TripDingo

Just caught this on CNN as I’m going to bed (to recover from CNY) and decided to throw it up first. I’ll edit in my comments later.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A U.S. Defense Department civilian employee has been indicted on espionage-related charges involving efforts to provide secret military technology to China, officials close to the case said.

Chinese citizens, some of whom hold U.S. green cards, also are to be charged in federal court in Los Angeles, California, the sources said. The Associated Press reported that at least four Chinese citizens were named in the indictments.

According to the AP, the five are to be charged with illegally smuggling out information from places such as research facilities, labs or universities that had access to the secret material.  …more.

Sidenote: Interestingly, my internet cut out moments after searching for “Wen Ho Lee” and “Chinese spy acquited.” GFW filters maybe? Maybe.

Edit: So…I’m finally getting around to adding my comments here. By the way, the article linked to above has been updated over time.

My first reaction was to think of Wen Ho Lee, the Taiwan-born Las Alamos National Labs scientist that the United States government (and media) persecuted for accused of spying for China back around the turn of the millenium. This time, however, they were smart enough to put a white guy at the forefront and keep the Chinese people slightly more on the periphery. That’s definitely one way to lower the risk of this immediately being labeled as racial profiling.

My second reaction was to remark at how awfully cynical and skeptical I am when it comes to what the United States government says or does. Michael Moore would be proud. Do I believe spying, espionage, and treason happens? Most certainly. In the United States? Of course? By the United States? You can be sure of it.

Do I think this news comes at an awfully convenient time? Maybe.

On one hand, news like this certainly feeds into the growing anxieties American’s have against China. With rising trade imbalances, an economy sliding into possible recession, and a government that just isn’t that popular, it would be nice to shift attention towards that largely mysterious (to most Americans) pseudo-communist country far far away. I mean, hell, with all the recent hard-to-forget news about tainted pet food, poisonous toothpaste, and toys with lead, why not throw some Chinese spies in for good measure?  

On the other hand, it isn’t entirely implausible.

I mean, if I was China, I’d definitely have some “assets” in that hegemonic monster of a country known as the United States of Fucking America (yeah!). There’d be plenty of awesome “super-power” secrets for me to find that would invariably help my own efforts towards climbing the world ladder…like the Colonel’s secret blend of 11 herbs and spices that makes chicken so finger-lickin’ good!

Okay okay, I’ll be serious. The problem I find myself torn with is questioning the many possible and political motives of the United States government with such “news” and the entirely possible, plausible, and probable fact that there are on-going Chinese intelligence efforts targeted at the United States (and they were caught this time).

It really is pretty damn delicious. The coleslaw too.

And in other news: Berkeley, again, is just begging for an ass-kicking (can we add that to its list of “things to do?”).

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Elliot Ng, the VP of Marketing for Kango.com (who sponsors this blog) and having quite a few exchanges about the China blogosphere, entreprenuership, travel, technology, Shanghai nightlife, and the flows of information between China and the West (amongst many other things). Fantastic guy and I want to bake cookies for him already but I’ll jump straight into what I want to talk about in this post by referencing a post of his over at his blog, CNReviews.com:

There is an incredible one-way mirror (technically a two-way mirror) effect in the world today. People (ok, educated elites) in China have a high degree of awareness about what is going on in the US. But most people (including educated elites) in the US have a low degree of awareness of China.

Elliot then goes on to give an “especially clear” example of this one-sided “awareness” where a marketing director for a Chinese company shared that she watches the American TV shows Prison Break and Entourage. 

I have a few problems with Elliot’s statement (which I’m sure likely stems just from the lack of precision when using certain terms). For one, how are we defining “awareness?” Awareness of what? Of popular media entertainment? Social trends? Political trends? Societal values? Business environments? Professional norms? History? What? I could go on and on. Granted, there are more Chinese (absolute and per capita) who have exposure to American popular media than vice versa but is that sufficient to generalize “awareness?”  (more…)

Merry Christmas to one and all! Cheers! Just 7 more days until the New Year! Better start preparing those resolutions!