Van Harris says:

Let's consider each of your points in turn:

PING FU's RESPONSE, etc.

Many of the media organizations have gotten details of Ping's story wrong. It's just par for the course. They're trying to attract readers, and often this leads to inaccuracies. It's an accepted part of the business, and media companies have no problem accepting a little blame for getting things wrong every once in awhile. If you were under the misapprehension that the media do any fact checking, you clearly have little experience in the realm. And, incidentally: It is not the "news" media that covers Ping. It is primarily entertainment, business, and technical media.

Certainly, Ping has been inconsistent in some of the details of her stories. So what? It's a memoir. It's a story of her life, as she remembers it. Did you see that word? STORY. It's not going to be perfect. Can you remember every detail of your life with complete accuracy back to the time you were 8 years old?

It's well accepted that people don't remember what happened - they remember what they thought of what happened. Often times, people have to work awhile to remember facts from long ago. And, even when the do, they sometimes get them wrong. History has always been revisionist.

Did Ping get some things wrong? Probably.

But why does it matter to you so much? Why have you, and a bunch of other people-primarily Chinese or Chinese/American, from what I can see-posted around 460 customer reviews, 600 messages, and 400 comments on Amazon about Ping's book? Where does your righteous indignation come from? What causes you to spend so much time and energy crafting vociferous denunciations?

Is it that she got some details of her story wrong? Or is it that she said some things that didn't comport with your particular revisionist version of history? Or, perhaps, it's because she offended your sensibilities in the way she told her story?

Whatever it is, get over it. She owes you no responsibility to provide evidence for her stories. She is under no obligation to provide you with counterarguments. Want to know why? I'll tell you at the end of this message.

MAJOR CONTROVERSIES

No. 1: Of all the invectives hurled at Ping, I consider this one to be the most scurrilous. For you to suggest, with no knowledge or even ability to know, that a woman would lie about being gang raped is despicable. The suggestion that the sexual attitudes of the day in China made gang rape impossible insulting. Rape is not about sex. It's about power and violence. Do you call Zhang Zhixin a liar when she claimed that she was gang raped in prison? I will give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you are insensitive to American culture, and didn't realize how offensive it is in our society to marginalize rape victims.

No. 2: You are suggesting that a classmate of Ping's remembers, over 30 years later, that she was in an advanced English class? That's pretty weak evidence. As for English being required in Chinese colleges in the late 1970s: it's hard to believe, considering that people were tortured and killed for reading English language books during the cultural revolution. In any event, Ping said that she didn't take English courses in college, and only knew a few phrases. (The term "few" is not exact, and can be 2 or 3.) Why the dispute? Why is this so important to you? What difference does it make?

No. 3: Do you know that she didn't do research on infanticide? Do you know that she wasn't persecuted? Do you know that she wasn't arrested? Do you know that she wasn't told to leave the country? Of course not. How could you know these things? When you say "every story she told relating to her journey to the US is fake and made up by herself," you completely lose your credibility.

No. 4: Were you there? Are you a woman? Can you say that it didn't happen anywhere? No, I didn't think so. But, again, why does it matter? It's just a story. It has no effect on your life.

No. 5: Ping wrote in the book that she never published her thesis. Whether it ended up in the paper or not really isn't that important-if someone in authority heard about it, and didn't like it, that was enough to get her in trouble. She also said nothing in the book about the UN actually imposing sanctions. Possibly you should actually read the book to validate your complaints?

No. 6: An 8 year old girl hears a story, and imagines it so vividly that, years later, she looks back, and thinks it actually happened. So what? Does it really matter whether it happened or not? There was plenty of rape and torture during the cultural revolution. Her story about the horses was merely illustrative of that. Even if it didn't actually happen, many worse things did.

CRIMINAL LIABILITY

It's always amusing when someone from another country tries to talk about US law. You have no idea under what terms Ping got her green card and citizenship While she has said that she did not seek official refugee status, she likely did qualify, under the US Immigration and Nationality Act Sec. 101(a)(42). And she would have qualified even if she only thought she might be persecuted back in China.

When Ping Fu came to the United States, she did not waste US tax money, harm US employment, or compromise the integrity of the US justice system. On the contrary, we're quite happy to have her here. She's been an exemplary citizen, whose innovations have saved countless lives, and have contributed to the growth and profitability of industry around the world.

Just so you know, When Ping took the oath of citizenship, she became an American. No matter what, she can never be stripped of that citizenship. She is equal under our law to any other US citizen, with one small exception: She can't become the President of the United States (because that requires one to be native born.) But I think it's worth pointing out that she happens to be a trusted adviser to the President-an honor that I doubt any of her critics here can claim.

You suggest that Ping sets a bad example, and gives the American society a wrong impression that Chinese people are dishonest. You're wrong there. To start with, Ping isn't Chinese. She's American. And she's already set an example, by being a person of integrity and honor, in both her business life, and her personal life.

OWNING A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESS

You don't seem to have a point here. Ping has proven that she is a business person of great integrity. No one who knows her or does business with her really cares that there are some inaccuracies in her book. In fact, none of us really think about, or care about, her life back in China. We live in the present, and see Ping Fu in the present. The past was just what happened. It has no power over any of us.

CRITICS

It really doesn't matter to me whether a mob is from China, whether they're driven by ideology, or whether they're paid sockpuppets. The massive number of vitriolic attacks, by many of the same individuals, across multiple websites, and the sheer duration of these attacks, is so out of of scale with any normal response that it's clear that there is more to this than meets the eye. While some commenters have been rational and reasonable, some have overstepped the bounds of common decency, engaging in ad hominem attacks. Some of you have gone so far as to bully, intimidate, and explicitly threaten.

What is almost universally true is that you've hidden behind the cloak of anonymity in your attacks. Which is particularly ironic, when you purport your screed to be an "open letter" to the media. (And, by the way, I am a member of the media.)

You talk about "justice, fairness, and truth." Those are not qualities I see in this human flesh search (人肉搜索 ).

Finally, the chances of your "open letter" getting the response you hoped for are about zero. Ping is extremely popular among a large community of people who know her. All your criticisms have done is give her a platform to talk about cyber bullying. Which will make her even more popular.