UPDATED: August 26, 2011 at 12:41 a.m. EDT.
Sing Tao, a Chinese-language daily newspaper in San Francisco, launched an exhaustive broadside against former president of the Board of Supervisors Aaron Peskin on Aug. 23. The article described him as a racist and a “red-baiter,” compared him to former U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy, and called on all Asian candidates to “denounce him openly and refuse a DCCC endorsement.” (Peskin is Chairman of the Democratic County Central Committee.)
The article was written in response to interviews Peskin gave to The Epoch Times and its media partners recently. In those interviews, he alleged that incumbent Mayor Ed Lee is controlled by Chinatown power broker Rose Pak, and that Pak serves the interests of the People’s Republic of China.
But the Sing Tao response, which was as much fiery editorial as reporting, might only serve to strengthen Peskin’s point about the way that influence is peddled in San Francisco politics, and about the connections that extend back to China.
The article is over 2,600 characters long in its original Chinese, and takes a format familiar to readers of Chinese Communist publications: testimonials are given one after another of prominent people all denouncing the target of the attack.
Each sub-section highlights another aspect of Peskin’s supposed misdeeds. An individual from “Ed Lee’s election” camp kicks it off, calling Peskin “The Joseph McCarthy of San Francisco” who wishes to bring a “White Terror” upon the town.
Then comes Rose Pak: “I’m actually not surprised by these racist remarks by Peskin. Actually, many liberals are racists, their true colors are being shown now.”
According to Sing Tao, “Peskin’s picking nits about she [Pak] and Ed Lee going to China to travel several times is precisely the manifestation of racism.”
Pak adds, in a Sing Tao paraphrase, that “Peskin wants to frighten the public, intimidate them so that Asian people don’t participate in the course of democracy.”
A cast of characters in the Chinese community are then marched out, each in turn, to single out Peskin. Subheading highlights include: “Vincent Pan: You Can Raise Questions, But Shouldn’t Use Double Standards to Judge Chinese Traveling to China,” “Annie Chung: Groundless Nonsense,” “Alicia Wang: Strive to Urge Chinese to Register to Vote” (against Peskin), “Sue Lee: Inconceivable, Racial Discrimination to Such a Stupid Extent,” and “Ling-chi Wang: Peskin is a Political Opportunist.”
The article concludes on the racial note, pointing out “extreme disappointment” with the fact that the DCCC did not endorse any Chinese American candidates.
A Loyal Newspaper
Sing Tao has 16 global editions in 100 countries, all controlled by the headquarters in Hong Kong, according to an investigation by the Sydney Morning Herald.
The Chinese regime’s United Front Work Department, which grooms friends and isolates enemies of the Communist Party, has been assiduous in courting Sing Tao’s publisher, the cigarette tycoon Charles Ho, the Herald reports; the paper characterizes him as “possibly the single most important link in its overseas Chinese propaganda chain.”
Ho was furnished with a seat on the standing committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and Sing Tao went into a media distribution joint venture with People’s Daily, the Communist Party’s official mouthpiece. Ho also helped set up Xinhua Online, another major mouthpiece of the regime.
The Executive-Editor in Chief of Sing Tao in the United States, Larry Lee, is a former editor of People’s Daily in China.
In August 2008 The Epoch Times reported on a major discrepancy between a report in Sing Tao that was supposed to be a translation from its business partner, the Toronto Star.
It was found that in its “translation” Sing Tao had deleted quotes critical of the Chinese Communist Party’s Tibet policy, inserted several paragraphs of pro-regime and anti-Western boilerplate, and massaged the original piece into something quite different.
After the story broke it was reported widely in the Canadian media. A group of ten Chinese-Canadians penned a joint letter to the Toronto Star saying that Sing Tao had introduced a “propagandist and demagogic slant into the reportage.”
Sing Tao has also been active in spreading anti-Falun Gong propaganda abroad, in one particularly egregious case calling practitioners of this traditional Chinese spiritual practice “terrorists” shortly after the September 11, 2011 terrorist attacks.
Next...A Personal Connection
A Personal Connection
Ms. Leung confirmed her job position in a telephone interview on Aug. 24, but when was asked to confirm that she was married to the editor in chief of Sing Tao, she balked. She said that was personal information and would say no more. It is widely known in San Francisco, however.
During the conversation Ms. Leung said she read the Chinese press in San Francisco every day. But when the reporter read out the title of the recent article in Sing Tao attacking Peskin, she said she had not seen it.
A review of Sing Tao’s previous articles on the election shows an inclincation to positive coverage of Lee.
A news article after he announced his candidacy for mayor says “the Chinese community reacted enthusiastically.” Pak appeared in the first line endorsing Lee on behalf of all Chinese people in San Francisco.
Other reports give friendly coverage to Lee and his election campaign slogans, and in a comparison of how frequently his name appears in Sing Tao compared to other candidates, Lee wins hands down (at 225, the second-highest being 171)—though this could be connected with the fact that Lee is the incumbent.
Howard Wong, co-chair of “Better Chinatown Tomorrow,” a local organization that promotes culture and arts, saw a translation of the Sing Tao piece prepared by The Epoch Times.
“That’s unfortunate because Rose Pak in the past unfortunately had often—I did hear her say that in public: when someone disagreed with her, imply that someone was racist,” he said. “I think that doesn’t serve the Chinese community well... I think that we can argue the issues on their merit rather than accusing someone of being racist.”
How about the McCarthy analogy? “McCarthy? Like the McCarthy era? Back in the old days...” he said, thinking. “That is a strange analogy.”
The Epoch Times contacted Lee’s campaign office. At press time, no one from that office had commented as to whether someone from Lee’s electoral staff has described Peskin as the “Joseph McCarthy of San Francisco.” Aaron Peskin was unable to comment by press time.
With additional reporting by Wu Jianguo, and research by Cathy Zhang of New Tang Dynasty Television.
