April 21 Letters Part 3: Our Readers’ Opinions

No Chinese terrorists

Marvin Dugger (Tribune, March 24) suggests, without evidence, that 28,000 Chinese of military age are “setting up sleeper cells like the terrorists did before 9/11.”

For 60 years, Chinese gangs have been involved in racketeering, gambling and running drugs. Chinese mob bosses are interested in making money, not overthrowing the American government.

ProPublica has uncovered hundreds of illegal marijuana farms from California to Maine that are run by Chinese gangs. After responding to ads and then having their passports and phones confiscated, Chinese migrants work in squalor and terror on these farms.

Journalists are interviewing Chinese at the border, and they are meeting bankers, professionals, small business owners and recent college graduates. All of them complained of political oppression and bad economic conditions. Facing an unemployment rate of 21%, the college graduates could not find jobs.

Most of the Chinese migrants had taken the arduous journey through the Darien gap in Panama. Others, however, have paid as much as $14,000 to fly to Tijuana via Ecuador, where visas are not required. For $400, “coyotes” have driven them to the border with their roller bags. Neither these people nor the marijuana workers above hardly appear to be terrorists.

There are no Chinese equivalents to ISIS or Al Qaeda. China prefers to use sophisticated technology to undermine our national security. On Jan. 9, U.S. authorities were able to dismantle a Chinese hacking campaign aimed at disrupting basic infrastructure and interfering in the November election in favor of candidate Donald Trump.

Nick Gier

Moscow

Yes on Clarkston levy

I encourage you to vote yes for the Clarkston School District Levy.

The state of Washington does not provide money for regular maintenance to schools. Your willingness to support our local schools allows for the ability to maintain our current buildings. This is not a new bond but rather an ask to maintain what we already have.

Scott Shelden

Clarkston