Watched a program by Lisa Ling on CNN Sunday night about hate crimes against Asian Americans. The Vincent Chin case was reviewed along with some of the more recent hate crimes against mostly the elderly during the pandemic. It was a good program. Interestingly, it also talked about the Chinese company BYD opening up a factory in Lancaster California.
The main business of BYD is electrical vehicles. In Lancaster, BYD is making electric buses. The buses are well made and price is very competitive. It also brings in many good paying jobs to an area of California that is suffering economically. By making buses here, BYD is expanding its market. Seems like a win win for everybody.
But the U.S. government is making rules against companies that are part of the Chinese government. So BYD may not be able to sell their buses to U.S. cities and states soon. That would mean the factory in Lancaster probably has to close and jobs lost. The thing is, the company is listed in the Hong Kong stock exchange and 60% of the stocks is owned by American investors. So I don't know why the U.S. thinks that it is Chinese government owned.
Some Congressmen also said that the buses may be used to spy on people. Who the heck is going to spy on people riding on a metro bus? I don't think any Congressmen ride the D.C. Metro to work. BYD also makes batteries for EV. Tesla may buy from them in the future because its batteries are innovative. Even now, Tesla buys its batteries from CATL, a Chinese company, for the EV Tesla makes in China. So are we going to ban Tesla vehicles in the future because there are parts made in China so it maybe used to spy on us?
Vincent Chin was killed because Asians were scapegoated in the 1980s. Scapegoating is also the reason that many of the elderly and women of Asian descent were killed or injured recently. Sure, individual criminals did the harming of innocents. But it is the demonizing of Asians by those with power that increase the scope of the hate. In Vincent's case, it was the UAW and the Automakers who set the tone. During the pandemic it was the politicians like Donald Trump who made hating Asians easy. I don't really care if BYD is excluded from the American market. But by banning a Chinese company which is competing fairly and is actually helping Americans send a message that all thing Chinese are bad. This type of propaganda is dangerous for all Asian Americans.
I also watched the Lisa Ling show from Sunday. There is a perception that Chinese companies are state run. I'm not sure why U.S.government would make rules against BYD except for fear or racism. You would think they could just watch the company closely instead of setting it up for failure.
ReplyDeleteAs far as the Vincent Chin case. I know that the unions in Detroit perpetuated the anti-Japanese sentiment, but I thought it was the politicians that used the Japanese as scapegoats for a multitude of things...inflation, energy crisis, the automakers that didn't think about creating fuel efficient cars..
And of course people are falling for it again, which is so sad. We must fight against politicians who are doing this. If not, more innocent people will get hurt.
-LBOAYM
You are right. The unions, the automakers and the politicians all scapegoated the Japanese for their own failures. And the media bought that at the time just as they are buying it today in blaming China for our own failure to get COVID under control.
ReplyDeleteEisenhower warned us about the military industrial complex. He has proven to be right. First it was the Russians, then communism spreading through Asia starting with Vietnam, then it was WMD in Iraq, and now China attacking us. These are all propaganda to make us spending more and more on buying bombs and fighter jets. Think of the trillions we spent in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past twenty years. Conservatives always complained about social spending. But those trillions only benefited companies like Haliburton. If those trillions were spent on social programs, we would be better off. They always complained about welfare queens. But trillions would make a lot of people's life better, not just those on welfare, because the money would have circulated throughout the economy.
But it is not just Asians and others who are scapegoated who get hurt with these false narratives. All those unnecessary wars caused hundreds of thousands of American lives and millions of lives of other countries. And we are no safer for it. Vietnam, Iraq, and Iran were never going to invade us. I am sure China will not do so in the foreseeable future either. And after all these wars, terrorists are still out there waiting to cause us harm.