More Jingoist H1B Politics
USA Today, Fox News, and others are running blindly with the US government propaganda campaign, “Chinese Spying on the Rise!“ The message you are supposed to get is that “all Chinese high-tech workers in USA are spies”. This is part of the ongoing battle of the politicians to kick out anyone with education and talent, and instead turn USA into a low-cost labor pool.
The so-called journalists should be ashamed. These stories selectively pick out some anecdotes (from 1987, no less) and present a skewed and one-sided story. Read the USA Today article, and replace every instance of “Chinese person spying” with “Black person mugging a white person”. It is quite possible for a reporter to find statistics of several “black people mugging white people” and present them in sequential order to paint a picture of “black on white crime on the rise!” But it would be unethical, immoral, and dishonest. Such a reporter could claim that he was “just presenting the facts”, but he should be fired anyway.
To be balanced, the article should mention that the U.S. does this to China all the time. It should also mention that other countries do this to the U.S. all the time. And it should mention that the “bad apples” are a diminuitively small portion of the overall Chinese immigrant population (the article smears “Chinese high tech workers”, a clear reference to H1-B, when the actual culprits were all citizens). What percentage of Chinese immigrants are criminals versus other immigrant groups? The article gives us no insight into this, instead expecting us to believe that all Chinese high tech workers are spies.
No American journalist could write about other minority groups this way and keep his job. Why China, and why now?
I think the answer lies in more than just H1-B politics. George Bush has been trying to pick a fight with China since his first day in office. The Democrats are no better — the “food/toothpaste quality” scare and the “global warming credits” are both ways to put economic pressure on China. This is all a concerted anti-China propaganda effort, and it’s shameful that reporters are falling for it. We had 200 years of virtually uninterrupted freedom of the press. Let’s not give it up so easily.