%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Editorial Board of CBS Incident Committee %%%%%%%%%%%%%%% Friday, June 12, 1994 (No. 4) ============================================================================= *** Part I & II. General Information *** ============================================================================= Table of Contents # of Lines ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1. The response from CBS Vice President ................................ 16 2. Mi Mi's Comment on the CBS VP's Response Letter ...................... 69 3. Signature to fight against CBS ....................................... 126 4. CBS under siege ...................................................... 162 ============================================================================= ------------------------------------------------------ 1. The response from CBS Vice President ------------------------------------------------------ CBS News A Division of CBS Inc. 524 West 57 Street New York, NY 10019 Vice President Hard News and Special Events June 1, 1994 Dear Mr. Shi: Your letter to Eric Ober, regarding Connie Chung's report about the threat of Chinese government spying on U.S. concerns, has come to my desk for a response since I am Vice President of Hard News and Special Events. On May 19th, we reported the Chinese Ministry of State Security has recruited hundreds of ordinary Chinese citizens to steal U.S. military, technological, trade and computer secrets. This, according to the United States Defense Information Agency in Washington. Within our report, we also presented concrete examples of this having occurred (including the arrest of a Chinese restaurant owner in North Carolina, charged with trying to buy parts for two jet fighter planes.) Between 1986 and 1993, one in eight of all illegal export enforcement cases closed by U.S. Commerce Department involved the People's Republic of China. Security experts have told CBS News that many of the spy cases uncovered are then hushed up and the suspects deported, so the problem may be even greater than we reported. Our report was responsible and important. We stand by it. In doing this story, we in no way intended to suggest that the recruits represent anything other than a minority of the Chinese population in this country and we do not believe that we, in any way suggested otherwise. Furthermore, we have led network coverage of those brave, freedom-loving Chinese who have fought government repression. We have risked censorship, and worse, to bring those stories to the American public. However, our job is to bring ALL stories to the attention of the public, even those that may make some viewers uncomfortable, That is the very definition of a free press. If damage IS done because of our reporting on the Chinese government's effort to spy on American institutions and American business, it is the fault of bigoted viewers who draw subjective conclusion from objective reporting. We wish we could control that, but we can't. Sincerely, Signed ------------------------------------------------- 2. Mi Mi's Comment on the CBS VP's Response Letter ------------------------------------------------- On June 1, CBS' Vice President of Hard News and Special Events division wrote to the Vice President of IFCSS in response of the letter concerning the May 19th CBS Evening News. The response letter has come to my attention since I am coordinating the CBS Incident Committee, a national organization of CSS community. Certainly the response is welcomed and well received. It is one solid step towards dialogue, one more channel to address our concerns to the public other than confrontations such as letter protesting, demonstration and possible legal actions. We do hope we can redress this issue through dialogue if it is possible. As a network giant foraging in the media realm for years, we must keep it in mind that CBS news staffs are mature enough to distinguish between facts and fictions. We must understand that they know what they are doing and will certainly stand by it. As a media giant, CBS can not satisfy all the audience and certainly will make someone unhappy or feel uncomfortable from time to time. Any presumption that CBS will give in easily this time simply because our protesting letters, demonstration and legal action threat are too naive. However, there are discrepancies between the CBS report and the facts. One thing the VP had missed but we CSS are deeply concerned are that, the report portrayed that spy recruiting is the standard process when a "student, scientist or businessman applying visa" to go to United States. While we can not say that the CSS community is totally immune of this kind of recruitment, we must point out that, according to the book "Chinese Intelligence Operations", written by Nicholas Eftimiades, on which the CBS was mainly based upon, such recruitment encompasses nationals of Hong Kong, Taiwan and even American intelligence officials. According to the book, MSS is also very picky and cautious in choosing potential agents. On page 64, Nicholas Eftimiades wrote: "MSS made use of its resources in identifying this individual and assessing his ability to conduct espionage. The recruitment process took place over six months. The time invested, as well as the ministry's foreknowledge of the source's personality and apparent prospects for academic achievement, indicates a well-planned and carefully regulated process of development and recruitment". MSS is also very careful. "The handlers repeatedly cautioned the agent about his behavior and the risks of communicating with the PRC". In CBS report, however, all those procedures and precautions disappeared. An ordinary Chinese is simply approached with the blatant request to be recruited as agents. Certainly this is far from the job "to bring ALL stories to the attention of the public". Moreover, the "concrete example" of Mr. Kao, who came to the United States 23 years ago, does not belong to the ordinary Chinese population who began to arrive seven years later when formal Sino-U.S diplomatic relation was established in 1979, only 15 years from now. As the community concerned about this CBS report, we have to ponder what to do next in dealing with CBS VP's response and the aftermath of the CBS report. Certainly there is no Savior exists whatsoever. There is no readily available solution to this kind of crisis. After weighting the means we have and the feasibility of executing them, we must understand that the defending of our own rights is a long term task of every one of us and we must prepare ourselves for it. ------------------------------------------- 3. Signature to fight against CBS ------------------------------------------- Hi, everyone: Thank you very much for sticking to the following format! Please remember that I am collecting the signature by myself. If you don't stick to this format, it will cost me a lot of time to retrieve your signature. If you cooperate, I can retrieve your signature very rapidly using powerful Computer MACRO language. We are working very hard to fight against a baised news report by CBS. Please help us by giving us your endorsement of this justified fight against discriminating news report about us, honest and obedient people from the mainland of China. Please help ourselves by giving me your signature. Here is the signature format. Please STICK TO THIS format so that I can fast and efficiently retrieve your precious signature. Also please don't write a long comment because I probably don't have time to read the comment. The signature line for one person should be in one line except being wrapped up. SIGNED NAME UNIVERSITY/COMPANY E-MAIL-ADDRESS 1. SIGNED must be put there and before others. Please Check spelling!! Without this word correctly spelt, your signature may not be retrieved. 2. The NAME format is Given + Surname. 3. UNIVERSITY/COMPANY should be concise such as St. Louis University, or blank if you choose to. 4. E-MAIL-ADDRESS should be complete. e.g. SIGNED Yinrong Huang St. Louis University huangy@sluvca.slu.edu Best regards Yinrong Huang ----------------------------------------------- 4. CBS under siege ----------------------------------------------- Dear friends: I just got the latest 'Businessweek'. The cover story is: 'CBS under siege... And how it plans to fight back'. Anybody interested in it may take a look. Regards, A Reader %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%% % Editor of CBS Incident Committee: Miao Ye % % Sign on/off at listserv@ifcss.org, with mailbody as: % % sub fcbs-l Firstname Lastname, or signoff fcbs-l % % Post at fcbs-l@ifcss.org % % Anonymous ftp at ifcss.org:/ifcss/cbs % %%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%