Speaking for Yourself
by Frank H. Wu

Asian Americans face a test. Like all Americans who care about their homeland’s role in the world, Asian Americans are trying to comprehend the accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy by U.S. and NATO military forces conducting air strikes against the Slobodan Milosevic regime in Yugoslavia.

Unlike most Americans—except for citizens of Albanian descent—Chinese Americans have acquired an ethnic stake in the conflict. Yet it would be a mistake to make too much of that connection.

Let’s be clear: If any war was started for the best motivations, it is this one. The tragedy may be that the United States and its allies waited to take action and that their initial bombing was not decisive. The “ethnic cleansing,” a dangerous euphemism for what is essentially genocide, is what people have vowed “never again” to allow.

Nonetheless, dissent within a democracy is crucial to its ideals. That is especially the case when deciding whether a country should send its sons and daughters not only into harm’s way, but also to do violence. The public—more than its leaders—must consider whether the cause is worthwhile.

Yet in doing so, people can make arguments that are more persuasive or less so. People oppose the United States operations because of pacifism or isolationism. Whatever else might be said of those ideologies, they have a long lineage in American traditions. Ironically, the current campaign reverses the roles of the usually dovish Democrats and the generally hawkish Republicans.

Individuals may well object to combat for various reasons. But for a group to do so because of race is an altogether different matter.

For Asian Americans and specifically Chinese Americans, there could be no worse error than to object suddenly in sympathy for the Chinese government. Speaking as Chinese Americans or organizing mass efforts rooted in Chinese identity only serves to confirm stereotypes. Indeed, it would be ironic to have the Balkan regions—with its blood feuds—produce divisions along racial lines here.

It is imperative that such a controversy be as clear as possible. The point is that Chinese Americans, distinct from Chinese who live in China or foreign students visiting temporarily, have taken pains to be distinguished in a meaningful manner from those with whom we may share vague ancestral ties. We would contradict ourselves, on the painful price of furthering doubts about our equality and patriotism, if we embraced a naïve nationalism.

Some Asian Americans seem to suffer from just such a naïveté. We appear to assume that we can declare ourselves to be American-born Chinese or overseas Chinese, but then turn around and disavow that we are a community at one with our cousins in China.

As a matter of principle, we cannot declare that we are forever Chinese if we are not prepared to accept tomorrow’s consequences. As a matter of politics, every assertion of group status holds the potential of backlash. It neither denigrates our family nor ourselves to affirm that being Chinese American or Asian American is to proclaim pride in the United States.

Asian Americans point to the internment of Japanese Americans as an example of wrongful discrimination. But imagine how different the situation would have been if thousands of Japanese Americans, including the second-generation American-born Nisei, had rallied to the Japanese Empire with a racial rationale. It would still be improper to accuse every person of Japanese descent of disloyalty, but it likewise would be much more difficult to protest such suspicions.

It is also important to emphasize that all of this must be said with an acknowledgment that these matters are complex. Different people have different opinions. But that is part of the point. It is impossible to set forth a unified Chinese reaction on behalf of the millions of Chinese Americans who come from diverse political, linguistic, class and generational backgrounds.

Of course, the destruction of the Chinese embassy comes at an already low point in our relations. The 1996 fundraising scandal remains an issue, with Congressional hearings continuing and another presidential race starting. The Los Alamos spy case has also provoked anger on all sides, including among Chinese Americans who are being smeared with allegations.

Western perceptions of Asia and Asians have had an unfortunate history as well. Since European powers and the United States sought to divide the wealth of China amongst themselves, they have held condescending policies toward the Orient. Moreover, conspiracy theorists of all backgrounds are raising doubts about the claim of mistaken targeting.

All Chinese Americans who wish to state their minds about the embassy bombing should be protected by the American right of free speech. They should be encouraged to exercise it, but none of them should assert that they speak for all Chinese Americans. They ought not suggest that all Chinese Americans must agree with their anger.

Above all, we must mean what we say.

Frank H. Wu is an associate professor at Howard University Law School in Washington, D.C.