Chinese Americans prosecuted on spurious charges

To cast an entire group of students, professors and scientists as a threat to the United States based on their origin is not only ridiculous but raises questions about America's fairness.

The long tradition of academic collaboration and attracting the best and the brightest to the US has fostered innovation and benefited all Americans. That some politicians tarnish specific ethnic groups is a disaster.

"My only regret is that I have to adjudicate Mr. Wang," said US District Court Judge Cecilia Altonaga in Miami, Florida on Feb 20, expressing her displeasure about a case.

She was presiding over the federal government's prosecution of Wang Chunzai, a former research oceanographer at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), in the US Department of Commerce.

Wang, 56, a naturalized US citizen living in Miami, is one of the world's foremost experts on ocean-atmosphere interaction, climate change and hurricanes.

According to a court news release on Feb 22, while a NOAA employee, Wang had entered into contractual agreements beginning in 2010 to work on several of China's scholastic programs that mobilize scientific talents to strengthen basic research in line with China's national strategic targets.

Wang was charged with supplementing his income in violation of law. While on an annual leave, Wang was a guest professor at a Chinese university and was paid a small per diem for mentoring students.

Wang pleaded guilty to a charge of accepting a salary from another source while working for NOAA. On Feb 20, he was sentenced in federal court to time served.

Wang's attorney, Peter Zeidenberg, who has defended against many unfair prosecutions brought against Chinese Americans, said in a letter to the Congressional Asian American Caucus that "the prosecutors had issued a press release with unproven allegations presented as if they were established facts".

"There can be only one reason to issue a false and misleading press release: not satisfied with making Dr Wang unemployable in the US, the government now seeks to vindictively impact his job prospects in China," Zeidenberg said.

"It should disturb all Americans who believe in the rule of law that the Department of Justice violated its own policies to smear Dr Wang in order to extract an extrajudicial penalty in a case that the court believed should never have been brought," he said.

Altonaga said that given the nature of Wang's contributions to a subject - climate change - that is top of mind, "certainly he made certain mistakes here, but it's regrettable that it could not have been taken care of, I think, by some type of pretrial diversion so that he would not be an adjudicated felon".

Wang was unfairly targeted and victimized by his own government, a fact recognized by the judge in his case, Zeidenberg said.

Calling the case "another example of the harsh treatment of Chinese Americans", the Committee of 100 (C100), a non-profit leadership organization of prominent Chinese Americans in business, government, academia and the arts, issued a statement on Friday to express its concerns about Wang's prosecution.

Earlier, C100 teamed with other Asian-American organizations to release an open letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray, calling for a meeting to discuss his recent remarks "apparently characterizing all persons of Chinese origin in the United States as a national security threat".

On Feb 13, when asked by US Senator Marco Rubio of Florida at a Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearing to comment on "the counterintelligence risk posed to US national security from Chinese students, particularly those in advanced programs in the sciences and mathematics", Wray responded: "I think in this setting I would just say that the use of nontraditional collectors, especially in the academic setting, whether it's professors, scientists, students, we see in almost every field office that the FBI has around the country. It's not just in major cities. It's in small ones as well. It's across basically every discipline."

Wray continued, "they're taking advantage of it. So one of the things we're trying to do is view the China threat as not just a whole-of-government threat but a whole-of-society threat on their end, and I think it's going to take a whole-of-society response by us. So it's not just the intelligence community, but it's raising awareness within our academic sector, within our private sector, as part of the defense."

Wray's remarks are an insult to Asian Americans, who number 18 million.

In the American system of checks and balances, an independent judiciary serves to ensure due process, equal protection and fairness.

At a time of prejudice toward Chinese Americans, even those who have served the interests of the United States, officials such as Judge Altonaga are crucial to the protection of our principles.

Contact the writer at junechang@chinadailyusa.com