Section I:  An Analysis of the CBS Transcript

By Cao Yulin 

I have read the transcript of CBS Evening News (May 19, 1994, 6:30PM). Here
is my analysis.

(1) How comes a spy?

Mr. Nicholas Eftimiades (NE) (Defense Intelligence Agency):
(Quoted/paraphrased by MS. Connie Chung) "Eftimiades says the prospective
spies are trained, paid and warned to stay in touch."

MS. Connie Chung (CC):
(Said by (CC)) "Every day, planeloads of Chinese citizens arrive legally in
the United States, ordinary people.  But to the Chinese government, some of
them may be future spies, who a few years down the road, will be activated
to steal American's military and technological secrets, whether they want to
or not."

Unidentified Man #1:
"Never forget, you belong to our organization."  (The Ministry of State
Security?) "You were send by our organization."

Unidentified Man #2 and #3:
(Said nothing about this)

ANALYSIS: One can see that all interviewees (including NE) mean that those
who will steal American's military and technological secrets are trained,
paid and send by spy organization.  Therefore, these people, whether they
are sleeper agents or active agents, are spies.  They are not, as CC said,
"ordinary people"! --- though they may look like ordinary people.

Notice the difference between CC and the interviewees:

(a) Interviewees said : trained spies may be send to the US to steal secrets.
    CC said: ordinary people, who entered the US as innocent Chinese, may
    become spies --- no matter they want to or not!

(b) Interviewees said : spies are send by the organization.

    CC said: a Chinese student or businessperson applies for a Visa to go to
    the US by himself, and later is asked by the Ministry of State Security
    to become a spy.

Analysis: CC means Chinese people enter the US without the help of the spy
organization and later become spies!

(c) Interviewees said: spies are trained and paid.
    CC said: the Ministry of State Security just asks ordinary Chinese
    students, scientists and businessperson, who already got visa to the US
    and have nothing to do with agents, some questions, like "What can you
    learn in the State?  Will you be working with computers?  Will you be
    loyal to China?" and most important,  "Can you be patient?"  Then these
    people become spies or "future spies"!

(d) CC said: ordinary Chinese students, scientists and businesspersons, who
    are in the US and have nothing to do with spy, can always be forced to
    be spies just by the Ministry of State Security's threatening:
    "Remember, we'll be watching your family members in China."



Section II:  An Analysis of the CBS Transcript

From cpeng@scripps.edu  Tue Jun  7 13:15:48 1994

About the CBS report:

   I agree with XIAO's comment on the CBS response.
   I like to add some suggestions.

   1.  CBS claims its report on the Chinese spy is objective
       report.  Actually, it is a commentary. It extend
       from one to many, from many to all.  It links 
       illegal business practice to the Chinese Students
       and scientist.   It extend from several isolated
       case to your next door neighbor.
   2.  I talked to some Americans like our supervisors.
       They thought, since soviet is gone.  The CIA will
       find some ground to survive.  So they could create
       some problem.  Since China is still 'communist',
       It is very easy to convince the public that
       China has the largest spy net work.

       Question to ourself:
       Why our Chinese Students and Scholar in the US
       have to be the victim of this result.

   3.  I have also talked to some of the American Chinese.
       Some of them suggest that maybe if Connie Chung
       has no mercy to slander the Chinese community,
       she could make herself be percept more loyal to
       the US government.  Loyal to the US is very good,
       But she does not have to alienate Chinese Americans.
       
       Why Chinese is so easy to become a target?

   4.  There will be more such incident later if our  
       Chinese students and scholars do not stand out
       and make our voice heard.
 
   5.  We love freedom of speech.  Everybody does.
       That is why the new media can say whatever
       it wants to say.   It is protected by the
       constitution.   However, Human rights are
       also protected by the constitution.
       It is perfect illegal to say racial slurs
       everywhere is the US, even KKK can demonstrate
       one the street and say whatever they want.  
       when a news net work can also speak whatever
       nonsense, people can hardly sue it.  However,
       each news net work has its own views (subjective).
       From this CBS incident, we know CBS is biased,
       it is not reluctant to create racial problem,
       or MaCarthyism to the public.  They are doing
       this is because they believe this could attract
       the public attension, after all, they can
       make more money.  
   6.  There are costs for the irresponsible speech.
       Example, A Cartoonist for AT&T made a Cartoon
       for long distance, lines connects to different
       country, in South Africa, a Chimpanzee pickup
       a phone.  (The Cartoonist is not violating any
       law!)   This irritated the black community.
       So finally, AT&T fired that cartoonist.
       This example shows that black American's community
       is very strong.  How about us.
 


Section III:  An Analysis of the CBS VP Response Letter

By HXYUE@WSUHUB.UC.TWSU.EDU

Just some thoughts:

1. Because it is CBS who made the harmful news, so we should make CBS
   as a direct target, not anyone else.  If CBS thinks they were misleaded
   by other information sources, they could sue those sources.

2. It is the first case that caught so many CCS' attention and made the
   strongest reactions in recent years.  So it might be the last chance
   we could win.  Why?  Our strong reactions have sent a warning to the
   public.  Next time, if somebody wants to spit on us, they will make it
   more "elegant" and hard to be punched.  So we should try our best this
   time.

3. The CBS response letter is nothing new except making some conflict with
   the original CBS evening news (see below).  They said the evening news was
   based on two information sources:  United States Defense Information Agency
   and U.S.  Commerce Department.  It seems they recognize some potential
   problems in this piece of news and want to distance themselves from it.
   No way!

[The VP letter is ommitted here ...]

The scope of "hundreds" is much less than "Every day, planeloads of
Chinese citizens......ordinary people......" or "......the people you could
find in the house next door......"

Who sell them to China?  Some US companies just want to make more money
and ignor the export restraction law.  This kind of incidents have been shown
on news medias many times.  China is not their only "black market".  These
companies are also considered as spies.  Are you talking about these spy
cases?



Section IV:  Unprofessionalism in the CBS Report

By Liang Er

Mr. Lin Chong-Ping, whom I met in many conferences the last of which was on
Symposium on Deng's Death in D.C. Dec. 1993, has called me on Wednesday
morning, and both of us have discussed the CBS report for about 20 minutes.
As he said, C.Chung, as a prefessional of press, should have made two
things clear in the very beginning of her program in order to achieve
professional level:

First, acknowledge that the percentage of the Chinese spies based upon the
large number of Chinese in the U.S. is ver small, though the absolute
number is somehow large. 

Second, acknowledge that China is only one of the countries which have
many intellegence operation in the U.S.. 

Hence, his comment on Chung's report is that she didn't do it very
prefessionally, and her report can be easily consider as opinions with
anti-Asian emotions, and be used for anti-Asian people. 


By Dong Xiao

    What's condidered professional journalism?  Balanced views.  I was 
reading an article about Chinese espionage threat in California, it has
presented the FBI's opinions, which is quite paranoid when facts are
presented.  And it also quoted Chinese officials, denying there are espinoage
activities from China.  Although the denial is expected, it is for the reader
to make a judgement.  And it also quoted leaders from Chinese American
community.  So the reader can form his or her own opinion about the facts.

    Anyother example, an article from New York Daily News that was about
this CBS report.  The journalist presented both sides, what the story is
about, the Chinese community's reactions and Connie Chung's explanations.

    In the CBS report, however, it is only a one man (and one woman) show.
The rest are all anonymous dramatizers.  It is utterly unprofessional
as a news report!

    However, it is not illegal.  In fact the Congress had regulations 
regarding balance views in broadcasting.  It was either expired or overturned
a few years ago, and the Congress was unable to write a new law.  That
is why we have so many one sided talk shows infesting the broadcasting
stations, such as Rush Limbaugh and G. Gordon Liddy shows, which I happened 
to enjoy a lot.  :-)  It's like enjoying reading certain individual's 
persistent and paranoid articles on soc.culture.china.

   Even so, unlike opinion oriented talk shows, a professional piece of 
news report should still present all sides of the story.