Opinion | Steve Bannon is right about overseas Chinese – they’ve been careful around Beijing and too silent on Xinjiang

Influential Chinese-Americans have condemned racial profiling in the US, but are coy about sensitive issues in China. It is understandable, given the businesses at stake. But they should consider Albert Einstein’s courageous example

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A poster showing missing relatives is displayed during a gathering in Washington to raise awareness of loved ones who have disappeared in western China. An estimated 1 million Uygurs and others have been placed in internment camps in Xinjiang. Photo: AP

Published: 3:00am, 26 Apr 2019Updated: 4:55pm, 26 Apr 2019

There has been palpable confusion and anxiety lately in the Chinese-American community amid the ever-escalating hostility between Washington and Beijing.

I felt a mix of relief and other emotions when the Committee of 100, or C100, a New York-based group of influential Chinese-Americans including cellist Yo-Yo Ma, architect I.M. Pei, figure skater Michelle Kwan and Yahoo founder Jerry Yang, took a stand in a statement on April 7. It condemned racial profiling whereby “Chinese-Americans are being targeted as potential traitors, spies, and agents of foreign influence” and said the practice “simply has to stop”.

But former Trump adviser Steve Bannon doesn’t buy that. At a round table of the newly formed Committee on the Present Danger: China in Washington days later, he rejected the notion that the US’ showdown with China is racially motivated. Dismissing the C100’s statement, he said: “Tell that to the Chinese people that are enslaved. Tell that to the freedom fighters here from China … all the great patriots that have fought for their fellow men in China.”

In the United States, the leading Chinese-language newspapers also have a different perspective from the Chinese elite. In an editorial published on April 9, World Journal acknowledged the concerns raised by C100, but pointed out the group’s blind spot: what about the Chinese immigrants who have taken the oath of allegiance to the US but still identify with Chinese nationalism and pander to Beijing in exchange for political and business benefits?

C100 maintains that Chinese-Americans have made many contributions to America and that the overzealous criminal prosecutions of Chinese scientists cause anxiety in the Chinese community and will hurt America eventually.