The U.S. is known for her thriving media industry, across print, TV, radio, movie and Internet digital network with enormous amount of quantities and topical content. The U.S. is very proud of her ‘Freedom of Speech’ environment and her legal protection system. Thus the world could use the phrases ‘thousands of flowers blooming’ and ‘millions of colors shinning’ to describe the U.S. media. This description is a positive one if the media industry maintains a good reputation. Unfortunately in the recent years, under the principle of capitalism and freedom of speech, the media industry through acquisition and merger formed a few gigantic media conglomerates, controlling all above mentioned media elements as well as digital media, including chain/syndication of community newspaper and movie theaters. This consolidation of media industry into a few power houses created an undesirable phenomenon - their enormous power dominates mass media with the protection of freedom of speech. The mass or citizens have very limited time to gather news and obtain validated information, hence they fall at the mercy of the media giants how they spoon feed (headline grabbing) them. So our citizens are easily mesmerized or brainwashed by the media giant with its corporate agenda and pre-accepted doctrine. Sadly, a competing media giant would only engage in a media war to divide the mass (citizens) into a different faction mesmerized by its corporate agenda. This is the reason, now the U.S. has very polarized view (many with a shallow view fed by mass media) on various domestic and international issues.
 
The above phenomenon is certainly not a healthy one. A monopolizing media has a tendency to create a single authoritative voice (一言堂） which can manipulate mass opinion. Any competing media corporation seems to be motivated by profit more than honest journalism, therefore, they will take a position to capture a fraction of the mass to maintain its monopolizing position holding an opposing view. The mass may have access and preference to different media such as print, TV, radio or Internet, but they are knowingly or unknowingly subject to receiving the same messages coming from a single giant corporation. So the mass can easily be convinced and reinforced by the same messages delivered by different channels they exposed to, thus becoming deeply alienated towards the opposite media outlets. This is how the U.S. is polarized and divided into a 'two parties' population even though the large part of her citizens do not belong to a political party. The U.S. has always charged the communist countries being authoritative with no freedom of speech and their citizens exposed to media all funded by government. This is quite true in most developing countries, since media industry can not self support until the country has a prosperous economy with businesses capable of supporting a significant size of media industry which can support itself by commercial advertising income.
 
However, with the advance of Internet, the capital requirement of entering into media industry is significantly lowered and the citizens have easy access to digital and social media (organic media). For example, China has the largest netizen population and the most thriving E commerce in the world. This created a tremendous opportunity for Chinese media industry to bloom, both in traditional media and digital media which were very surprisingly and vigorously fueled by individual entrepreneurship. The Chinese movie (box office $6B, 2015 to $70B projected for 2020) and publishing ($24.7B in 2020, averaging 6.3% annual growth over the past five years) industry have grown significantly. The new digital media companies developed by civilian capital, such as TikTok and WeChat, have reached hundreds of millions of users. It is no surprise that the U.S. is trying to force TikTok to sell its US operation and ban WeChat. However, one should realize that it is the existence of these new media corporations that have given the Chinese citizens tremendous supervising (accountability) power to voice their displeasure about any government misdeeds. The fact an individual can overnight become a celebrity with millions of followers on the new media gives public officials pressure to deliver positive results. This is the reason that the CCP government is so concerned with 'the people’s voice’. From government efficacy and accountability point of view, the Chinese media industry is moving in the right direction from a controlled (partly capital deprived) system to a blooming environment.
 
The current U.S. media industry is digging its own grave by monopolizing its output to the extent that honorable journalism is giving way to fake news and profitability. The continuing division of left versus right, black versus white, conservative versus liberal, rich versus poor etc. is creating huge ridge gaps in the American society and the nation. To a large extent, the media industry was responsible for it. (over production and poor regulation do not yield quality)  Why only half of our population watches one TV station and read one newspaper and the other half does the rival ones? Why does our President call mass media creating fake news? The COVID-19 pandemic revealed one thing by the international and global internet social media: The U.S. did not have her acts together. Both the government and the media should bear the responsibility. When 169 to 2 nations (U.S. and Israel opposed) in the UN passed resolution to work together to combat the pandemic and reject unilateralism, the U.S. mass media have little reporting on self-reflection and positive suggestions to correct the lies about the pandemic. When a monopolizing media clams up or produces only one voice, it is not a good phenomenon. That phenomenon was characterized as communist media behavior.
 
The U.S. has a two party system, instead of competing fairly and take turn by election result to build our nation, the two parties behave like a third world country gangs bickering for power. An impeachment plan was plotted before the elected President taking the White House and the House Speaker had torn the President’s State of the Union speech in front of public TV camera are clear indication that our political system is failing. Our media has neither intention nor ability to hold justice to correct our leaders' misbehavior and lies both sides uttered. The relationship between the media and government should be guided along between supporting and opposing or correcting the government’s policies based on people’s interest and justice. The U.S. media does have one common belief that is ‘Democracy’. The entire media accept such a value system. However, this pre-accepted position does not negate the responsibility of the media being fair and honest about facts especially in exposing the faults of democracy. Today, besides mass media, we fortunately do have organic media though they are often overwhelmed by the mass media. Comparing the riots in Hong Kong and that in the U.S. since the BLM movement, we can see a different picture from mass media and organic media, the former has been reporting (biased by its pre-accepted ‘Democracy’ value) condemning a much gentler Hong Kong government for its handling of the violent riots but siding with the U.S. government for its brutal crashing of the riots. It is this kind of bias, double standard and blind eye to justice that make our media reputation declining.
 
This column is published in an organic medium and would never be accepted by the mass media. But with the advancement in Internet technology, we believe, the value of organic media will be gradually more accepted by the mass. We hope applications like TikTok and WeChat will give citizens a meaningful channel to voice their opinion, eventually correct the behavior of mass media otherwise replace them.

 
The 46th U.S. President’s inauguration took place on January 20th at the White House as usual, but the process is not usual at all and it will be remembered forever. First, the 45th U.S. President refused to attend the inauguration ceremony as a symbolic protest to a “fraudulent” election where the contest was very close and the ballot counting was problematic in his view. Second, the still rampant COVID-19 epidemic has prevented a large crowd to attend so the inauguration ceremony was simplified with much less spectators and fanfare. COVID-19 was also partially responsible for the unusual 2020 Presidential election where a large number of votes was by mail causing late arrival, counting delay and verification issue as well as deviation from the usual voting booth management and ballot counting procedure typically supervised by adequate personnel. Third, President Trump”s contest to the election result and several legal actions launched in the courts charging inappropriate election and vote-count procedure have boiled the Trump supporters to engage a protest rally on January 6th at the Capitol that unfortunately resulted in a violent protest, storming into the Capitol building, where the electoral votes were officially being confirmed. Fourth, although the cause of such a protest turning into a ‘riot’ like event was still under active investigation, the House under the Speaker Pelosi”s leadership was too eager and quick to characterize the protest as an insurrection promoted by Trump. Hence, the House passed the second impeachment against Trump on January 13th. Under the above circumstances, the 46th U.S. President inauguration was conducted in an unusual manner. The American public exhibited confused emotions, but it will be remembered as a black mark on the history of American democracy as expressed by many foreign press, despite of the fair speech by President Biden and a beautiful poem by young inauguration poet, Amanda Gorman, all calling for national unity and togetherness.
 
Trump may not be considered as a favored U.S. President by everyone, even among Republican party members, but he won the 2016 election fair and square. He won as a dark horse by his slogans, “America First” and ‘Make America Great Again’. There were nothing wrong with these slogans, however, they were ‘labelled’ towards ‘White Supremacy’ and ‘racial discrimination’ by Democratic Party and some of the mass media. The indifference of Trump’s core right-wing supporters, particularly his close staff, to ‘political correctness’ was largely to blame; especially when they were making policy statements and conducting domestic and foreign affairs. The 'political correctness' is closely related to the voter population. The demographic population of the U.S. is changing as revealed by the recent 2020 census. Two major shifts are related to the above political perception. According to the census and its data on 2016 and projection to 2060, the U.S. is facing two issues: an aging issue and a shift of racial distribution. At 2060, the estimated above 65 population will be 94.7 million, a 92.3% increase from 2016 figure. The white population (61.3% in 2016) will be below 50% by 2044 and at 44.3% by 2060, no longer a majority in the U.S. population. The aging issue is a general concern in economy in terms of national productivity and social security. Whereas the decreasing of white race population is both an economic and political issue. As a dominating middle class in the U.S., the white population has experienced buying power reduction in the past decades. With population going below 50%, it also signifies a further loss of political power in the U.S. democracy. Therefore, there is reason for Americans to be angry seeking remedy and counting on politicians to have solutions. Trump's attempt of directing the anger to foreign country may not be correct, but his attempt of making Ameriva great again with America first philosophy did resonate with many Americans.
 
Democratic Party correctly recognizes the trend of population change and played the identity politics to woe voters. However, neither party has demonstrated the capability of dealing with the staggering even declining U.S. economy and the widening of wealth gap in the U.S. The two parties are playing more rhetoric (blaming foreign country and each other) than cooperating in fixing the competitiveness issue of the U.S. on the world stage through domestic policies. The phrase coined by Thomas Friedman, ‘one party democracy’, seems to describe American politics today very well: each party is totally denying the value of the other party, trying to dominate the media to sway voters, and creating ‘hate’ and dividing the nation. Hence comparing to a one-party totalitarian government, the one party democracy cannot get things done but bickering. The 2020 election is clearly a manifestation of the 'one party democracy' politics. Trump lost in 2020 election for a second term bid but he had 75 million votes supported him. Biden won by a small margin and clearly inherited with a divided nation. Yes, calling for unity is essential, but the actions and deeds are far more important than empty words, worse hypocrisy.
 
First, Biden should stop the impeachment immediately and mend the division in the country. The Democrat-controlled House plotted the first impeachment against Trump before he even took office, sowing a seed of hatred. The two charges, abuse of power and obstruction of Congress were highly political. It failed in the Republican-dominated Senate but the entire process wasted so much of the government’s time and energy and took the eyes of all officials including all legislators off the devastating COVID-19 pandemic. Now that the U.S. is the number one nation impacted by COVID-19 with 400,000 deaths. Naturally, citizens are angry and hate crimes soar. The second impeachment was so hastily passed in the House with a charge of insurrection without waiting for the FBI investigation to complete. Such a charge is essentially charging all Trump supporters, demonstrating exactly the ‘one Party Democracy’ phenomenon. If Biden means what he says about unity and focusing on solving our problems: pandemic, economy, infrastructure, revitalizing the nation. He should lead the Congress away from making hatred and build a collaborative Congress with his Administration.
 
As citizens, we pray and hope that the 2020 inauguration will bring us unity and togetherness and make America great again!
 

 
Everyone feels that the US-China relations are getting tense with war drums. The public opinions on China have shifted towards hostility in the last few years. Whether you have any political position or not and whether or not you have any friendly relation with a Chinese through acquaintance, traveling, business relation even marriage, the public opinions on US-China relation affect you. Does one ever ask the question - how are the public opinions formed? I use the plural term because public opinions should be plural otherwise it is a consensus. Does the public know how the public opinions reach consensus? In particular, on an important international relation between the U.S. and China? Were there step by step factual actions leading the public opinions to reach a consensus? Or were there ‘public opinions’ created to lead the public to reach a target consensus? As a citizen, one often is too occupied in making a living to track public opinions. This is rather unfortunate, because the public is giving up the sacred right of expressing public opinion to a special entity who can shape the public opinions not in the best interest of the public..
 
The above process happens a lot in the U.S., resulting from a democratic system and process where public opinion is shaped by a little true public opinion expressed, some special interest group opinions and opinions from professional public relation firms and lobbyists hired by corporations and institutions. Under this environment, the true public opinion is always at a disadvantage competing for media coverage, worse still when public media no longer represents the true public but a fraction of a divided public. On certain issues close to the public’s day to day livelihood matter, the true public may have the urge to express themselves through organic media such as small community newspaper, social media, internet blogs or newsletters or by word of mouth to shape a true public opinion. However, for most international issues or foreign affairs, the U.S. public tends to be mute unless it involved war and lives at stake. Unfortunately, the U.S.-China relations falls in this category, initially it is viewed as a small trade imbalance. When the trade imbalance grew, the U.S. China policy changed; it is shifting from engagement to containment then to competitor- enemy. Does this shift follow public opinions? No, other way around, the U.S. China policy is shaping the public opinion through media channels, government nourished think tanks and government funded organizations involved in international relations work.
 
What evidence do we have that the U.S. China policy is top-down driven by a few in power? One clear evidence is that there is hardly any true public debate on the US-China relation and China policy. Furthermore, one can observe from many relevant opinion publications such as Foreign Policy, Foreign Affairs, National Interests, etc. (and mass media like  newspapers and magazines) to find that their discourse on the US-China relations or China policy discussions is not public opinion driven but more one-sided opinion endorsing a preconceived policy. How did all those authors form a consensus? No one can tell for sure, but the sources of funding have a lot of influence on the authors and the media which select their work. Indeed, very few true public opinions get published in those ‘elite’ media. Any opposite opinion the true public can get is often from foreign sources which our media brand them rhetoric. The U.S. public opinions of course should not be interested in rhetoric but in honest debates and analyses.
 
The above situation is not totally dim with no hope. There is a bright spot worth noting. One young company called Quora, Inc., founded in 6/2019 and available publicly one year later, has offered a ‘Question and Answer Platform’ to the public. The author singles this social media out simply because it appears to provide a true open platform to the public for expressing true public opinions. After ten years, Quora has as high as 590 million visits per month, a significant number even though the topical information scope was broad covering several languages. The bulk of content is in English and the two dozen other languages are less but desirable. The founders Adam D’Angelo and Charles Cheever (relinquished operating role in 9/2012) seem to emphasize maintaining a quality Q&A discourse more than getting advertising revenue. Through its growth, Quora offered full text search on Q&A and stats on viewing. In 2017, Quora separated out the Anonymous Q&A from the regular ones presumably serving those who only feel comfortable expressing in anonymity. Quora does require users to register with real names and it also offers ‘Space’ for like-minded users to communicate. Hopefully,  Quora can succeed in providing a true public opinion platform rather than caving in to other media's acquisition.
 
Let’s use a public Quora Q&A example to illustrate not only the value of Quora but also the importance to have a fair public opinion on US-China relations and U.S. China policy. The following was a ‘Question’ posted on Quora: “Do you think China will send its army into Hong Kong (HK) and put it under strict control like it did to the Uighurs?” This question submitted by an individual is seeking a public opinion on HK and expressing his opinion on Uighur. I read the answer from another individual and learned a lot on this subject clarifying some ‘rhetoric’ accusations the U.S. media is hurling at China. Part of the answer pertaining to data and facts is quoted here: “Xinjiang is a large central-Asian region within the People's Republic of China comprising numerous minority groups: 45% of its population are Uyghurs, and 40% are Han. Xinjiang has been part of China ever since tens of centuries ago, with the Uyghurs arriving from Central Asia in the 10th century. There have always been separatist movements in Xinjiang since 20th century. Those groups have dissolved but new ones appear such as the Turkistan Islamic Party. (TIP) or Turkistan Islamic Movement (TIM), formerly known as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM) and other names, an Islamic extremist organization founded by Uyghur jihadists in Western China, considered broadly as a terrorist group. Its stated goals are to establish an independent state called "East Turkestan" in Xinjiang. According to a Chinese report (2002), between 1990 and 2001 the ETIM had committed over 200 acts of terrorism, resulting in at least 162 deaths and over 440 injuries. The UN Security Council Al-Qaida Sanctions Committee has listed ETIM as a terrorist organization since 2002. Since the September 11 attacks, the group has been designated as a terrorist organization by China, EU, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Pakistan, Russia, Turkey, UAE, UK and the U.S., in addition to UN. Its Syrian branch Turkistan Islamic Party in Syria is active in the Syrian Civil War.” (Comment: The U.S. did list ETIM as a terrorist group but Mike Pompeo delisted it on 11-5-2020 saying that the listing gave China the reason to suppress the Uighur in Xinjiang, an illogical argument. The answer further questions the double standard of scrutinizing China's anti-terrorists activity but not the U.S. activities against terrorism, a fair comment.)
 
 
“The Chinese government is using the PLA to protect civilians and to save the Uyghurs from being terrorists by providing a better life for them by re-education, welfare and re-employment and safely assimilating them into society. There are 36 Muslim nations defending China on its Uyghur handling policies whereas the US and western nations continue to criticize China.(comment: the U.S. unfairly calls them concentration camp activities) There are already PLAs in HK since 1997. Every country has the right to protect itself from terrorism, invasions and attacks and that is why there is a National Security Act. HK is China's anyway so it should have a National Security Law otherwise Hong Kong will not be protected from terrorism, CIAs and attacks. The US is just using HK and the young people of HK like control game machines to flex its power under the cover of democracy and freedom.” (Comment: the answer equates what the U.S. does about HK like what she does about Xinjiang and Tibet are just propaganda and lies. The answer cited HK riots. Indeed, the HK riots are no different from the New York riots which must be controlled by the government.)
 
On the current US China policy, there is no justification for the hawks to push a war plan down the throat of the U.S. public, since there is no legitimate consensus in public opinions on a hawkish China policy. As Biden is taking up the helm, the public should urge the Administration to do a thorough Quora Q&A: What is a workable and beneficial U.S. China policy?
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Ifay Chang. Ph.D., Inventor, Author, TV Game Show Host and Columnist (www.us-chinaforum.org) as well as serving as Trustee, Somers Central School District.