What you will be getting and missing reading western media

This is what David Pilling wrote in his article, Japan, China and their ‘history problem’ in the Today paper, ‘The argument over Senkaku goes back to the start of Japanese colonialism. Japan surveyed Senkaku in 1885, … Saying that there was no sign of the islands being under anyone’s influence, it incorporated the into Japanese territory in 1895. Beijing says the islands have appeared on Chinese maps since the 16th Century. From its perspective, Japan seized the islands when it was setting off on its Western inspired colonial rampage. The islands were controlled by the Americans after the war, but returned to Tokyo in 1972 as part of the reversion of Okinawa to Japan. Beijing says the US had no right to return them since they were not Washington’s to give.’

Anyone reading this piece will think nothing is wrong with the Japanese version and the return of the islands to Japan. What was missing was the acknowledgement by the Japanese Imperial govt even much earlier of Diaoyu Islands as the territorial limits of the Qing Dynasty. What was left out was the ceding of the islands in an unequal treaty after China lost a war with Japan in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki. It was not an innocent act of simply incorporating other countries’ land into another country like the Western powers did during their colonization of the world. Columbus went to American and found no one owned it, so claimed that he found it. Raffles founded Singapore because no one else found it.

It also brushes aside the fact that the islands were held in trust by the Americans only and America was not the rightful owners. It also did not say anything about the post WW2 treaties for all land grabbed by Japan to be returned to China, including these islands. It also turned a blind eye to the American agenda of the Cold War conflict with China and Russia and thus conveniently ignored China’s rights to these islands.

The western media often deliberately ignored the truth and the relevant facts to show a different truth. Unwary and innocent readers would easily be made to see only their side of half truth, and lies as truth. And may daft Asians and Africans would believe these western truths and yell and cheer and embrace them like the gospel truth. Unthinking and not thinking and making an ass of themselves to serve western interests and agenda without knowing it.

China will do very well by not learning from the corrupt West

There is a Bloomberg article in the ST yesterday about the great pay gap between the American and Chinese bankers. As an example, it said that ‘For every US$1b of profit, investment bank JP Morgan, the biggest US lender, pays its chief executive and chairman Jamie Dimon US$1.21m, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China, the world’s most profitable, gives its top executive Jian Jianqing US$9,400.’ Dimon’s total package last year was around US$23m while Jian was about US$300k.

The disparity is probably as wide as the income gap between the rich and poor in Sinkieland. The article also said that the gap would be narrowed in a matter of time. It would, but hopefully China would not be as crazy as to go all the way like the crazy American white collar crooks. The salary of their political leaders is another example of China refusing to do the wrong things and ape the West blindly. They are not going to restrict the number of banks and not going to let them grow to become too big to fall. This is something that will keep the Chinese income gap and inflation in an even keel. Remember, all the big money paid to top bankers, CEOs and govt leaders eventually is paid by the people. It comes from the people that they robbed indirectly.

Despite the hue and cry about property prices falling, the Chinese are not going to do the same crazy thing to let property prices go sky high. The developers are trying to frighten the govt by claiming prices would collapse. They did not know that there are more than 1.4b Chinese waiting for cheaper properties and waiting for the prices to fall. The Chinese have brilliant scholars and administrators who are studying the developments around the world and could see the pitfalls of high property prices. They are going to introduce more curbs and control measures to keep property prices low.

There are many things the Chinese are learning since they joined the world community in the last 60 years and they are very discriminating in what they would adopt and apply to their country. Heh heh, high property prices and high salaries are not in their cards, at least if the current leaders have their way. They are not daft, like Sinkies. Hope they don’t turn their stockmarkets into doubles of Wall Street, and allow computers to trade against small investors, and not to allow derivatives and snake oils to be sold in their markets. By not aping and copying the West blindly, the Chinese would do well and protect themselves from the greed that is destroying the western economies and system.

PS. For those wondering why I wrote so many articles about China, US and east and south east Asia, these are my academic interests. No man is an island and we must look beyond the little wells we live in. The world is so interconnected that everything affects us in one way or another.

Japan, the day of reckoning beckons

Flashing across several newspapers was Japan’s call on China to protect its citizens amidst public protest over the landing of Japanese nationalists in Diaoyu Island in a tit for tat move by the Japanese. This brought back vivid memories of the early 20th Century, the days of Shanghai Bund, of foreign concessions in China. During those dark days of China’s history, when foreign soldiers were stationed inside China, including several of the big cities, there were also many protests by the Chinese students and nationalists in China against foreign encroachment and aggression. Japan was one of the big powers occupying parts of China and with its own concessions.

In those days, there were no calls for protection of Japanese nationals inside China. If there were, it was the Chinese govt calling for the protection of Chinese nationals inside China from cruelties and attacks by the Japanese in particular, and the western powers in general. In those days, the Chinese citizens were victims of foreign soldiers in their own country.

Often, the Japanese would provoke incidents with the citizens and used it to attack and encroach further into China, claiming reparations and demanding compensations for Japanese military actions against the Chinese govt, and more territorial concessions as well.

The China then was a broken country, disunited, poor agricultural land that was torn apart, and with no modern industries. They don’t even have a proper army and no arms industry to produce even small arms. Today, China is a full fledge superpower that would even hold the mighty US forces at arms length. Would the Japanese dare to trigger any incident and attack China again? A united China with military forces much bigger than the Japanese in all areas is not going take any Japanese engineered incident lightly.

How genuine is this Japanese fear for the safety of its citizens inside China? Over the past decades after China became a people’s republic, there were many incidents of public protest but hardly a Japanese citizen was hurt unlike when Japan was invading China. Are the Japanese plotting new excuses to revisit the days of old Shanghai and old China? Would there be another coalition of western forces in the likes of the League of Nations to attacking China?

Would China take it like it did before, being beaten to pieces? Or would China deal a forceful blow to the invaders this time round? Would Japan be able to run free in China again? Or would Chinese troops be running free in Japan should hostility breaks out?

Time to get rid of the old and senile

Shanmugam revealed a few more details of his meeting with this elderly man, a Sinkie, who complained all things about Indians, from smell, social status and turning his flat into a squalor. Being an elderly person, and complaining about such insensitive problems, I would presume that this is another member of the lost generation, illiterate or poorly schooled, and very ignorant of anything further than the tip of his nose.

The fact that he rattled off about how ugly and smelly his Indian neighbour was without knowing that Shanmugam is also an Indian, tells a lot about the mentality of this elderly person. Is he bi polar or senile? How could a sensible person be complaining about an Indian to an Indian without thinking that the Indian he was speaking to could be offended? Maybe he is colour blind.

There will be many of such elderlies that lived in their little cocoon world. There will even be young people who may have such prejudices. Some may need to be sent to the IMH. They don’t represent the normal and the majority.

The point is that such elderlies are remnants of a past where many did not have the privilege of a decent education and have very narrow world views of things. One way is to try to understand and tolerate them in their pathetic and deprived existence. In a way like tolerating the foul smell and squalor of a dirty neighbour. Another way is to tell the world how ugly these elderlies are and dispatch them to some forsaken place to keep them away from creating trouble to the well endowed and affluent citizens. JB, Batam and Bintan look very convenient. I think the latter suggestion is a good and easy way to take care of such elderlies. This beautiful world class city of ours, with all the fine and elegant people, has no place for such laggards of the past.

Mohammed did not go to the mountain

Did the Mohammed go to the mountain or did the mountain go to Mohammed? The mountain did not need anything from Mohammed for sure. Mohammed needed to listen to God, and needed to go to the mountain for that. This cannot be too confusing right?

I heard Reach has set up many feedback platforms for the people to go and have their feedbacks heard. And the ministers would be waiting for them. Many will go to the platforms to do as told. Many will also not go to the platforms. Those who are going will fit into a certain mould, a certain kind of thinking and expectations. The feedback will be skewed towards this kind of thinking format. There will be an absence of another format of thinking which is what the feedback probably will want to hear. This kind of thinking is floating all over cyberspace, in many blogs and forum. But the mountain would not go to the forum to hear them. The mountain may just make do with whatever and whoever is willing to call at the mountain’s convenience and dictates.

Would the mountain be humble enough to go to the people, to listen to the people, to chat with the people? Would the need to listen to the people be compelling enough to move the mountain? At the moment it is unlikely. The people must go to the mountain. Fortunately there is no requirement to kneel and pray after every 3 steps on the way to the mountain.

I think the mountain would be very welcome in many blogs and forum if indeed it can move from its immovable position. It would be like calling on the people, knocking at the doors and be invited in for a chat.

It is difficult, very difficult, to think that the mountain will go to Mohammed even with the convenience of not having to move one step and at its own time, and not risk being assaulted. The sincerity of the mountain is being questioned if it did not think it necessary to go to Mohammed.