sneaky spies among us

Those sneaky Chinese spies! Stealing our secrets and being all sneaky and inscrutable. At least, you know that's what people are probably saying... Last week in Santa Ana, Chi Mak, 67, went on trial for allegedly spying: Man accused of spying for China on trial. He has been charged with 15 counts of conspiring to violate export laws, exporting or attempting to export defense information to China, acting as an agent of the Chinese government and lying to the FBI. Prosecutors allege that Mak illegally transferred sensitive technical information about military projects to Chinese intelligence officials for more than 20 years. His defense denies that he did anything wrong and accuses the government of building its case against him by overstating the evidence and portraying him as a spy when no classified information was given to China. Also charged are his wife, Rebecca Laiwah Chiu; his brother, Tai Mak, and his wife, Fuk Heung Li, and their son, Yui "Billy" Mak. All are awaiting trial.

Cases like this are never a good thing for regular Joe Asian America. Regardless of the outcome, people will probably use this as yet another excuse to pounce on the usual yellow peril adjectives... sneaky, devious, underhanded and calculating—a whole family of Asians willing to sell out their adopted country. The prosecution is certainly eager to characterize Mak this way. And unfortunately, when the general American public believes one shifty Asian is capable of spying, for some reason it's a whole lot easier to jump to the conclusion that the rest of us are shifty Asian spies too...

UPDATE: Apparently, the way this article tells it, the U.S. is crawling all over with Chinese spies: China's Spying Overwhelms U.S. Counterintelligence