Prof. Chen Wen-chen and Henry Liu; arms sales to Taiwan; extradition of suspects and the future of Taiwan Relations Act are reported and discussed frequently in both Chinese and American press.

All these issues, as interesting and important as they are in the continuing debates over the future of Taiwan, US-Taiwan relations and US-China relations, they must be considered secondary from the Chinese American standpoint. In making this assertion, I am not suggesting that Chinese Americans should pay no attention to these issues or should abdicate their responsibility and right in public debates and deliberations. We should. However, I am suggesting that we as Chinese Americans should give highest priority to what I consider to be the foremost issue in the Henry Liu case, that is, the effective protection and guarantee of the most sacred and fundamental rights of Chinese Americans under the constitution of the U.S. No issue related to the case should be allowed to overshadow this issue. Henry Liu was first and foremost a citizen of the U.S. In exercizing his rights guaranteed by the contitution, as a writer, he was brutally gunned down in his own home in Daly City, California, by a terrorist hit squad dispatched from Taiwan. After nearly three months of cover-up and repeated denials of government complicity, we now know what we suspected from the very beginning, that at least a number of top government officials in Taiwan were intimately involved in the silencing of an American critic of the Taiwan government. While the investigation continues, it is our sacred task to prevent this Chinese American issue from being ignored or pushed aside.

Putting the same issue differently, does the Taiwan government have the right to subject Chinese Americans to its rule?- From the Taiwan government's perspective, Henry Liu had no right to write critical books and articles about the government, the Guomindang party and the leaders in both the government and the party, even though he was not a citizen of Taiwan and owed Taiwan no allegiance. From the information reportedly contained in the Chen Chi-li tape and the interrogation of Lt. Reece of the Daly City Police, the intent of the killing was "to teach Henry Liu a lesson," and by extension, to teach overseas Chinese a lesson on loyalty and submission to the Taiwan regime as well.

The mentality behind this kind of reasoning is not to be taken lightly or dismissed. Here, Chinese Americans are seen as a very important part of a worldwide nation of Chinese under the rule of the Guomindang. This rule cuts across national boundaries and citizenships. It is ethnicity, not citizenship, that ultimately determines the Guomindang domination. Not surprisingly, national boundaries in no way inhibit its claim of jurisdiction and prevent it from enforcing its will. The facade of worldwide Chinese support, espeically Chinese American support because of the leading role the U. S. plays in the maintenance of the Guomindang regime in Taiwan for the past 35 years, are considered necessary if the regime is to gain legitimacy and authority over the population in Taiwan by martial law.

This is the mentality that led to the use of two different, but complementary strategies of keeping the Chinese American community in compliance with and supportive of the Taiwan regime. One strategy is ideological and the other is substantive. On the ideological front, the strategy calls for saturation of Taiwan-controlled newspapers, magazines, television and radio stations in the Chinese American community; direct and indirect control of Chinese-language schools and their curricula; frequent visits of cultural groups and famous entertainers; and public ceremonies and events to denounce China and to promote Taiwan. On the more substantive level, the strategy calls for the planting of Guomindang spies in American universities and colleges and throughout Chinatowns in the U. S. to keep students and Chinatown residents under surveillance, beneficial business ties with key sectors of the community to establish their economic dependency, enlistment of support from key leaders in traditional family and district associations in Chinatowns to insure their loyalty to Taiwan, and more recently, the organizing of a political action committee and the capturing of key positions in local partisan political clubs to buy or exert political influence on the U.S. government at all levels. It is this omnipresence of the Taiwan regime that instills fear among Chinese in the U. S. and the knowledge of its omnipotence, including the presumed backing of the U. S. government, that prevents most people with direct or indirect ties to the infrastructure of the Chinese American community from exercising their contitutional rights as citizens of the United States.

Under such heavy influence of the Guomindang and the Taiwan government, the Chinese American community is de facto a colony of Taiwan. While the nomalization of US-China relations in 1979 has gradually liberated segments of the community from the Taiwan hegemony, it has also turned the colony into a heavily contested terrain with Taiwan frantically trying to retain its control over the natives yearning for freedom. Every Chinese American individual or organization that criticizes the Taiwan regime or declares himself or herself a supporter of the new US-China relations becomes an enemy of Taiwan. The resources and mechanisms available are immediately mobilized to curb the dissident and to prevent another recurrence.

It is within this political, economic and cultural context that we begin to understand the fear that spread rapidly throughout the Chinese American community immediately after the assasination of Henry Liu. It is also within this same context that most Chinese Americans familiar with Taiwan domination in the community very quickly drew the conclusion that the assasination was politically motivated. The resulting message is: Taiwan is prepared to resort to international terrorism to suppress dissidents and to achieve political concensus regardless of citizenship and national boundaries. In short, Taiwan will not honor the civil and political rights of Chinese Americans. The height of such arrogance is demonstrated most vividly by its willingness to deploy a death squad across the Pacific Ocean to executive a dissident Chinese American.

Chinese American Civil Rights Movement Emerged Only Recently

Anyone who knows anything about Chinese American history knows that Chinese in the U. S. were denied all rights guaranteed by the constitution until after the World War II, including the right to be naturalized citizens of the U. S. in a nation built by immigrants from all over the world and a nation known worldwide for its liberal immigration policy. Even after the war, Chinese Americans continued to be discriminated against in all spheres of life even though Chinese Americans have made important contributions in the post-war development of science and technology in the U. S. and even though there has been substantial social progress under the influence of the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s.

The plight of the Chinese in the U. S. can be attributed directly to the racist ideology on the one hand and to the weakness and humiliation of China since the Opium War on the other hand. Chinese were brought to the U. S. in the second half of the 19th century to perform tasks rejected by or non-competitive with whites. When their labor was no longer needed, they faced exclusion, physical violence, legal discrimination and social isolation. Like their counterpart in China, they were humiliated and abused by the dominant society with no effective legal or political means for organized resistance nor could they appeal to their motherland, China, then under foreign domination, for protection. Local, state and Federal laws were enacted to expel or deport and exterminate the remaining Chinese population, and the American courts repeatedly upheld these discriminatory laws, causing systematic eviction of Chinese from jobs, lands and businesses and permanent suspension of their rights, privileges and sanctuaries in the white society.

It was not until the late 1960s and 1970s that a very small segment of the Chinese American community, under the heavy influence of the Black civil rights movement, began to assert its rights and to demand its rightful place in America. The movement to demand equal opportunity began with young Chinese American college students and young professionals. In its early days it faced two formidable opposition forces: institutional racism in the dominant society and suspicion, resistance and red-baiting within the Chinatown establishment, then solidly controlled by the Guomindang. In fact throughout the 1950s and 1960s, under the influence of McCarthyism and Guomindang domination, to be Chinese was synonymous with treason and espionage and within Chinatowns, the small handful of political dissidents was severely punished and suppressed.

In spite of this double-edge sword, the movement soon gained some support among some middle-class suburban Chinese Americans and intellectuals. The US-China detente in the early 1970s also greatly facilitated the emerging Chinese American consciousness and identity because China was no longer seen as the No. 1 enemy of the U. S. and

China had transformed herself from the "Sickman of East Asia" to an independant world power. Even then, promoting Chinese American civil rights was greeted by the Guomindang controlled establishment with suspicion and hostility and public Chinese American expressions of support for the nomalization of US-China relations were virtually non-existent. The normalization in 1979, as I mentioned above, severely undermined the legitimacy and authority of the Guomindang regime and its agents in the community and significantly reduced the level of fear of political or economic reprisal among the Chinese Americans.

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From this brief survey, we can see clearly that the process leading to the Chinese American decision to assert their rights in the U. S. long and treacherous. It took nearly 120 years before young Chinese Americans in the late 1960s began to demand respect and equal treatment from the society.

Even then, they were confronted with opposition from within the community and outside the community. While the movement has been gaining strength and support since then, as a community that has been undergoing rapid changes and expansion with the massive influx of immigrants from all over the world, the fight to achieve equality and full citizenship in America will be long and uphill because, as Chinese Americans, we still must fight two battles, one against the institutional racism in America and the other against the continuing political interference and unyielding domination of the Taiwan regime in the affairs of the community, especially in its attempts to deprive Chinese Americans of their fundamental free speech.

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It is precisely for this reason that I consider the protection of Chinese American rights to be the foremost issue in the Henry Liu case. Chinese Americans have fought 1 long and hard to get to where we are today. We simply cannot afford to have our hard-won rights to be taken away by anybody, especially by a foreign government!

Chinese Americans Must Stand Up and Be Counted Now

But as I also indicated above, the gradual erosion of the Guomindang influence in the Chinese American community in no way means the lessening of interest on the part of Taiwan to retain or regain its domination in the affairs of the community. In fact, the Taiwan government lost no time in intensifying its campaign to maintain its control of the community with the two strategies outlined earlier. What has surprised us most was the willingness of Taiwan to resort to the use of violence and international terrorism to suppress political dissent in the U. S. Equally surprising to us is the defiant attitude of the Taiwanese government toward calls for extradition of the known suspects and co-conspirators in the case.

The Taiwan government obviously has no respect for the U. S. and her citizens. To begin with, it sent a hit squad to come to the U. S. to kill one of her citizens, acting as if the Chinese American community

is a colony of Taiwan, subject to the jurisdiction of the Taiwanese government. Secondly, after three months of failed cover-up operation, the government had to make an extraordinary admission of its complicity in the assasination. But in admitting its role, it showed no sign of regret, conveyed no apology to both the Liu family and the U. S. government, and offerred no compensation for the death of Henry Liu. Thirdly, when asked to cooperate with the U.S. law enforcement authorities in the prosecution of the suspects, the Taiwan government refused to extradite the suspects, knowing full well its refusal would result in a miscarriage of justice within the American judicial system. Such arrogant attitude and behavior could have resulted in a break in diplomatic relations, if not a declaration of war. By turning Taiwan into a sanctuary for the terrorists, the government is making a mockery of our sovereignty and system of justice. This is simply incredible coming from a government whose sole existence as a political and legal entity depends entirely on the Taiwan Relations Act of the U. S. Congress.

Equally shocking and incredible to the Chinese American community is the willingness of the Reagan administration to tolerate such abuse. The U. S. Department of Justice has ignored repeated calls for Federal involvment in the investigation and prosecution of the suspects, the U.S. Department of State has so far refused to ask the Taiwan government for the extradition of the known suspects and co-conspirators, and worst of all, the President, who has made international terrorism an important aspect of his foreign policy and who has been most outspoken against international terrorist acts, has remained silent to date and has ignored letters urging him to condemn the act and to pledge Federal protection of Chinese American rights. By his conspicuous silence, President Reagan has dispatched two very loud and unambiguous messages, one to the Taiwan government and the other to the Chinese American community. To the Taiwan government he says: America acknowledges and accepts the extraterritorial rule of the Taiwan government over the Chinese American community and will tolerate terrorist acts as long as they are confined to acts inflicted on Chinese Americans. To the Chinese American community across the U. S., his message has been loud and clear: Chinese Americans do not have the same constitutional rights as the rest of the Americans and they therefore cannot expect his administration to protect them against acts of terrorism from the Taiwan government.

This is indeed a terrifying scenario I have just painted. I would like nothing better than to have myself corrected. But based on available evidence to date, I do not see an alternative analysis and conclusion. For this reason, I did not think all the interesting and important issues I mentioned at the beginning to be as important as the protection of Chinese American rights.

I have never met Henry Liu. I have known about him only through his writings. But when I learned that he was assasinated at his own home

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