Lee case rests on anti-Asian chauvinism

by MIM

The children of Dr. Wen Ho Lee recently accused the FBI of lying 
attempting to coerce their father to incriminate himself. Federal 
prosecutors allege Lee violated security procedures when he worked 
at a Los Alamos weapons laboratory. The FBI gave Lee a lie 
detector test and told him that he had failed. The FBI now admits 
that Lee passed.

Energy Secretary Bill Richardson fired Lee on the suspicion that 
Lee leaked nuclear-weapons secrets to China soon after a 
congressional report accused the Clinton administration of being 
soft on espionage. However, Richardson, Attorney General Janet 
Reno, FBI Director Louis Freeh, CIA Director George Tenet, and all 
their pals and cronies with all their corrupt methods could not 
find any evidence that China ever received any secret information, 
or that Lee leaked anything. Lee was only indicted for copying 
files from Los Alamos' secure computers and bringing them home to 
work on -- something even former CIA director John Deutsch admits 
to doing.(2)

Lee's firing and indictment are part of a campaign by bourgeois 
politicians and their partners in the media to stir up anti-
Chinese sentiment in the united $tates. Last year's fanciful Cox 
Commission report placed a cloud of suspicion around all Chinese 
visitors to the united $tates, as well as Asian-born u.$. 
residents (Lee is a naturalized u.$. citizen, born in Taiwan).(3)

The reasons for all this China-bashing are the usual ones. China 
is a potential economic competitor to the united $tates in East 
Asia. The united $tates sees China as a future military target. 
Amerikan reactionaries try to use conflicts with the current 
capitalist regime in China to discredit Communism. And dredging up 
the old "Yellow Peril" every once in a while helps opportunist 
politicians win the red, white, and blue vote.

"Imperialism breeds war" is one of the fundamental tenets of 
Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. Until the system of imperialism is 
overthrown and replaced with socialism, there will always be 
individuals who will use conflicts between peoples for their own 
ends -- whether that be through war profiteering or building a 
political career stirring up jingoism. If people like Lee (who 
spent decades serving the Amerikan war machine) can be targeted by 
the Amerikan repressive apparatus on a chauvinist whim, imagine 
what happens to exploited Chinese and Southeast Asian immigrant 
workers and their families!

Notes:

1. Muzi.com, 11 January 2000.

2. ABCNEWS.com, 10 December 1999; Time.com, 27 July 1999; Boston 
Globe, 5 February 2000.

3. Muzi.com, 16 Decdember 2000