The Hoover Institution’s China’s Global Sharp Power Project hosted a discussion on the importance of promoting a sense of belonging for Chinese-Americans on Tuesday inside Hauck Auditorium. The panel, titled “A Fresh Start: Safeguarding People, Rights, and Research Amid US-China Competition” brought attention to the worries Chinese academics have over being profiled for espionage or fraud-related charges regarding possible affiliations with China’s government.
This animosity between the U.S. and China has a long history. When Communist Party leader Mao Zedong established the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the U.S. supported the exiled Nationalist government led by Chiang Kai-shek, increasing friction between the two countries. In recent times, China has become a global superpower, capturing the attention of foreign governments. Escalating tensions over trade, disputed territories and indictments of Chinese nationals have dominated U.S.-China relations.
Larry Diamond, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, moderated the panel with Gisela Perez Kusukawa, founding executive director of the Asian American Scholar Forum, Ambassador Gary Locke, former U.S. Ambassador to China (2011-2014), and Glenn Tiffert, research fellow at the Hoover Institution.
Locke, who is also the chair of the non-profit Committee of 100, opened the event by acknowledging the rivalry between the two nations across various industries. He highlighted the “need to understand that our dispute and contention with Beijing is with the government of China and not the people of China, and certainly not Chinese Americans.” Locke said [they] believe the contributions of Chinese Americans often go unnoticed, a further reflection of the invisibilizing of Asian Americans.
Kusukawa added that the treatment of Chinese-American academics is part of a broader historical pattern of anti-Asian rhetoric in America, resulting in the scapegoating of Asian Americans when the U.S….
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