because top leaders are supposed to be morally 
     superior men.'' In short, China's ``distinctive'' edge lies 
     in combative, Machiavellian, mud-slinging, blustery, self-
     righteous politicians. Gosh, why didn't we think of that?
       These peculiar traits, Pye noted, aggravate another 
     disturbing feature of modern China. It seems that the Chinese 
     people vacillate ``between craving foreign goods and giving 
     vent to anti-foreign passions.'' in other respects, too, they 
     evince a ``prickly xenophobic nationalism.'' Imagine that.


                                 Links

       Feel free to read the Times story that got me so exercised 
     (the Times Web site requires that you register before serving 
     you the page; registration is free). Or, instead, you can 
     subject yourself to my further exegesis

[[Page S2624]]

     on appropriate ethnic terminology. You can also view the 
     grainy Newsweek cover featuring Asian-American James Riady--
     the Oct. 28 issue, which is headlined ``Candidates for Sale: 
     Clinton's Asia Connection.'' From Slate's ``The Compost,'' 
     read Jacob Weisberg's column about the history of fund-
     raising fraud in the United States and Eric Liu's piece 
     damning the press for painting Asian-Americans a having dual 
     loyalties. PoliticsNow begins the new year with a feature, 
     titled ``1996 Yearbook; Scandals,'' that covers the fund-
     raising issue. Visit the DNC Web site for a more positive 
     portrayal of the embattled organizations.

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