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The US presidential election, if no procedural surprise, will be held on November 3rd with more or less mail-in ballots depending on the situation of the COVID-19 Pandemic. The agenda occupying voters mind can always be put in the two major categories of Foreign Policies and Domestic Issues since they are the responsibility of the Presidency. However, each of the two categories contains many complex problems which challenge the President’s ability and measure his or her performance. The voters’ attention on these issues and their score cards generally get sharpened as the election campaign enters into the last ten weeks. This year is of no exception, the various foreign and domestic issues began to stack themselves with a few critical ones rising to the top of the voting population’s mind.
 
At this point, what are the critical foreign policies and domestic issues in the 2020 Presidential election then? Among foreign affairs, of course war and casualty are the most critical issues, but the Trump Administration despite of his unorthodox practice, his foreign policies are generally scaling down military conflicts and commitments by either withdrawing US troops from foreign land and reducing commitment in world obligation or shifting so called ‘security and defense’ burden to allies or applying ‘negotiation and sanction’ tactics against a few targets. These approaches were applied in the  Middle East (‘ending the senseless wars’ policy), Europe (NATO versus Russia) and Asia (Korea Peninsula, Japan and Iran) except the South China Sea (involving China, ASEAN, Australia and India).
 
Trump has deliberately linked the China Relation to US domestic issues by accusing China as the culprit for US economic downturn, large trade deficit, falling competitiveness in technologies and even the disastrous COVID19-19 pandemic disease (the U.S. has the highest death toll in the world). Therefore, China Relation has been pumped up as the most critical foreign affairs issue in the 2020 Presidential election. Trump Administration not only hired staff with ‘McCarthyism’ ideology but also allowed them to infest the White House with their anti-China one-track mind (with little first hand experience in dealing with and knowing China, unfortunately) . The current status of US-China relation can be characterized with I. “continuing trade war with no end in sight”, II. ”destroying successful Chinese technology companies and deny them the U.S market”, and III. “provoking China on her sovereignty issues (Hong Kong, Taiwan, Xinjiang, South China Sea, etc. dividing Chinese people against their government )”.
 
Whether the above China issue overshadowing other foreign affairs will also overshadow all domestic issues or not is a billion dollar election question. Among domestic issues, economy (unemployment), pandemic, violent protests (racial discrimination, BLM, and gun violence) are intertwined as the most critical domestic issue. Infrastructure, border wall, immigration, gender equality etc. etc. are pushed below the critical level, because the top three domestic issues (economy-unemployment, pandemic and discrimination-violence-gun control) are all portrayed as one lumped issue. In this year, the above lumped issues are also artificially tied to the US-China relation as Trump Administration deliberately cast China as the single culprit or create the image that China is the single source for our problems: China stole our jobs by selling us cheap goods. China stole our technologies and became leader in technology such as 5G communication. China created the Corona virus and caused the U.S. pandemic with world highest death toll and huge economic set back.
 
Trump’s election strategy seems to be betting on that the voters can be easily fooled by creating a monster image (China) to be responsible for all of our problems. I think the U.S. voters are not so dumb, especially they see that the Trump Administration does not really have a working strategy to deal with the monster if it really exists as it is painted. In the trade war, China agreed to buy more goods from the U.S. yet the U.S. apply more sanctions to Chinese companies which do not solve the trade imbalance. Arbitrarily forbidding Chinese tech companies to do business in the U.S. or confiscate or close down their operation may loot a one-time benefit but it forces the Chinese corporations to be more independent of the U.S. industries in the future. The antagonizing maneuver against China especially in the South China Sea only accelerates China’s military defense. Can the U.S. risk a major war (likely nuclear war) with China? I think the American voters can see through the above scenarios and realize that the White House staff and Pompeo’s ‘China strategy” is a ‘Mirage Solution’ to the U.S. problems.
 
Floyd’s death under police brutality created the Black Lives Matter movement. It even propagated world wide even though domestically we always tried to deflect the (300 years) racial discrimination issue into another tangential subject. BLM triggered violent protest. Police and protesters clash. Gun violence and gun control surface as a debate topic as they do every election-cycle. The National Riffle Association (NRA founded in 1871) has always been a big donor in Presidential election and an avid lobbyist for gun ownership based on the 2nd Amendment. This year this issue probably will not become a serious debate subject since the Presidential debate is in limbo. However, a recent news that the New York Attorney General Latetia James has filed a lawsuit on 8-6-2020 to dissolve the NRA on the ground that its current and former officials have engaged in a massive fraud against donors. The lawsuit demands millions of dollars for restitution and penalties.
 
At the White House, Trump (whose charitable foundation paid $2m settlement last year in a lawsuit launched by James) commented lightly on the NRA lawsuit: “very terrible thing.” He urged the group to move to Texas and said, “It would be a great place for the NRA”. One can see that the gun issue pales in importance compared to another coming trade talk with China in a few days, sanctioning Hong Kong Executive Carrie Lam to travel to the U.S. and Trump’s recent executive orders that would impose new limits on Chinese social-media apps TikTok and WeChat and set a 45-day deadline for an American company to purchase TikTok’s U.S. operations. All these anti-China activities seem to occupy Trump’s attention and serve as ammunition to his re-election strategy creating a ‘Mirage Monster’ even though China has so far acted with calm and rational responses by standing firm on her principles and avoiding to get dragged into the U.S. Presidential election.
 
Although the Democrat Joe Biden does not spurt an exciting election campaign, but I am afraid that a ‘Mirage Solution’ will not secure a second term for Trump.
 
 

 
People are familiar with World Trade Organization (WTO), a United Nation Organization to establish trade rules, regulate agreements, settle disputes, help developing countries and monitor trade relations between and among its 164 international members. WTO, established in 1995, has been instrumental in promoting world trade and enhancing world economy. In its 25 years of history, the world trade has quadrupled in dollar amount, 2.7 times in volume size and two times in world GDP， $80.9 trillion in 2017 . With limited resources on Earth, cooperation in product development, labor sharing, energy conservation and material recycling are absolutely necessary to sustain economic growth. The more trade in the world signifies more collaboration, more prosperity, more interaction and more cultural and social integration towards a harmonious global community. WTO has made a very significant contribution to the human globalization process and world prosperity where trade is a key element.
 
People are perhaps also familiar with the World Health Organization (WHO) as the directing and coordinating authority on international health within the United Nations system. WHO adheres to the UN values of integrity, professionalism and respect for diversification. WHO works worldwide to promote health, keep the world safe, and serve the vulnerable people with a goal - people have universal health coverage, health emergencies protection, and better health and well-being by focusing on access to medical care and quality of healthcare, sustainable finance and financing, data and information monitoring and collection. These objectives require global cooperation to achieve. The recent COVID-19 pandemic has demonstrated once again that WHO is so critically important in dealing with a world-wide health challenge. The pandemic has revealed that the global community must work together in fending off such a natural disaster. The world needs an effective vaccine working for the entire world population, not just for one nation or one continent.
 
In this paper, the author proposes that the UN needs to establish a World Media Organization (WMO) to define guidelines and rules about public media and to regulate its operation and propagation in the domestic and international environment for the benefit of maintaining a peaceful and culturally enriched global community. In the following, we present the arguments for the need of such a world organization. Information media have blossomed and come a long way since the Chinese first invented the printing (206 BC), woodblock printing (8th century CE) and Gutenberg, a German, first created the printing press (1450). With the advance of electronics, computer, communication networks and satellites today, we have multimedia information flourishing in our everyday life with print materials, web pages, e-books, television and a rich set of social media delivering vast amount of information through words, documents, music, pictures, movies and ever creative digital media encompassing all of the above. This is seemingly a blessing for the mankind except the unregulated proliferation of media also creates harmful problems.
 
Yes, we are in an information age. However, the above scenario also describes a tremendous quantitative byte-assault on human being with the arrival of the explosive information revolution. The benefits delivered by vast amount of multimedia information seem to be covering up the pitfalls and the devil being released by the media explosion. The U.S. media industry is of the size of $703 billion dollars projected to reach $803B by 2021. What is the problem with the fast growing media industry today? There are actually too numerous to elaborate in detail here except by broadly group them in some categories for discussion. We shall focus on the following four problem categories of media to strengthen our arguments for advocating the establishment of WMO:

I. Rhetoric in the Media  

We talk about this first because its effect is seriously changing the behavior of nations. The rhetoric are destroying the diplomatic relations between countries and their people and creating hostile conditions leading to war or at the minimum generating hatred among nations. Are all rhetoric based on facts? The problem is that they are not. Furthermore, with continuous rhetoric, people get brain washed and hatred turns into violence. This has been happening among people and nations too numerous to elucidate here. What we need is a neutral inclusive international organization like WMO to regulate the rhetoric issue.

II. Fake News (Fake Information)

Fake news is a broad category affecting all elements of society, domestic and international. It contributes to the above category, rhetoric, making its effect worse. Before the media revolution, print media dominated. Because of the technology limitation and cost involved, the print media was far more self-regulated than today’s multimedia (including the print media). The publication process had a rigorous editorial procedure and authors had a higher moral principle which was destroyed or deteriorated today under the so-called freedom of speech. The end result is that the amount of fake news is so overwhelming, they twisted the fact and truth. People have too little time to make verification.  Especially the learning population (not just young kids and students but also adult learners) they get misled, the damages are often too difficult to correct. An international organization like WMO can help make the verification and regulate the fake news.

III. Dangerous Speech (Criminal in Nature)

The freedom of speech also created another heaven for ‘dangerous speech’, dangerous information can create personal, societal, national and even international danger. Spreading terrorism, indoctrinating evil and hatred thoughts, luring innocent minds into cult-like organizations and advocating violence and ‘revolutions’ against existing legal systems are all dangerous speeches that serve no good purpose. Again, there are many incidences of violent crimes created which can be traced to media influence. We need an international media organization backed by the international body to prevent and remove these dangerous speeches.

IV. Information and Data Security

The proliferation of social media and the advancement of digital technology make information and data readily collectible and easily distributed. Personal private data, corporate business data and even national security data can be vulnerable due to hackers or malicious organizations of various sources. Safe guarding of these data is critically important. In our global community, the protection of such sensitive data and information definitely requires an international media organization to police such crimes with clear rules to regulate and severe punishment to deter criminals. The proliferation of social media crossing national boundary is especially of concern in this category.
 
From the above discussion, one can easily understand the need of media regulation in an international setting by an international organization. The establishment of WMO is no less important as the WTO and WHO which have served the world well. We urge the UN to take an initiative to create such an organization.

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.
 

The COVID-19 pandemic broke out all over the world, statistics now showed that there were 17.6 m cases world wide with over 679k deaths reported. The U.S., Brazil, India, Russia and South Africa are the top five infected nations. The death score of this pandemic disease has already surpassed several previous pandemic such as Spanish flu and Swine Flu with death toll at 675K (1918-1920) and 12,469 (2009-2010) respectively.

Human has progressed significantly in science and medicine up to 21 st century. Yet, this COVID-19 has caught humans in surprise exposing human’s shortcomings. Even though China succeeded in applying rapid and harsh ‘city quarantine’ measure to combat her first pandemic outbreak city, Wuhan, and successfully suppressed the spread of the pandemic, this corona virus had sprang out all over the world with different ‘strains’. Because of the reaction speed and control measures applied differently, the pandemic spread was very rapid resulting in the above world statistics. The pandemic is causing severe impact on the world economy and giving a harsh stress test on the healthcare system and their medical facilities in every country. Although China has stopped the pandemic early and gradually returned her industry and commerce to normal, she is still mindful of a second wave to return. There is still possibility of virus entering from abroad, for example through imported seafood and goods as well as foreigners coming from abroad. So China cannot relax on her precaution and prevention measures for another pandemic breakout.
 
This pandemic spread pretty broad and fast, but the effectiveness of the control measure varied in different time and at different place resulting in quite a different consequences. First, the standards of healthcare systems are different in each country. Second, the quality and quantity of medical facilities vary a lot. Thirdly, people’s attitude towards natural disease and personal freedom are tied with their culture and social custom. Therefore, even though the WOrld Health Organization has suggested measures to deal with the pandemic, the world responded differently, some even showing non-cooperative attitude. Even today, there is still debate on wearing mask, useful versus violating human rights. However, from scientific point of view, when there is no vaccine, everyone may be a carrier without knowing it. The COVID-19 transmission can be via airborne as well physical contact and its life span can be from a few hours to days depending on the environmental hygiene, and weather condition. That is why the COVID-19 pandemic has become so rampant.
 
Human civilization has come a long way with great progress. Humans have gained a tremendous amount of knowledge about nature, even the universe. This Summer Mars is closest to earth from its orbit, thus the U.S., China and United Arab Emirates (UAE) all have scheduled their Mars exploration mission. But on Earth, we still struggle in battling the pandemic. Although humans’ average life expectancy is near eighty, but healthcare is still human’s shortcomings. Sickness, especially for seniors, is still our miseries. Even the richest nation on Earth, cannot meet the challenge of the pandemic. Hospitals were overwhelmed with patients exceeding their capacity, testing for the virus were a little too few and too slow, never mind getting vaccines in time. So this COVID-19 taught us a lesson and gave us a provocation: How will human civilization progress after the pandemic? What will our civilization looks like in the future?
 
The author would like to use a hypothetical blueprint to answer the above question, calling it ‘the clean space civilization’ (CSC). The clean space civilization may be imagined from the futuristic ‘space civilization’ (space living) but CSC is more down to Earth, realistic and realizable to deal with the challenges facing human race, such as environment, healthcare and pandemic problems. In the following, we will discuss what is ‘Clean Space Civilization’ after a review of the problems facing human race.
 
Human civilization has made giant progress in many domains; for example on environment, humans have changed their life style, paying attention to recycling their waste, using sustainable energy, and caring about our natural environment and resources. But, we still have global warming and outbreak of pandemic diseases. Human healthcare has come a long way in treating diseases, reproducing human organs and replacing body parts. But, we are still unprepared in preventing pandemic disease. We simply don’t have a comprehensive strategy dealing with pandemic. Thus the human race has ever-increasing demand on healthcare, doctors, hospitals and medicines, a dependency now stronger than food supply. The ever-decreasing human birth rate in current human civilization is very much related to our vulnerability discussed above.
 
During last six months, the author has witnessed many events and our vulnerability caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The CSC is a hypothetical civilization useful for us to discuss the above question. What is the clean space civilization’? Simply put, it is a civilization where humans will make their living space and air absolutely clean and live in that environment. We can use three pictures to give us an idea what is a clean space. The first picture is the work environment of a semiconductor manufacturing factory, a clean room where workers wear clean suits working there. The second picture is the space station, a vacuum space where astronauts wear space suits working there (the universe).The third picture is the scene of pandemic control, from hospitals, testing stations, to air, ship, train and bus stations where workers wear ‘virus proof clean suits’ from head helmet to special shoes working there. From these three pictures, we can easily imagine, when humans are confronting the pandemic, it is very logical that humans will develop a ‘clean space civilization’ to deal with pandemic virus. Perhaps humans will realize that their clothing (suit) besides fitting and style, the most important consideration should be ‘clean’ that is it has filtering, disinfection, and virus prevention (even health maintenance) functions. When humans live in ‘clean space’, wear ‘clean suits’ to go out and work, then they will be safe from any virus infection. Isn’t this an ideal living without concern of virus (or sickness)?!
 
Humans’ ‘clean space civilization’ obeys the principles of economics. Clean space is compatible with environmental protection effort. CSC is effective for disease prevention including the pandemic type. When humans don’t get sick, the requirement on healthcare, hospital and medicine is naturally reduced. Humans evolving from Apes to today, from wearing no clothes to today’s various fancy apparel, their clothing design may be practical but certainly more for esthetics than for scientific, economic or disease prevention purposes. The CSC is not an imagination from science fiction, but a conclusion after witnessing how people lived under the pandemic and thinking through human living habits and social custom. During the pandemic, people must keep distance and mostly work at home which caused economic recession. If humans change their attitude, accepting the concept of ‘clean space’, ‘clean room’, and ‘clean suit’ and understand their real meaning and benefits, then humans are adopting CSC. In this civilization, humans can keep close interaction, only their environment is changed. Their clothing will be scientifically designed with esthetics in mind. It is entirely possible smart interior and clothing designers can integrate science, healthcare, practicality and esthetics to design proper living space and apparels for our ‘clean space civilization’.