Date: Wed, 20 Nov 1996 13:59:38 -0800

From: Chinese Community Forum, Wednesday, November 20, 1996

Written by Harry Wu in collaboration with George Vecsey, a New York Times reporter, the polished prose of Troublemaker is an entertaining read in the mode of a potboiler. Unfortunately, the book is supposed to be a factual account of Harry Wu's latest adventure in China--not a work of fiction.

Wu relishes being called a trouble maker, hence the title of his book, and he sets out early in his book to describe his grade school reputation as "a bit of a troublemaker." His biology teacher had asked the class to go to the school yard and bring back any randomly selected plants for the teacher to identify, and thus show off his knowledge. Wu stuck a small piece from one plant into the stem of another in an attempt to fool the teacher. He was spanked for his troubles, by the teacher at school and then by his father at home, but apparently the lesson did not stick. At his trial in Wuhan, Wu was accused of yihuajiemu, i.e., splicing a flower onto another stick--a Chinese saying for someone skilled at embellishing the facts and telling plausible lies.

Indeed, Wu's book is full of careless and florid statements without any substantiation and consequently raises more questions than answers. For example, he says that the Beijing government admitted to China having 1.2 million prisoners in 685 camps in 1995, but he counters with 1155 camps and 6-8 million prisoners as being more accurate. Wu offers no explanation or evidence for his numbers, but expects the reader to take his word for them. Of course, in his more exuberant moments, Wu has publicly proclaimed as many as ten million prisoners in China. So, why the embellishment? According to an article in the New York Times (11/7/95), there were more than 1.4 million inmates in the American prison system in 1995. Perhaps Wu feels that it is not right for a country with five times the U.S. population to have fewer prisoners. He may have felt compelled to boost the numbers so as to reinforce America's preconceived and unfavorable notions of China.

In Troublemaker, Wu reiterates his claim to having protested the 1956 Soviet invasion of Hungary as "a violation of international law." A young student journalist from San Francisco State University interviewed Wu in 1995, after Wu's release from Wuhan, and asked him why there was no mention of Hungary in his earlier memoir, Bitter Winds. Wu's response was to blame the error on "a mistake in translation." (Prism, SFSU, November 1995)

Wu was only 19 at the time of the invasion and graduated from college three years later, apparently uneventfully. Wu has been portraying himself as an undergraduate activist majoring in geology with expertise in international law. An alternate and more plausible explanation would be that Wu became aware of the West's sympathy towards the Hungarians after the first book was written. He proceeded to burnish his credentials by adding the protest to his resume --another example of pinning on a rose to a dried up stump.

Wu's book is full of provocative but unsupported statements. If he has any documents to prove that "Zhou Enlai had gone scurrying to Moscow to convince Nikita Khrushchev to send tanks and troops to Budapest to crush the Hungarians," Wu does not share them in this book. Later in the book, Wu claims, "Some hospitals advertised their kidney transplant operations in Hong Kong and other cities. You could even express interest by sending a fax." Even with Wu's self proclaimed wide network of supporters in Hong Kong, not one example of such advertisements nor a list of fax numbers can be found in this book.

Many of Wu's statements are designed to deceive, even if for gratuitous reasons. He begins one of the chapters with "On July 10, I was one meal into starving myself to death when the guards announced a surprise." A dramatic statement indeed. Careful reading reveals that what Wu meant is that he had missed one meal before ending his fast, thus rather prematurely ending his flirtation with the grim reaper. Elsewhere in the book, Wu provides his analysis of the "pro-democracy movement at Tiananmen." He concludes with the reassurance that "I had nothing to do with Tiananmen Square," as if anyone could mistakenly credit him with the student-led protest of 1989.

Name dropping is another of Wu's favorite techniques. He wastes no time linking himself with Hillary Clinton in the second chapter and a page later with Wei Jingsheng. He has never met Wei and has nothing in common with Wei. In fact he admits, "I do not have the courage of Wei Jingsheng, speaking his mind, writing stinging criticisms of Deng Xiaoping." Yet Wu sprinkles Wei's name liberally throughout the book down to the very last page. Wei is the best known name in the West. By making this unauthorized and obsessive association with Wei, Wu may be hoping for some legitimacy to reflect his way.

Wu is undoubtedly sensitive to the conspicuous lack of empathy for him from the community of students and scholars from China that are residing in the U.S. As a group, they are at best neutral and hardly sympathizers of the Beijing government. Yet they hold Wu in disdain and do not rally to his cause. Wu explains the phenomenon this way, "I suspect that the Chinese government is mobilizing all its students who are in the States. I don't mind. Let's have an open debate--no holds barred." So long as he makes such ludicrous statements, he will not dare to participate in any public debates where his views would most certainly be challenged.

The most amusing passage is Wu's recount of the interrogation during his incarceration in Wuhan in 1995 prior to his release and return to the U.S. The Chinese authorities apparently used a documentary from Taiwan as basis for their accusations which Wu claimed was spliced from various sources. "Look at it carefully," Wu told the interrogator, "Why do they put Chinese characters on the script, have outside people making comments? Don't you listen? The original was in English. There's no sound in this one. No dialogue. How can it become evidence? The Taiwanese translation is different from the British original. You better get the original Yorkshire film. You want to use Taiwan rumors?" Discerning viewers will find, in documentaries on China produced by Wu, the use of very same techniques that he was protesting in Wuhan. Obviously Wu was trading on insider knowledge.

At least from Troublemaker, the reader can find a logical explanation for Wu's actions. Someone at U.C. Berkeley, that Wu did not identify, invited him to the U.S. After his arrival, Wu eked out an existence by staying with a grudging older sister in San Francisco that barely tolerated his imposition. His break came when he received a $18,000 research grant from Hoover Institution after he gave a speech on China at U.S. Santa Cruz. In 1991, with the help of Jeff Fiedler, secretary-treasurer of Food & Allied Services Trade department of AFL-CIO, Wu founded Laogai Research Foundation and his personal gold mine. Wu proudly states that he now owns a house in Milpitas with a swimming pool and two cars. There can be no doubt that becoming a professional China basher has paid off handsomely for Wu.

Readers considering the purchase of Wu's book should only expect entertainment value in exchange. This is not a book where one can readily distinguish facts from fiction, and therefore Wu's book cannot be considered a reliable commentary on today's China.

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George Koo authored "Is Harry Wu Telling the Truth?" which was published in Asian Week, 4/26/96. He is a Social Concerns Commissioner for the city of Mountain View, California and considers himself a human rights supporter. By profession, he is a consultant to western companies looking to develop business in Asia. Everything within quotation marks, " ", in this article were taken from published sources, including Wu's book.