An online petition launched by Chinese Americans is calling on Barack Obama to rescind his appointment of Gov. Bill Richardson to the post of Commerce Secretary in his new administration. More than 8000 people have signed the petition so far.

Guy Wong, who initiated the petition, also has a blog (http://nobillrichardson.blogspot.com) explaining the background to the issue.

As Energy Secretary under former President Bill Clinton, Richardson angered Chinese people because of his role in the Wen Ho Lee nuclear espionage scandal.

Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-born American scientist, worked for the University of California at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Indicted in December 1999 with stealing secrets about the U.S. nuclear arsenal, he was held in solitary confinement for nine months and charged with improper handling of restricted data, the only one of 59 original indictment counts to which he eventually pleaded guilty as part of a plea bargain.

The petition condemns Richardson for "leaking Dr. Wen Ho Lee's name to the press as a suspect, and falsely accusing Dr. Lee of espionage."

Wang Ling-Chi, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley and a pioneer of Asian Americans' minority rights, said the petition will be presented to the U.S. Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, & Transportation, in time for a public hearing on Cabinet appointments which will take place soon after Barack Obama takes office on January 20, 2009.

It was reported that the petition was directed at Richardson’s discrimination against Chinese-American scientists, and the kind of racial profiling that all Chinese people should condemn. The US Constitution claims to protect the basic rights of all citizens.

Helen Zia, the co-author of My Country Versus Me, a biography of Wen Ho Lee published in January 2002, expressed her support for the petition. She said that Richardson should apologize for his negative role in the espionage scandal.

Dr. Ivy Lee, a retired emeritus professor of California State University, Sacramento, wrote a letter to Barack Obama opposing the nomination of Richardson. She hoped the new President would reconsider his decision to appoint Richardson.

The World Journal-Weekly, a US-based Chinese magazine said the protest was not anti-Western. People wanted to draw the attention of Congress and President-elect Obama to the issue, and to urge Richardson to apologize to Wen Ho Lee so that this painful piece of history can be laid to rest.

(China.org.cn by Wang Wei, December 11, 2008)