[News] Chinese-American worker and activist arrested for advocating for peace between US and China

[Anti-Imperialist News]

peoplesdispatch.org
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/06/22/chinese-american-worker-and-activist-arrested-for-advocating-for-peace-between-us-and-china/>
Chinese-American worker and activist arrested for advocating for peace
between US and China - June 22, 2023
------------------------------
[image: image.png]

Li Tang "Henry" Liang, fifth from the right, was arrested and indicted in
May for practicing his free speech rights (Image: Pivot to Peace)

Labor leaders and organizers are banding together to demand justice for
Chinese-American unionized worker and activist Li Tang “Henry” Liang. Liang
was indicted and then arrested in early May in Boston in retaliation for
exercising his free speech rights. “The federal government has targeted
Liang for advocating peaceful relations between the US and China,” say
<https://www.apalanet.org/apala-ma-sign-on.html> labor activists in the
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance of the AFL-CIO, the largest trade
union in the US.

As a hotel worker, Liang was an active member in his union, UNITE HERE
Local 26. He is also an activist in the Chinese-American community,
rallying against the US’s propaganda war against China. He previously
served on the board of directors for Chinatown Main Street, an organization
promoting Chinese-American small businesses in Boston’s Chinatown, and the
Chinese Consolidated Benevolent Association of New England, which “serves
as the umbrella organization for the Chinese communities of New England”
according to its website
<https://ccbaboston.org/en/introduction-to-ccba-of-new-england>.

“Li Tang has been a participant in important fights for workers rights,
including going on strike with his co-workers for 46 days in 2018,” Mike
Kramer, Executive Vice President of Local 26, told *Peoples Dispatch*.
“Despite working long hours as a hotel worker, he has dedicated his free
time to being active in his community and to the service of others. The
charges being brought against this man are a shameful, racist attack.”

“Following his indictment, his employer placed him on indefinite
suspension, unfairly depriving his family of income and assuming his guilt
without due process,” reads APALA’s petition. “Someone undergoing trial
should not be presumed guilty and should have the right to due process and
the right to livelihood.”

Liang has advocated for China’s reunification with regions such as Taiwan
and peace between the US and China. He was indicted by a federal grand jury
for “conspiracy to act as an agent of a foreign government without prior
notification” and “acting as an agent of a foreign government without
notice to the attorney general.”

“Having a political view doesn’t make you an agent of a foreign
government,” said Amrita Dani, unionized teacher in Boston and APALA member.

Liang’s charges come in the context of the United States’ New Cold War
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/06/18/voices-from-across-the-globe-unite-against-the-new-cold-war-advocate-new-non-alignment/>
against China. “Liang is facing charges under the Foreign Agents Relations
Act (FARA),” states APALA. “In recent years, the US Department of Justice
(DoJ) has used FARA to intimidate peace activists, journalists, and others
for voicing opposition towards hawkish US foreign policy.”

With the rise of challenges to US hegemony by China and Russia, the United
States has grown increasingly paranoid and has lashed out in various ways
against these two countries. One way is the billions of dollars in funding
funneled to the Russia–Ukraine war, or with the military drills in Chinese
waters along with US bases strategically surrounding China. Part of the
ongoing effort to rally mass support for the New Cold War is the
persecution and repression of free speech in the Chinese-American community.

Waves of Chinese-Americans and Chinese nationals including students,
academics, researchers, and activists have been targeted for repression by
the FBI due to the US’s orientation against China. In 2020, Trump signed an
executive order to expel
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/28/us/politics/china-hong-kong-trump-student-visas.html>
thousands of Chinese university students purportedly for having ties to the
People’s Liberation Army, although many of these students had ties to
civilian universities who merely provided scholarships
<https://www.qiaocollective.com/articles/can-the-chinese-diaspora-speak>
through the PLA. The US is still to this day denying visas
<https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2023/04/11/chinese-students-still-denied-visas-under-trump-immigration-order/?sh=3d7864e15095>
based on this proclamation.

“[The US is] fighting tooth-and-nail to prevent, not countries that want to
make war with them, but countries who want to develop their economies, to
protect their people and sovereignty, and to have a multilateral world, not
a unipolar world,” said Marxist militant Ronnie Kasrils, former Minister of
Intelligence of South Africa, during a recent webinar
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2023/06/18/voices-from-across-the-globe-unite-against-the-new-cold-war-advocate-new-non-alignment/>.
“The Yankees are panic-stricken… for the way their control [over these
nations] are breaking down.”

APALA is calling for Liang to be reinstated at his job, for the Department
of Justice to stop racially profiling and restricting freedom of speech,
and for the DOJ to drop all charges against Liang.
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