The CCP will try to recruit your children to be Chinese spies and our newspapers won’t ask any questions

By Mabel Doge Luhan

Have I ever mentioned to you that I invented the question mark?

Charot!

But if I wanted to make that claim, I’d certainly go to the Marianas Variety with it. Because their keyboards, as well as their pieholes, seem to lack question marks. They never ask questions!

Just this morning, the CNMI Department of Labor issued a press release that is a big fat (and illegal) middle finger in the face of every non-US-citizen in the CNMI. And what did the Variety newsroom, staffed by many non-US-citizens, do? Printed it verbatim, no comments, no questions, no pushback! Why, Orville says if he could find willing, submissive bottoms like this, he’d delete his orange-and-black screen saver!

Par for the course, as just two days ago, the Variety gave free advertising to some kind of vague “China-U.S. youth camp” in an article that didn’t even make sense — and showed the Variety’s clear disregard, if not outright hatred, for its readers.

“CNMI students 14 to 28 years old can travel to China,” Emmanuel Erediano tells us, in the very first sentence of a news article. What news indeed! I was not aware of them not being able to travel to China, but thanks for that update.

“Participating students will gain first-hand insights into China’s educational landscape,” Erediano continues, indicating that he is vouching for the veracity of this statement and personally guaranteeing it to be true. And since he is a professional reporter, he’s not just copy-and-pasting what somebody emailed him, right?

“The program will provide round-trip airline tickets from Saipan to Beijing and cover all 14 days of activities in China,” Erediano tells us. What activities in China? What does “covering” those unspecified activities mean? How incompetent do you have to be as a reporter not to even think of these questions?

And then, Erediano tells us that participating students “need to purchase travel insurance… [t]hey may get it from Moylan’s insurance.” Wait, what? Why do they need to purchase travel insurance? What risk are they insuring against? And why the plug for Moylan’s? (I mean, yes, I know: because the email they sent him plugged Moylan’s, and he just copy-and-pasted, but I’m just asking rhetorically here!)

A bit of a tell here: “The students may also prepare some pocket money to buy some souvenirs or snacks in China.” Because the wording of this sentence absolutely comes from a native Mandarin speaker — indicating again, that this is a copy-and-paste job.

Then: “Aside from filling out an application form, students must submit an authorization letter or power of attorney as well as a liability waiver.” Aside from filling out an application form? You didn’t tell us anything about an application form! An authorization letter or power of attorney for what? A liability waiver for what?

Oh, it’s just your kids. Erediano doesn’t care.

Erediano moves on to quoting Li Xue, “assistant director of the Asia Chamber of America.”

What is the Asia Chamber of America? Erediano never tells us. He also never tells us what connection, if any, this organization has with this supposed travel program.

An online search shows that the only existing Asia Chamber of America is some kind of tiny organization — maybe a consultancy — in Cincinnati. It specializes in connecting Midwestern businesses with China. Saipan is… in the middle of the Western Pacific, I guess? It’s more likely that this Asia Chamber of America in Saipan is just a name this Li Xue fellow made up on the fly to sound legit, and this “organization” has nothing to do with that organization in Cincinnati — well, if we had a newspaper, and reporters, we could have these questions answered, but all I can do is provide my speculation and guesses as an opinion columnist!

I mean, it’s just letting someone take our kids off to another country for a few weeks — who cares about who they are, right?

“Li said it all started—” Wait, what started? What’s “it all”?

Who is behind this whole thing? How do people apply? Do they need to be students, or just in that age range? How selective is it? Where is the application form? Is two weeks’ notice really realistic for people to make a decision to travel to China and prepare an application?

What does the headline mean anyway? To include NMI youth? Have people from the CNMI already been selected to attend? If not, then how will it include NMI youth? How does the Variety know that already?

I’m asking these questions, because the Variety certainly isn’t.

It seems the Marianas Variety is the only source on the internet talking about a “Global Youth Conference” in China. There are some other similarly named programs in China. Maybe they meant one of those? But again — it’s just sending our kids off to China for a few weeks, so who cares about the details!

That’s not even getting to the bigger point. I’m giving Erediano and his colleagues a bit of leeway here, because this kind of analysis requires at least an 8th-grade education. They’re excused from knowing this, if they’ve just recently started figuring out how to conjugate verbs.

As anyone who has read a real newspaper over the past decade could tell you, these kinds of “youth visits” to China are made for two purposes: less importantly, spreading propaganda about China, and more importantly, cultivating potential intelligence and influence assets.

It’s not far-fetched. And no, nobody in China will approach your kid and ask “Hey, wanna be a spy?” It will always be a well veiled opportunity, a job, a free trip, a night out, a hookup — isn’t this how the garment interests started bribing the CNMI government, before they figured out that they didn’t need to be so coy and could just show up with stacks of cash and sofas of prostitutes?

The CNMI’s young people are an especially juicy target for Chinese intelligence recruitment, because our young people have a disproportionately high rate of joining the military. Our young people also tend to be less worldly-wise and in more financial need than average US students.

That’s why we have intrepid, public-minded newspaper journalists protecting them from —

CHARIZZ! Our journalists can’t even protect themselves from CNMI Labor’s blatantly discriminatory and illegal pronouncements. They slurp them up and regurgitate them on command.

And so it goes. The Carter Widmors of the world, as well as the Best Sunshines, Honest Profits, and Chinese spy recruiters, will keep coming to us. And keep coming to our “newspapers” especially. Because they know we’re an easy target.

I wonder why none of these folks have ever approached Kandit with the grifts they’ve planned for our people? It might be because Kandit is too small-time. Maybe. Or it might be because they know Kandit, like any minimally competent journalistic organization, would tear these hucksters a new one.

Critical thinking, curiosity, and asking questions aren’t just abstract exercises for the classroom. They’re crucial protective mechanisms for our public. They’re the reason “Carter Widmor” didn’t try his song-and-dance on a newspaper and a populace in Los Angeles nor even Indiana — he came to Saipan.

And so it is with “Li Xue” or whatever his real name and identity is, and so it is with CNMI Labor, which can watch with glee as a newsroom full of foreign workers obediently prints a reminder to discriminate against foreign workers.

Nothing will change if we don’t learn to protect ourselves — and respect ourselves.

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Mabel Doge Luhan is a woman of loose morals. She resides in Kagman V, where she pursues her passions of crocheting, beatboxing, and falconry.