Asian invaders
It's not news that Asia's economic power is beginning to unnerve the US. But in New York, this summer's panic is not so much over Chinese companies' interest in purchasing struggling American firms, or American technology being stolen by Beijing-financed spies, or the threat to American jobs from the outsourcing of work to India.
No, this threat comes from Asian invaders of a different kind. Exotic, stealthy, and to western eyes, possibly inscrutable. Their stay can't be controlled by visa offices, fingerprinting or the Department of Homeland Security. The 'they' I am talking about are a slew of fish, insects and plants being dubbed 'invasive species' from Asia.
The horror started in the early summer when park officials found the Asian long-horned beetle had returned to Manhattan's Central Park after a three-year absence. First brought to New York from its native China as larvae hiding in shipped cargo, the prolific, inch-long insect cost the lives of 8,000 trees in New York and Illinois during its first assault. Officials are worried this new outbreak may infect half the trees in the city.
A regular water inspection found the northern snakehead, the so-called 'fish from hell', in a lake in New York's borough of Queens. A popular delicacy in China and South Korea, the fish had existed in the US for decades as food and an aquarium pet. Three years ago someone bought two in New York's Chinatown and let them loose in a pond in the Washington area.
The government poisoned the pond to kill the fish but they soon appeared in rivers and lakes in other states and now, for the first time, have been discovered in New York. The city officials are trying to determine how many fish live in the lake before making a decision on how to execute them.
Asian invaders are also causing a headache in neighbouring Long Island, which has just listed giant hogweed, an Asian transplant, as an invasive plant. In Chicago, a US$9.1 million underwater electric barrier is being built to protect the Great Lakes from Asian carp.
These creatures were put on the most wanted list for their voracious or poisoning nature. The plant can cause blisters on human skin. The huge carp has a ravenous appetite and reproduces very quickly. And the snakehead feeds on almost all creatures in the water, from fish to ducks.
But the objection to the snakehead (which was this week even the subject of a New York Times editorial) is also related to aesthetics - that is, its relative ugliness, including a mouth of snarling teeth and an ability to walk short distances that has some people calling it 'Frankenfish'. All which goes to prove that racial profiling and xenophobia are alive and well.
