Serious mental stimulation or fear mongering?

This is what LKY said about China in a report by The Australian on his new book, Lee Kuan Yew: The Grandmaster’s Insight on China, the US and the world, ‘Will an industrialized and strong China be as benign to Southeast Asia as the US has been since 1945? Singapore is not sure. Neither is Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand or Vietnam. He says “many small and medium countries in Asia are concerned. They are uneasy that China may want to resume the imperial status it had in earlier centuries, and have misgivings as being treated as vassal states.’

What is so intriguing about such a westernized view now spoken by LKY? The Americans have been selling this fear daily in all the western media to frighten the shit out of unthinking Southeast Asian countries that China will be eating them up piece by piece. This is American and western fear mongering all these years. It is ‘wolf, wolf, …wolf, wolf’. So what is the big deal parroting an American/western loaded view?

The more dicey part is to link this to a China that ‘wants to resume the imperial status it had in earlier centuries’ and making Southeast Asian states China’s vassal states. How possible and realistic is such a thought? This is antique thinking. The geo politics of the world have changed. The dynamics of world politics have changed. There is a bigger monster in the USA riding roughshod over smaller countries around the world, particularly in Africa, Middle East and recently in Afghanistan.

The main purpose of such rumour and fear mongering is to justify the military presence of the Americans in the region, the American pivot. What else could it serve other than pandering to the interests of the Americans? Of course the Americans will say, good boy.

A China to dominate over Southeast Asian countries is a near impossibility for at least the next 50 years as long as there is a mighty American military that is unchallenged in the world. And as have been proven by the belligerent and imperialist Americans and the Russians, the world today, with nationalism a vital force, no superpower can conquer and subdue a country when the people are ready to fight the invaders. The Americans could not subdue the North Koreans, the Vietnamese, the Arabs, the Africans and now facing the same fate in Afghanistan like the Russians.

World domination by military means is no longer a viable and sustainable option. There cannot be another evil empire to rule the world unless it is so overwhelmingly powerful and it could press and extinguish any form of military resistance like a cockroach. And even if possible, the cost of maintaining peace and security will be a perpetual pain to any evil empire.

It is a different world in a different century. Old ideas and imaginations no longer hold, and the new world order is not going to be like history, Imperial empires, vassal states and all that jazz. It is all about playing computer games and more. The world has changed baby.

By the way, is the USA a benign superpower? Ask how many wars it had started and how many countries it had invaded and bombed and how many innocent people it had killed. Ask those countries that were victims of US aggression and invasion. We happen to be useful and play by the rules of the USA and got some crumbs to feel grateful. Also, thanks to our Muslim neighbours for taking a not too friendly anti USA stance to make us useful to the USA.