Chinese float?

As previously reported, at least one of the member organizations of the Roundtable of Southern California Chinese-American Organizations (which are paying for half of the float) was created by the Chinese Communist Government's Ministry of Information Industry (1) (2) and Mayor Bill Bogaard signed an October, 2004, Memorandum of Understanding with the Beijing government while in China committing Pasadena to the effort.

Yet we still get complaints for reporting the float's links to the Chinese government, despite that government's frequent bragging (1) (2) about "their" float.

Last night someone anonymously forwarded this e-mail to me, purportedly sent to the heads of Chinese student associations, making reference to "secret" Rose Parade meetings organized by the Chinese Consulate (bolded emphasis mine)

From: Chong Liu [mailto:dliu2008@gmail.com] Sent: Wednesday, November 14, 2007 3:52 PM Subject: Call for Waist Drum Players

Hi all Presidents,

I drafted an announcement and it is ready to go now. Please forward
it to your members immediately. Thanks.

Dahai

"Call for the Recruitment of Waist Drum Players from CSSA Members"

Dear CSSA members,

There will be a Grand Rose Float Parade in Pasadena on Jan 1st, 2008
organized by the American Chinese Cultural Association (ACCA). We
would like to invite a couple of girls from CSSA members to
participate in this parade and perform waist drum with our members. We
hope to recruit 4-8 people to join us, and we will provide costumes
and necessary trainings. If any of you are interested in, please let
me know ASAP. The invitation letter can be found at:
http://cssa.ucla.edu/archive/07-08/ACCA.doc

Best regards,

David Lin
President of ACCA
Tel: 626-446-0916
Cell: 626-354-8848
Fax: 626-446-0925
davidlinxu@gmail.com

On 11/13/07, Chong Liu wrote:
> Dear Kevin, Yizhou and Nancy,
>
> Mr. David (Xu) Lin who was with us on the last time of Rose Parade
> meeting at the Consulate asks us to offer a help. He is organizing a
> waist drum team to attend the Rose Parade on January 1st at Pasadena
> which is one of the most famous parades in the US and attracts 100
> millions of TV audience from the world. It is the great opportunity
> for CSSA members to support this event as we all agreed during our
> 'secret' meeting. After you three receives the announcement of call
> for participants from David, please post this announcement at
> CSSA-UCLA, CSSA-Caltech and CSSA-USC to encourage CSSA members to
> participate immediately. Thanks for your great support!
>
> Hi David,
>
> Kevin, Yizhou and Nancy are Presidents of UCLA, Caltech and USC,
> respectively. Please touch the base with them to get a help you need.
>
> Best,
>
> Dahai