like hard for peace in China

Taipei Times - archives: "An important shift in the US stance toward China was made clear during US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s China visit, when she asserted that the US’ concerns about Beijing’s human rights record would not derail progress in other areas. Beijing greatly appreciated this.

China was also encouraged by Obama’s inclusion of two Chinese-Americans in his Cabinet: Secretary of Energy Steven Chu (朱棣文) and Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke (駱家輝). This, however, is a double-edged sword because Beijing believes that Chinese ethnicity should transcend all other loyalties for overseas Chinese, and that they should serve the cause of the motherland and its communist political order.

This was bluntly articulated by Wang Zhaoguo (王肇國), a Politburo member and a former head of China’s United Front Department, at the Eighth National Congress of Returned Overseas Chinese and their Relatives. He reportedly congratulated them for using “blood lineage,” “hometown feeling” and “professional linkages” to achieve “outstanding results in uniting the broad masses of overseas Chinese.” Such calls on overseas Chinese to put their ethnicity before their citizenship can be counterproductive because it raises the specter of a “fifth column.”"