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Henry Tang
Chairman of the Committee of 100
Interview by AC Team's Mario Machado
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Mario: You've been at the helm of this organization how many years, sir?
Henry Tang: I've been chairman for three years.
Mario: And is this a good turnout for you in Los Angeles.
Henry: It's an excellent turnout, because it highlights the contributions of Asian
Americans in, well, the forefront of American technology. And a lot of it, as you can see today, is related to the Internet, and many of our Asian American friends are
starting and active in Internet companies, venture capital companies, and some of them have of course reached a lot of notoriety.
For instance, Jerry Yang of Yahoo! is one of our members, John Chen, who is CEO of Sybase is here, and of course there is the Charles B. Wong of Computer Associates whose had his company for 25 years.
Mario: Who was on the news just recently, and reportedly the highest paid executive in America. Six hundred and fifty four million dollars a year.
Henry: That was several years ago. I'm not intimate with his pay package, but then I
believe that has something to do with options arrangements and things like that. These things happen once or twice in an executive's life time.
Mario: Is there a deeper meaning to the Committee of 100 other than the networking and the proliferation of business deals? I mean is there something...
Henry: Oh, most especially. We credit I. M. Pei, the famous architect, as our
founder, and the reason for that was that after Tiananmen, I. M. Pei received three hundred requests for interviews on many different subjects stretching all the way from
economic progress of China to human rights to business opportunities to Chinese Americans' involvement in the United States. A whole myriad of questions.
I. M. Pei basically said, "I am merely one person, primarily an architect. I would like to see a group formed with many people," and we called it "Committee of 100" at that
time. We are now 120 people who had the expertise to answer these myriad of questions, and that is exactly what we have done, and we will continue to grow. So
the Committee of 100 focuses on primarily U.S.-China relations, the furtherance, and promotion of it, and the betterment of it, as well as the Chinese American relations with all the American people.
Mario: With all the substantial names, and clout of those names that you have in either the board of directors or in your general force, you are a political force.
Henry: Well, I think the American public should look upon all Asians as a potential
political force. Committee of 100, of course, we're very proud of our membership.
What distinguishes our membership is that every single person has excelled in a very, very special pioneering effort in their lives. Some of pioneering efforts, sometimes are
in education, or medicine, or the military, or academics, or nowadays very popular like in business. But they have excelled and distinguished themselves in a very special
pioneering effort. They've done something new, something first, and that's the special characteristic of our membership.
Mario: This is Henry Tang, Chairman of the Committee of 100.
Thank you very much for joining us today.
Henry: My pleasure.
- End of Excerpts -
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