Servitors of Empire: Studies in the Dark Side of Asian America by Darrell Hamamoto

Author:Darrell Hamamoto
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: politics, Health
Publisher: Trine Day
Published: 2014-08-01T07:00:00+00:00

Chicken Run

As stated above, the Waxman Report was intended more as an image makeover for the Democratic Party rather than an honest effort to clear the good names of those caught in the swirl of self-serving government-sponsored inquiries. For all its revelations concerning the abuse of investigative power, sheer vindictiveness, and hypocrisy that marked the Burton committee, the Report captured only part of the story: Although the Waxman Report attempted to put to rest the notion that the PRC was directly involved in compromising the inner workings of the US government or its agencies, absent from its pages was an acknowledgement of very real attempts by the likes of John Huang, Johnny Chung, Charlie Y. T. Trie, Maria Hsia, Pornipol “Pauline” Kanchanalak, Yogesh K. Gandhi and a host of other privileged and well-connected Asian Americans to weasel their way into the company of top-level decision makers among the US political and corporate leadership.

On June 21, 2000, Pauline Kanchanalak pleaded guilty to the charge of making false statements to the Federal Election Commission and for facilitating illegal campaign contributions by a foreign corporation. A total of $253,000 in donations to the DNC was returned after it was revealed that the money passed through the hands of her wealthy mother-in-law Praitun Kanchanalak.

Like her daughter-in-law Pauline, Praitun Kanchanalak was a permanent legal resident of the US and therefore permitted to make individual contributions to campaigns within certain limits. But the use of “straw donors” and laundering of foreign money are both forbidden by law. Nonetheless, the donations handled by Pauline Kanchanalak won her colleagues “regular access” to the White House and earned her a recommendation for a post with a US trade policy committee. Kanchanalak was unable to assume duties with the committee, however, because she lacked US citizenship; a basic job requirement that somehow went unmentioned as she shoveled more cash into the DNC furnace.24

The politically savvy Pauline Kanchanalak had married into a prominent Thai family. With her husband Chupong or “Jeb,” they resided in McLean, Virginia and operated a “consulting” firm.25 In the manner of many contemporary Asian elite immigrant transnationals, they shuttled between the US, Thailand, and other countries in the region in tending to their far-flung business interests. In 1992, with the backing of the Thai government, a consortium of Thai corporations formed the US-Thailand Business Council. Chupong Kanchanalak was named executive director of its Bankok office. In its US branch, a “Republican foreign policy expert” named Karl D. Jackson headed the council beginning in 1994.26

Through the lobbying outfit she and her husband founded in the early 1990s, Ban Chang International, Kanchanalak most notably represented the Thailand-based agro-industrial conglomerate, Charoen Pokaphand Group.27 CP (as it is commonly known) is headed by one of the richest men in Asia, Dhanin Chearavanont, who reportedly is worth $1.3 billion.

Despite his adopted Thai name, the chairman and CEO of CP is in truth ethnic Chinese (Chia Ek Chow); a group resented for its achievements in business and the larger economy. His father and

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