------------------------- Via Workers World News Service Reprinted from the Sept. 21, 2000 issue of Workers World newspaper ------------------------- EDITORIAL: SPIES, LIES AND U.S. - CHINA RELATIONS fter holding physicist Wen Ho Lee in shackles for nine months and refusing to let him speak his mother tongue, the U.S. Justice Department made a sudden reversal and admitted they had no evidence to prove Lee was a spy. The flimsy case and the court's brutal handling of Lee succeeded in arousing anger and resistance among his fellow scientists and within the Asian community here. People were furious at the obvious racial discrimination. Scientists of Asian descent were refusing jobs on military projects. But in a case of this political weight, the lack of evidence, the exposure of bias, even the growing resistance among Lee's colleagues, are not enough to explain the government's U-turn. Similar developments did nothing to stop the execution of Shaka Sankofa in Texas last June. Nor, in what is perhaps a more nearly analogous case, did it stop the U.S. government at the onset of the anti-USSR Cold War from framing Ethel Rosenberg and Julius Rosenberg. That's just the case some U.S. prosecutors had in mind, it seems. As a report in the Sept. 12 New York Times mentions, "Some government investigators even suggested that once it was fully understood, Mr. Lee's role was comparable to that of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, who were executed as Soviet spies in 1953." What the Lee case was about goes far beyond the fate of this individual scientist, who has been abused by those he had given the benefits of his talents and thinking. At the center of the case is the class conflict between the imperialist United States and the socialist People's Republic of China. Equally at the center is a struggle within U.S. ruling-class circles about how to conduct this class war. A section of that class has been content to continue to expand economic ties between imperialism and China and to continually increase pressure to open up the Chinese economy to capitalism and imperialist penetration. In the short run, this brings profits to U.S. capitalists. In the long run, it aims at "soft" counter-revolution and dissolving the unified Chinese state--much as happened with the Soviet Union. The ideas of another section of the ruling class can be seen in the writings and speeches of those like George W. Bush's advisor Paul Wolfowitz and former U.S. Ambassador to China under President George Bush, James Lilley. Lilley was first appointed National Intelligence Officer for China in 1975--that is, the top U.S. spymaster against China. In an op-ed article in the New York Times Sept. 12, Lilley writes that "we must not damage our national security by painting a benign picture of China's espionage techniques." But these forces don't limit their role to talking and writing. They also carry out their China policy by bombing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, lobbying to build and install anti-ballistic missile shields that give the Pentagon a first-strike potential against China, and putting victims like Wen Ho Lee on trial. The sudden reversal, then, is an expression of this inner ruling-class conflict over strategy. It will undoubtedly continue regarding Lee's case and on other fronts. Pro-socialist forces within the United States have an obligation within their abilities both to defend the gains of the Chinese Revolution and to defend China against assault from this viciously aggressive wing of the U.S. ruling class. That means battling against "Star Wars" schemes, exposing the lies and slander against China, and exposing the hypocrisy and injustice of cases like those against Lee. - END - (Copyleft Workers World Service: Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document, but changing it is not allowed. For more information contact Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011; via e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For subscription info send message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Web: http://www.workers.org) ------------------ This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Send administrative queries to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
