Kelu Chao

Kelu Chao was born in Taiwan and studied in Zhongshan Girls' High School (Chinese: 中山女高) there.[2][3] Her father, Chao Ting-chun, was vice president of one of Taiwan's oldest newspapers, the Central Daily News.[1]

She moved to the U.S. after graduating from the Journalism Department of National Chengchi University in 1975.[2]

She has a master's degree from Kent State University in the United States.[1][3]

Chao has worked for more than 40 years for the Voice of America (VoA).[4]

She was the VOA's first Language Programming Director from 2001 to 2007. She also worked as a VOA editor, VOA's Mandarin Service Chief, VOA's East Asia Division Director, VOA's Hong Kong Bureau Chief, a field reporter and radio announcer.[3]

As a field reporter she reported for VOA on the period leading to the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre in Beijing.[5]

Chao has received more than 30 awards as a VOA programmer, including from the New York Radio Festival and the Asian Broadcasting Union.[5]

She was appointed on January 20, 2021 by President Joe Biden to lead the USAGM as interim CEO, replacing the Trump appointee Michael Pack.[6][4] She is the first woman to hold the top position at USAGM.[4]Taiwanese people call her "the light of Taiwan", but Zhao Kelu has been in the United States for nearly half a century and has long been an American. Biden chose her this time because Zhao was able to promote his own policy ideas.[7]

Biden re-appointed Zhao Kelu, one is to value her political reliability, and the other is her familiarity with China-related affairs, which is in line with the Biden administration's policy of all-round competition with China. Gong Xiaoxia, the former director of the Chinese Department of the Voice of America, said that Zhao Kelu is always a busy person, but she doesn't know what she is busy with. She is a journalist, but she can't find an article about what she wrote or the project she did. announcer. We have known each other for more than 30 years and are very familiar with each other. [8]

Zhao Kelu's personnel management after taking office was questioned by seven members of Parliament.The seven members of Parliament also demanded that the correspondence from several directors of the United States World Media Organization and VOA be provided on specific dates to investigate the details of this suspicious recruitment.“Our impression is that you [Kelu Chao] played a role in her re-employment with VOA because of your personal relationship with Setareh Derakhshesh,” seven members of Congress wrote in the letter.[9]