Permeates U.S. Life : Chinese in Tug of War for Loyalty

The voices of hundreds of children rang through the Chinese Confucius Temple School of Los Angeles on a recent Saturday morning as young immigrants, refugees and native-born Chinese-Americans recited lessons in the language of their motherland.

Portraits of the Chinese sage--a symbol of the conservative values of traditional Chinese culture--hung scattered through the building. The textbooks were gifts of the Taiwan government, and flags of that government--which once ruled China but was driven to its island fortress by the Communist revolution in 1949--festooned the temple’s main hall.

Classes at the Chinatown school stress Chinese language and culture--especially Confucian morality--rather than politics, said Johnny Chang, the principal. But books for its roughly 1,000 students “are from Taiwan, so it can’t be avoided that they have a bit of political content,” he said. “They introduce more about things on Taiwan and less about the mainland.”

Struggle for Support

The school is run by the Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Assn., the leading pro-Taiwan organization in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. And the lessons taught there represent a small part of the struggle among the Communist government in Peking, the Nationalist government in Taipei and the Taiwanese independence movement for the support of ethnic Chinese in America.

This conflict permeates Chinese community life in Los Angeles, in California and throughout the United States. Many newspapers, bookstores, political associations, language schools, churches, businesses, television networks, social clubs--even some restaurants--can be classified by where they stand.

“This struggle goes on every day, in this restaurant, this community, this state, this nation,” said Dennis Wong, a pro-Nationalist clan association leader, as he sat in a San Francisco restaurant. “Taiwan wants to keep the loyalty of the overseas Chinese, and the mainland wants to take it away.”

Mainland Sympathizers

As he munched Cantonese dim sum snacks, Wong explained that the restaurant is partly owned by Hong Kong investors “who are sympathetic to the mainland,” and that because of this some San Francisco supporters of the Kuomintang, or Nationalist Party, refuse to patronize it.

“There are people spreading the word around that this restaurant is communistic,” Wong said.

The conflict has roots in the history of the Chinese revolution and in provincial and linguistic distinctions among ethnic Chinese. Cantonese speakers from South China, for example, have no ancestral roots in Taiwan and little reason to support the Taiwanese independence movement. If they or their relatives have suffered under Communism, they may support the Nationalists in Taipei. But if they visit their native villages and feel pride in China’s accomplishments, they may lean the other way.

Competition between Peking and Taipei through organizations such as the temple school, with its Taiwan-oriented presentation of Chinese culture, exacerbates the differences.

Both governments view overseas Chinese as potential sources of investment capital and technical expertise, as well as having some influence over U.S. government policy. Taipei would like to have students and scholars from China now temporarily in the United States turn against communism, while Peking seeks support for reunification of Taiwan with the mainland.

Entanglements Avoided

Some Chinese-American organizations--especially those set up to deal with domestic issues such as civil rights, immigration policy or American politics--manage to avoid entanglement in this contest. But it is not always easy.

“The majority of Chinese would prefer that they not get involved in all these problems,” said Monterey Park City Councilwoman Lily Chen. “Unfortunately, sometimes they couldn’t help it. For example, if they came from Taiwan, if they grew up in Taiwan, they have their personal ties, their feelings. If they’re Taiwanese, they speak the Taiwanese language, they get together. And I think the newspapers have played a role.”

The latest weapon in this battle, in fact, appeared on newspaper racks in Chinatowns across the United States this month: a new overseas edition of the Chinese Communist Party’s official People’s Daily.

The eight-page paper--edited in Peking but printed in San Francisco and New York--uses old-style Chinese characters now abandoned in China but generally familiar to overseas Chinese. Ideological articles are trimmed and extra emphasis is placed on features about life in those parts of southern China that have sent disproportionate numbers of emigrants abroad.

‘Bridge’ to Homeland

The new edition constitutes “a bridge” linking overseas Chinese with their homeland that “will play a very great role” in promoting the reunification of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland, asserted Maurice Chuck, founder and editor-in-chief of the San Francisco Journal, which prints the paper for distribution in western North America.

The 1980 U.S. Census counted 812,178 ethnic Chinese in the United States--37% of them native-born Americans--with 325,882 living in California. A generally accepted estimate is that about 1 million ethnic Chinese now live in the United States.

Before President Richard M. Nixon’s historic trip to Peking in 1972, ethnic Chinese in the United States were overwhelmingly pro-Taiwan.

But Nixon’s trip began to remove the stigma from Peking. With U.S. diplomatic recognition of the People’s Republic of China in 1979, growing numbers of Chinese diplomats, students and scholars came to the United States at a time when China was promoting moderation at home and increased contacts abroad. Chinese-American institutions with ties to Peking began to prosper.

On the West Coast, among the most important of these is San Francisco’s Chinese Culture Center, which opened in 1973 and occupies part of a Chinatown hotel.

The center’s board had hoped to present programs from both China and Taiwan, but this proved unacceptable to Taiwan, according to Vivian Chiang, the center’s administrator.

Film Sparked Issue

The issue arose when a film of archeological finds in China was shown at a 1973 fund-raiser, Chiang said.

“I think that by showing that film, some people considered this dealing with Communists,” Chiang said. “That cut us off from the possibility of getting programs from Taiwan. We made it very clear we wanted programs from both sides. . . . It’s a pity. We could not, and we still cannot, get good programs from Taiwan.”

As a result, the center’s emphasis is on high-quality productions from China, such as Guangzhou Cantonese Opera, the Shanghai Puppet Troupe and a Chinese New Year festival featuring craftsmen from China. While not directly political, such programs tend to have the practical effect of improving Peking’s standing among ethnic Chinese.

Taiwan’s supporters are unhappy about this state of affairs, Wong said.

“They would like to control the organization, but they didn’t get in and work,” Wong said. “They think that by isolating them, the thing is going to die . . . (but) the other side is going to grow a lot faster. When there’s a cancer there, you can’t say, ‘OK, I’ll stay away from it.’ The cancer will grow. You have to use chemotherapy, or X-rays, or cut it out.”

Show of Strength

The greatest show of strength by supporters of Peking so far in Southern California came last August when a banquet held at the Bonaventure Hotel to honor China’s Olympic team drew about 1,800 people, the great majority of them ethnic Chinese.

Chinese-American organizers expect about 1,400 people at a banquet next Sunday at the Beverly Hilton Hotel to honor a Los Angeles visit by Li Xiannian, China’s head of state.

Several businesses specializing in products from China--including one bookstore--have sprouted in Chinatown over the last decade. Photographs of Chinese leaders, athletes or scenic spots are often displayed in show windows of the New China Emporium, the largest of these stores. Stephen Chao, president of the emporium, said he considers the pictures “a service that also helps us sell merchandise and promote our image.”

Pro-Peking associations such as those sponsoring the banquet for Li also have emerged in the Southland. In another step that would strengthen Peking’s position among ethnic Chinese in Southern California, China has said it wants to open a consulate in Los Angeles, possibly next year.

Leading Political Institution

But the staunchly pro-Nationalist Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Assn., an umbrella group linking 28 family or clan associations, continues to be the leading political institution in Los Angeles’ Chinatown. In addition to running the Confucius Temple School, it plays a key role in organizing community activities such as Chinese New Year celebrations.

The Chinatown Community Advisory Committee--appointed by Los Angeles City Councilman Gilbert Lindsay to serve as the voice of the community in redevelopment matters--meets in a benevolent association hall displaying flags of the United States and the Republic of China on Taiwan.

Los Angeles’ Chinatown, originally settled by Cantonese-speaking immigrants from southern China, has absorbed a new influx of mostly Cantonese refugees from Indochina over the last decade. Often merchants who suffered at the hands of new Communist regimes, they generally have brought conservative sentiments with them.

During the same period, immigrants from Taiwan--many inspired by fear of an ultimate Communist takeover of the island--also flooded into Southern California. So many settled in Monterey Park that the city is sometimes called “Little Taipei.”

Immigrants Deeply Divided

Immigrants from Taiwan are themselves deeply divided by a split between the native Taiwanese, who speak their own dialect of Chinese, and the Mandarin speakers who fled the 1949 Communist victory on the mainland.

Since its retreat from the mainland, the Kuomintang, or KMT, has ruled Taiwan under martial law, denying significant political power to the Taiwanese who constitute 85% of the island’s 19-million population. It is illegal in Taiwan to support either communism or Taiwanese independence.

Against this background, ethnic Taiwanese organizations in the United States are centers of support for increased rights for the Taiwanese people, ranging from a greater voice in the current government to outright independence.

A favorite spot of Taiwanese activists is the Good Shine Kitchen in Monterey Park, run by Leonard Hsu, a prominent figure in the Taiwanese community whose restaurant serves up the old hometown taste of dishes from the Taiwanese countryside. The Chinese name of the restaurant resembles the sounds of its English name but translates as “native place” or “homeland.”

Place to Socialize

The restaurant serves the same role as the tree-shaded entryway to a Buddhist temple in Taiwan, explained Danny Hu, a Taiwanese journalist who frequents the eatery. “Its function is social,” he said. “It’s not just a place to eat.”

Churches are also centers of Taiwanese life, and as such acquire significance that goes beyond religion. The Evangelical Formosan Church in Highland Park, which draws about 500 people on a typical Sunday, sticks strictly to religion in the pulpit but is still identified with politics in the minds of many, according to its head pastor, Felix Liu.

“Many people are afraid to come to the Taiwanese church” because many members are also active in Taiwanese political organizations,” Liu said. “To people who are afraid, to people who say our church is a political institution, I say, ‘No, this church belongs to God.’ ”

It is in the Chinese-language press--which pro-KMT newspapers still dominate--that some of the keenest political competition can be seen.

The San Francisco Journal--the paper that began printing the new overseas version of the People’s Daily earlier this month--was founded by a group of Chinese-Americans in 1972 “as a paper to promote normalization of U.S.-China relations and to promote understanding of China,” said Diana Hong, the paper’s general manager. Circulation of the six-day-a-week paper is about 6,000, she said.

Overseas Edition

The journal began printing the People’s Daily for distribution in North America in late 1981, using negatives flown in from Peking to produce the same version as in China. Since it began printing the new overseas edition of the paper this month, China’s domestic version is no longer printed in the United States. The overseas version is or soon will be printed in five cities outside China: San Francisco, New York, Paris, Hong Kong and Tokyo.

About 8,500 copies of the People’s Daily roll off the San Francisco Journal’s presses each day, with about the same number printed in New York, according to Russell Lowe, the journal’s marketing manager.

At the North American headquarters of the KMT, also located in San Francisco, the new People’s Daily is taken seriously.

“The Communists understand that among the overseas Chinese, the main part still support the Republic of China,” said Cheong Hing Mock, secretary general at the San Francisco KMT office. “They want to change the situation. . . . I think this, for Red China, is a very important step.”

100,000 Circulation

The Chinese Daily News--the largest Chinese-language paper in the United States--is a key pro-KMT institution. Founded in 1975, it claims a nationwide circulation of about 100,000.

“Just like the authorities in Peking believe that with the People’s Daily overseas they can win the favor of the Chinese-Americans, it was the same thinking,” said C. T. Wu, director of the paper’s Southern California office in Monterey Park. “Now, after 10 years, we can examine: ‘Does the newspaper achieve that goal or not?’ My answer for the Chinese Daily News is positive.”

The paper, which runs about 56 pages, does not quite break even financially, but its losses are covered by its parent company, the United Daily News, a major Taipei paper published by a top KMT official, Wu said.

The conflicting tugs of this battle can tear individuals in more than one direction.

Some have relatives in China who after 1949 were targets of attack because of their wealth or overseas ties. This contributed to KMT strength in American Chinatowns. But family ties to the motherland can also reinforce pro-Peking attitudes, now that China’s treatment of former capitalists, land owners and those with overseas connections has improved.

Roots in Canton

“Our roots happen to be in Canton,” said David Lee, a Chinatown restaurateur who is a leading Peking supporter in Los Angeles. “If I go to Taiwan, I cannot speak Mandarin. My roots are not in Taiwan, my ancestors are not buried in Taiwan. Most Cantonese have to go back to China to find their roots.”

It is this sense of roots in an ancient and proud land that Peking hopes to build on.

Qin Chuan, president of the People’s Daily, explained in the inaugural edition of the paper’s overseas version that it was created because recent developments in China “increasingly deepened the yearning and concern of overseas Chinese and their descendants for the motherland and their native villages.”