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The central image of the U.S. government of itself is that it is a model government for the world to admire and mimic. It is a gold standard in terms of governance of the country with respect to democracy and human rights, and in terms of world peace and addressing the world’s critical problems. In a sense we as Americans as well as the people of the world have more of less accepted this characterization of the U.S. and the American people, because for more than half a century from the end of WWII to about the beginning of the 21st century, so many of us in the U.S. and in the rest of the world have often tried to pursue this so-called American dream without seriously thinking what was this American dream, whether reality matches this depicted dream, whether it has been achieved, and more importantly how far is the actual U.S. government from this gold standard.

This article looks more carefully into the American government and its actual practice during its existence in the last 250 years so that we can have a better benchmark to assess the actual American government. For our assessment, we will consider the following metrics:

• Democracy
• Human Rights
• Peace
• Addressing World Problems

Part I of this two-part article discusses the first two metrics of democracy and human rights.  Part II discusses the other two metrics of peace and addressing world problems. Read More »

In the past year, if you just read or listen to the statements coming from the top political leaders of the U.S. and other Western countries, as well as from the many articles and reports coming from various major Western mass-media companies, you will undoubtedly conclude that China is the enemy of the U.S. Recently, the “Coalition Peace Initiative,” together with 11 other co-sponsors, organized a series of nine webinars, to promote peace between the U.S. and China. This just completed webinar series discussed the three topics of U.S.-China relationship, modern Chinese history, and Chinese experience in the U.S. [1]

The last webinar in this 9 webinar series is titled “China Is Not United States’ Enemy.” This article is the summary by the author given at the end of this webinar program.

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