U.S. - China Economic and Security Review Commission held hearings on "Meeting Governmental Chinese Language Research Needs" on September 16, 2005 in D.C. The hearings was chaired by C. Richard D'Amato. Dr. Carolyn T. Brown, Director of Collections and Services, Dr. Hwa-wei Lee, Chief of the Asian Collections, Dr. Chi-Wang, former Chief of Chinese Section, Library of Congress, and others were present to testify.
The purpose of the hearing is to look at the Library of Congress collections whether the collections are meeting the needs of policymakers to understand contemporary perspectives in China and Taiwan on economics, on military theory and on present day security risks. It also look at the larger organizational and cataloging and acquisition issues.
The Library of Congress has Asian collections totaling 2.8 million books, 15,000 serials, 11,000 units of microforms in 160 Asian languages covering all nations of Asia. Its Chinese collection began with a gift from the Emperor of China of 933 volumes. Dr. Hwa-wei Lee has been the head of the Asian Division since February 2003. Lee reorganized the Division by abolishing the Chinese and other sections and downgrading them to teams.
According to Chi Wang, from 1920s to 1949, the Chinese collection was based on building a traditional Chinese study collection. After 1949s, the PRC was established, particular after the Korean War, the entire division immediately established a Korean Unit to study Korea. In the erly 1990s, the Asian Division was able to build a contemporary China collection, but it had no Chinese field office. Wang suggested to reestablish a Chinese Section.
Recently, the Washington Observer released a news on the hearing. In protesting the news release, Hwa-wei Lee send an e-mail stating just interviewing Chi Wang is Dr. Wang's one-sided accusations and misinformation without verifying them with the Asian Division of the Library of Congress.