Rep. Ted Liu (D-California) said in an interview that diplomatic discrimination and violence against members of the Asian American community are “different expressions of the same issue: the incompetence of our government and some people distinguish between foreign governments and Americans of Asian descent. It was this disability that led the American government to offer internships to 150,000 Americans of Japanese descent. ”He said.
According to the State Department’s policy guidelines, restrictions on diplomatic security clearances are based on concerns about “being targeted and harassed by foreign intelligence services as well as minimizing foreign influence” – a process known as “assignment ban” in the process.
Links ranging from family connections to significant financial interests or contacts abroad can be used by a diplomat to perform duties in a country or to work on files related to that country. The issue is hotly debated between China and North Korea’s growing nuclear power threat.
A former diplomat subject to sanctions, Rep. Andy Kim (DNJ), a Boston-born Korean-American, told MSNBC on Wednesday that even if he had “top secret security clearance” and had served in Afghanistan, “one day I was told by the State Department Was that I am banned from working on anything related to the Korean Peninsula. “
Kim said he was shocked because he had never applied to work on any issues related to the Korean Peninsula. He called the decision xenophobic and said the thing that hurt the most was the feeling that my country did not trust me.
A statement signed by more than 100 Asian Americans working in national security and diplomacy on Thursday argued that the US’s growing focus on competition with China has intensified accusations of discrimination and dishonesty “because of the way we look”. “
The signatories note that “treating all Asian-Americans working in national security with a broad grip of suspicion rather than seeing us as valuable contributors is hostile to the larger purpose of protecting the homeland.”
The top ranks are aware of discrimination
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken admitted at a March 10 hearing in the House Foreign Affairs Committee that he had been aware of discrimination complaints for many years: as deputy secretary from 2015 to 2017, “this was an issue I relinquished.” , He told the committee. Blink added that he was “very concerned” about the issue and would address it as part of a broader outline of the goal of increasing diversity within the department.
Although the state government is required by law to provide Congress with “the number and precedence of sanctions imposed for the previous three years,” a State Department spokesman could not immediately say how many diplomats in the department are currently subject to sanctions.
The State Department does not discriminate on the basis of age in determining eligibility for security access to race, color, religion, ethnicity, national origin, disability or classified information, including all security clearance rulings, the spokesman said. The department also does not make work assignment decisions based on secure characteristics. “
The commitment to equality and fairness is not felt by a large number of Asian American diplomats. In a 2020 member survey conducted by the AFAA, 70 percent of the 132 members who responded said they believed the department’s assignment ban process was biased.
One hundred percent of respondents to the AAFA survey noted that they have imposed assignment restrictions on them, including one percent of staff with family ties to China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
Three of the four AAFA members with the ban said they were not provided with a rationale for the decisions applied. Received reasons from them, about half said they felt the decision contained absolute factual errors.
The results of the survey, conducted by Politico, included a variety of errors made by diplomats, including false claims by immediate family members living in China and parents born in China before the 1949 communist takeover – and those who fled instead of living under communism. Rule.
Liu, a Taiwanese-born and naturalized American citizen, said the current approach “sends the wrong message that people like me are more sincere.” At a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing in September 2020, Liu criticized Carroll Perez, head of the State Department’s Foreign Service and Global Talent Program, for failing to detail the department’s assignment ban.
Critics of the assignment ban decisions have noted that there are many examples of Americans from minority groups – including Asian Americans – serving in countries where they share connections. The two most recent U.S. ambassadors to Israel are David Friedman and Daniel Shapiro, Jewish Americans. Ambassador Sung Kim, a Korean-American, served as ambassador to South Korea from 2011 to 2014. Kim is now the Acting Assistant Secretary for Asia Pacific Affairs – the department’s leading regional arm – and joined Blinkon on a trip to Asia this week.
Liu said the issue first came to his mind when he was preparing for a visit by a congressional delegation from China and Japan in 2015. Members of Congress were briefed by about a dozen diplomats, but raised issues that “none of them were Asian American.” Both justification and whether America is limiting its diplomatic capacity, he said.
Broken appeal process
For years, there was no process to fight for an assignment ban. Only in 2017, Rip. Jock in Na Castro (D-Texas) and then-Sen. Bob Corker (R-Ten.) Adding language to the State Department Author Theorization Act to create a formal appeal process, a system of challenging decisions was implemented.
But Asian-American diplomats tell Politico that the current system is at fault. They say security officials – rather than third-party arbitrators – are responsible for reviewing their own preliminary decisions, and there are no published numbers about how many appeals succeed or fail.
“We appreciate the department’s efforts to codify the appeal process, but the appeal process is not independent of DS (Diplomatic Security),” AFAA President Shirley Ye wrote in a note to the new administration. Trapped in a cycle of fighting against imagination. ”
Bilateral efforts are underway in Congress to strengthen the rights of appeal.
2021 State Authorization Act – which seeks to repeal the department’s governing guidelines for the first time in two decades and the Committee on Home Affairs, Reps. He is backed by leaders from both Gregory Mix (DNY) and Michael McCauley. (R-Texas) – will give diplomats the right to hear an independently reviewed appeal and make a final decision within 60 days,
Republican staff on the House Foreign Affairs Committee told Politico that they sympathize with Asian American diplomats and want to see the State Department put its “most deserving people and best Mandarin speakers” on China-related tasks. But Republicans are hesitant about any change that could open up new security risks.
Foreigners in their own country
The point is that Asian Americans are seen by many Americans as foreigners, including their colleagues, many diplomats told Politico.
“The United States is unique in nations because no matter who you are or where you come from, you can be American. But often, Asian Americans are treated as permanent foreigners and discriminated against for not being fully American, including in the US State Department, “Castro told Politico.
Ye shared the story of Yuki Kondo-shah, who was informed just six weeks before his departure for the role in Japan that a ban on assignment would prevent his posting. The department’s diplomatic security team confirmed the volunteer work and family visits to Japan after the Fukushima tragedy in his parent country, that he would not be able to work on national security matters related to Japan, a close American ally in East Asia.
Kondo-shah successfully appealed his decision on “foreign choice” in Japan, and is now the US Consulate Officer in Fukuoka, Japan.
Another diplomat, a child of Chinese immigrants, testified anonymously in the Trump Department of State’s Reform Center report that the security clearance process is structurally biased, penalizing first-generation and second-generation Americans.
The diplomat said they would have to wait three years for the department to start work for their security clearance. “I reached out to more than 100 people – including current and former ambassadors, diplomatic security personnel and my congressional representatives – to help speed up my security clearance, but to no avail. The Bureau of Diplomatic Security told me that only the American president could speed up my approval. ”
The diplomat added that due to the lack of transparent data, “it is easy to dismiss stories like Ka and V and mine as one-joke jokes.” But they are not. “
