India to boost trade with China

Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi is visiting India with a big bag of proposals to improve trade between the world’s two most populous countries. Unlike the Americans and the Japanese, wherever the Chinese go, they will end up signing trade pacts while the Americans and Japanese would be signing military pacts.
China India trade has a lot of room to grow if both countries put their minds to it. The problem with improving relations between the countries lies in India’s self delusion of a China coveting Indian territories. This myth has been created since the Sino India border war and bred bitterness in mindset of the Indian population and politicians. India must face the truth and realities of its relations with China to go forward.
 
Historically, India and China has never invaded each other or had wars with each other in the name of conquest. The Sino Indian border war was India’s own doing when it attempted to seize Chinese territories with its go east policy under Nehru. The disastrous defeat by the Chinese PLA resulted not only in shame but turned into hatred for China to hide the real cause of the war.
 
That war also proved that China had no intent to seize any Indian territory or to settle the border dispute by force. China voluntary withdrew from India and returned to the original position at the border till today. There were still some border skirmishes and India is totally to blame for their adventurism. The fear of a Chinese invasion is hogwash, a political stance to create an enemy out of China. China would not have withdrawn after the 1962 border war if that was China’s intent.
 
Other than the overhyped border dispute and blaming China, India is fully engaged in hosting the Tibetan separatist movements in India and supporting the Dalai Lama in his secessionist plan. This is not going to be good for relations with China but the Chinese have been playing down this role of India in interfering with China’s domestic affairs to avoid further tension between the two states.
 
India should erase the China threat myth and reduce its support of the Tibetan movements and move forward in a big way for trade and economic growth with China. There is nothing to gain to live in a self deluded myth and to agitate, harbour and support separatist movements in India against China. In today’s geopolitics, wars of conquest for territorial gains are no longer a viable option. There is great potential for India and China to grow and prosper together and live harmoniously as two great neigbours. There is no China threat against India in imagination and in reality as such an attempt would only lead the two countries to endless strife and economic ruins. The relationship between the two countries should be economic prosperity for both and the uplifting of the lives of more than 2 billion people in the two countries. Indulging in talks of war is a foolish and wasteful activity that is best set aside when there is so much to be gained in productive economic activities.
 
Would India and China take a different and new path towards economic growth and not to follow the western craze for war, threats of war and living in the fear of war? Would India remove the China bogeyman and stop allowing the West to use this excuse to drive a wedge between the two Asian powers?

Kopi Level - Green

Singapore’s changing political landscape– From ‘boh tak cheh’ to fallen talents

It is quite unbelieveable today for a barber or ‘chee cheong fan’ hawker to stand for election in a GE. That was how we started in those days. But in those days, where many were illiterate, received very low education, the lack of education of the politicians was not a measure of their intellect. Many were highly intelligent individuals though uneducated or educated only up to primary school level. And they were elected as the people’s representatives to Parliament. The people believed and trusted them to be good enough to be in the Govt.
 
As we progressed, more tertiary educated and professionals stepped forward to join political parties. They were the elite of the time when less than 3 per cent of each cohort of students made it to university. Tertiary graduates from the universities and polytechnics were hard to come by.
 
Then we progressed further, scholars were touted as the best talents for govt. Successful professionals were proclaimed as super talents. And we needed super talents to raise the quality of govt. And super talents must also be paid like super talents. And there were very high expectations from the super talents.
 
It did not take long before the super talent myth was deflated. We are all witness to what the super talents could do and how many became mediocre in politics though they were tops in their professions. It came so sudden, the stark reality that super talents are not really super talents when come to serving the people and working for the interests of the people. They looked like fish out of water in politics.
 
The grand slam came in two by elections in Hougang and Punggol East. The rest is history. Super talents are out. The people want leaders with a heart and not just exceptional academic talents. And too clever politicians may be too clever for their own good and not good for the people.
 
From moving away from the ‘boh tak cheh’ politicians, the people are now moving away from the super talent politicians. Just give us some good men and women. No need to be outstandingly clever in academics or making millions in their professions. Good honest and decent men and women that think first of the people are more desirable than super talents that worried more about how many more millions they should be getting for their big sacrifice. These people are too busy with their jobs, making really good money, would they have time to roll up their sleeves, to dirty their hands on minor and mundane little problems of the people?

Kopi Level - Green

Half a thousand

Forty years ago, this guy walked into a bank to get a car loan. The bank officer asked for his salary. ‘Half a thousand!’, he replied confidently. In those days, a Morris Minor cost about $5,000, no need COE. Practically every young army officer could afford a car and a flat after working for less than 3 years. And many were non graduates, O and A levels were the norm. And they were quite comfortable with half a thousand, and getting a one thousand dollar salary, or four figure, was a statement of having arrived for the young men.
 
How many could afford to buy a car today with a $3,000 income? And how many could afford a HDB flat with a single income? Oops, I am wrong on this. Sorry, a $1,000 income is enough to buy a flat.
 
Those were the days when half a thousand could get one quite far, dating the girl next door, going for joy ride with a brand new car with not a concern for the cost of petrol. ‘Chiat hong’ was fun, a leisurely drive around the island with girl friend or family was having a good time. Life might be simpler then, and the stress level was pretty low.
 
Today the people are richer. ‘What is ten million’ is often uttered by the super rich. Life is really good. Don’t ever tell anyone your income is half a thousand. An uneducated cleaner is already earning a four figure income. Half a thousand is below poverty line. A two thousand household income is likely to be below poverty line too.

Kopi Level - Green

Sequel to Redbean's Article On TIANANMEN

Sequel to Redbean's 'Tiananmen - The  Monstrous Master Plan of  CIA   in Tiananmen

The Tian-anmen Incident was organised and planned by CIA over a long period of time.. It did not just happen overnight. The Tian-anmen incident happened because of the treachery of US via its terrorist arm CIA. US treachery and long held doctrine of subversion of other countries to enhance its policy of world domination and hegemony. For many years prior to the Tian-anmen incident USA secret and under cover CIA agents working out from its embassy in Beijing and consulates in Shanghai, Chungking and Hong Kong had infiltrated into Chinese societies and institutions . The hundreds of English teachers they sent to China  and many of their businessmen were American spies and undercover agents who recruited and trained subversive elements to destabilise and overthrow the Chinese government and thereby to destroy China. The  Tian-anmen mob was organised and staged by CIA subversive elements, misguided youths and traitors and fanned by US misinformation, disinformation , lies and half truths to incite the Chinese people against the Chinese government and instigate a new Chinese civil war so as to weaken and eventually destroy China. It is important to note that all the ring leaders of the Tian-Anmen incident were subsequently and secretly whisked out of the country by CIA and  sent to America. CIA had planned everything carefully and secretly including the lines of escape for the Chinese traitors and turncoats.if things went wrong.

It is important to note that China was absoulutely right in resolutely quelling these misguided rioting mobs infiltrated by CIA trained internal subversive elements and incited and instigated by CIA agents.  You just can't imagine, had CIA succeeded in
promoting choas and instability in Beijing and all over China , what would then happen to China and the Chinese people. China would then return to the days of the warlords and the inconsequential Chiang Kai Shek era. In other words China would become the Sick Men of Asia again to be trampled by the West and Japan. The Chinese and China would then be humiliated again with no self respect and dignity. It is of paramount importance that such incidents do not happen again.

Below are extracts of some information from an article  'What Really Happened in Tiananmen Square 25 Years Ago.'  Written by Brian Becker. Global Research                                                                       

US  Government and US mass media demonise China falsely on Tiananmen Incident.   PART 1

Twenty-five years ago today,  U.S. mass media,   President Bush and  U.S. Congress adopted a frenzy and  hysterical  attack against the Chinese government for what they falsely claimed as  the cold-blooded massacre of  thousands of non-violent “pro-democracy” students who had occupied Tiananmen Square for seven weeks. Undoubtedly no government in the West and US will tolerate such a huge riotus mob in their country for seven weeks and they will surely use military force to clear it within twenty-four  hours. Therefore why such holy hypocrisy except to serve their purpose of demonising China.

The accusation was based on a fictitious narrative about what actually happened when the Chinese government finally cleared the square of protestors on June 4, 1989. The demonization of China was highly effective and US SOCIETY  believed  the imperialist version of the incident.The mob set a tank on fire outside of Tiananmen Square, June 4, 1989    

THE Chinese government’s official account of the events was immediately dismissed by US as false propaganda. China reported that about 300 people had died in clashes on June 4 and that many of the dead were soldiers of the Peoples Liberation Army. China insisted that there was no massacre of students in Tiananmen Square and in fact the soldiers cleared Tiananmen Square of demonstrators without any shooting.

The Chinese government also asserted that unarmed soldiers who had entered Tiananmen Square in the two days prior to June 4 were set on fire and lynched with their corpses hung from buses. Other soldiers were incinerated when army vehicles were torched with soldiers unable to evacuate and many others were badly beaten by violent mob attacks.

These accounts were true and well documented. It would not be difficult to imagine how violently the Pentagon and U.S. law enforcement agencies would have reacted if the Occupy movement, for instance, had similarly set soldiers and police on fire, taken their weapons and lynched them when the government was attempting to clear them from public spaces.

In an article on June 5, 1989, the Washington Post described how anti-government fighters had been organized into formations of 100-150 people. They were armed with Molotov cocktails and iron clubs, to meet the PLA who were still unarmed in the days prior to June 4.

Armed rebellion plotted by CIA.   Washington Post , Wall Street Journal and New York Times paddled false propaganda , lies and half truths. PART 2

What happened in China, what took the lives of government opponents and of soldiers on June 4, was not a massacre of peaceful students but a battle between PLA soldiers and armed detachments from the so-called pro-democracy movement.

On one avenue in western Beijing, demonstrators torched an entire military convoy of more than 100 trucks and armored vehicles. Aerial pictures of conflagration and columns of smoke have powerfully bolstered the [Chinese] government’s arguments
 that the troops were victims, not executioners. Other scenes show soldiers’ corpses and demonstrators stripping automatic rifles off unresisting soldiers,” admitted the Washington Post in a story that was favorable to anti-government opposition on June 12, 1989.

The Wall Street Journal, the leading voice of anti-communism, served as a vociferous cheerleader for the “pro-democracy” movement. Yet, their coverage right after June 4 acknowledged that many “radicalized protesters, some now armed with guns and vehicles commandeered in clashes with the military” were preparing for larger armed struggles. The Wall Street Journal report on the events of June 4 portrays a vivid picture:

As columns of tanks and tens of thousands soldiers approached Tiananmen many troops were set on by angry mobs … dozens of soldiers were pulled from trucks, severely beaten and left for dead. At an intersection west of the square, the body of a
young soldier, who had beaten to death, was stripped naked and hung from the side of a bus. Another soldier’s corpse was strung at an intersection east of the square.

The massacre that wasn’t  and the lies propagated by American press.  PART 3

In the days immediately after June 4, 1989, the New York Times headlines, articles and editorials used the figure that “thousands” of peaceful activists had been massacred when the army sent tanks and soldiers into the Square. The number that the Times was using as an estimate of dead was 2,600. That figure was used as the go-to number of student activists who were mowed down in Tiananmen. Almost every U.S. media outlet reported “many thousands” killed. Many media outlets said as many 8,000 had been slaughtered.

Tim Russert, NBC’s Washington Bureau Chief, appearing later on Meet the Press said “tens of thousands” died in Tiananmen Square.

The fictionalized version of the “massacre” was later corrected in some very small measure by Western reporters who had participated in the fabrications and who were keen to touch up the record so that they could say they made “corrections.” But by then it was too late and they knew that too. Public consciousness had been shaped. The false narrative became the dominant narrative. They had successfully massacred the facts to fit the political needs of the U.S. government.

“Most of the hundreds of foreign journalists that night, including me, were in other parts of the city or were removed from the square so that they could not witness the final chapter of the student story. Those who tried to remain close filed dramatic accounts that, in some cases, buttressed the myth of a student massacre,” wrote Jay Mathews, the Washington Post’s first Bureau Chief in Beijing, in a 1998 article in the Columbia Journalism Review.

Mathews’ article, which includes his own admissions to using the terminology of the Tiananmen Square massacre, came nine years after the fact and he acknowledged that corrections later had little impact. “The facts of Tiananmen have been known for a long time. When Clinton visited the square this June, both The Washington Post and The New York Times explained that no one died there [in Tiananmen Square] during the 1989 crackdown. But these were short explanations at the end of long articles. I doubt that they did much to kill the myth.”

At the time all of the reports about the massacre of the students said basically the same thing and thus it seemed that they must be true. But these reports were not based on eyewitness testimony.

What really happened .  Protest leaders knew they had full backing of United States and were emboldened. PART 4

For seven weeks leading up to June 4, the Chinese government was extraordinarily restrained in not confronting those who paralyzed the center of China’s central capital area. The Prime Minister met directly with protest leaders and the meeting was broadcast on national television. This did not defuse the situation but rather emboldened the protest leaders who knew that they had the full backing of the United States.

The protest leaders erected a huge statue that resembled the United States’ Statue of Liberty in the middle of Tiananmen Square. They were signaling to the entire world that their political sympathies were with the capitalist countries and the United States in particular. They proclaimed that they would continue the protests until the government was ousted.

With no end in sight the Chinese leadership decided to end the protests by clearing Tiananmen Square. Troops came into the Square without weapons on June 2 and many soldiers were beaten, some were killed and army vehicles were torched.

On June 4, the PLA re-entered the Square with weapons. According to the U.S. media accounts of the time that is when machine gun toting PLA soldiers mowed down peaceful student protests in a massacre of thousands.

China said that reports of the “massacre” in Tiananmen Square were a fabrication created both by Western media and by the protest leaders who used a willing Western media as a platform for an international propaganda campaign in their interests.

Fabricated story by a student Wen Wei Po and taken as gospel truth by US MEDIA           PART 5

On June 12, 1989, eight days after the confrontation, the New York Times published an “exhaustive” but in fact fully fabricated eyewitness report of the Tiananmen Massacre by a student, Wen Wei Po. It was full of detailed accounts of brutality, mass murder, and heroic street battles. It recounted PLA machine gunners on the roof of Revolutionary Museum overlooking the Square and students being mowed down in the Square. This report was picked up by media throughout the U.S.

Although treated as gospel and irrefutable proof that China was lying, the June 12 “eyewitness” report by Wen Wei Po was so over the top and would so likely discredit the New York Times in China that the Times correspondent in Beijing, Nicholas

Kristof, who had served as a mouthpiece for the protestors, took exception to the main points in the article.

Kristof wrote in a June 13 article, “The question of where the shootings occurred has significance because of the Government’s claim that no one was shot on Tiananmen Square. State television has even shown film of students marching peacefully

away from the square shortly after dawn as proof that they were not slaughtered.”

“The central scene in the [eyewitness] article is of troops beating and machine-gunning unarmed students clustered around the Monument to the People’s Heroes in the middle of Tiananmen Square. Several other witnesses, both Chinese and foreign, say this did not happen,” Kristof wrote.

There is also no evidence of machine-gun emplacements on the roof of the history museum that were reported in the Wen Wei Po article. This reporter was directly north of the museum and saw no machine guns there. Other reporters and witnesses in the vicinity also failed to see them.

The central theme of the Wen Wei Po article was that troops subsequently beat and machine-gunned students in the area around the monument and that a line of armored vehicles cut off their retreat. But the witnesses say that armored vehicles did not surround the monument – they stayed at the north end of the square – and that troops did not attack students clustered around the monument. Several other foreign journalists were near the monument that night as well and none are known to have reported that students were attacked around the monument,” Kristof wrote in the June 13, 1989 article.

The Chinese government’s account acknowledges that street fighting and armed clashes occurred in nearby neighborhoods. They say that approximately three hundred died that night including many soldiers who died from gunfire, Molotov cocktails and beatings. But they have insisted that there was no massacre.

Kristof too says that there were clashes on several streets but refutes the “eyewitness” report about a massacre of students in Tiananmen Square, “… Instead, the students and a pop singer, Hou Dejian, were negotiating with the troops and decided to leave at dawn, between 5 A.M. and 6 A.M. The students all filed out together. Chinese television has shown scenes of the students leaving and of the apparently empty square as troops moved in as the students left.”

Attempted counter-revolution in China instigated and planned by CIA.to create a civil war  as a plot to carry out regime change of the Chinese government. PART 6

In fact, the U.S. government was actively involved in promoting the “pro-democracy” protests through an extensive, well-funded, internationally coordinated propaganda machine that pumped out rumors, half-truths and lies from the moment the protests started in mid-April 1989.

The goal of the U.S. government was to carry out regime change in China and overthrow the Communist Party of China which had been the ruling party since the 1949 revolution. Since many activists in today’s progressive movement were not alive or were young children at the time of the Tiananmen incident in 1989, the best recent example of how such an imperialist destabilization/regime change operation works is revealed in the recent overthrow of the Ukrainian government. Peaceful protests in the downtown square receive international backing, financing and media support from the United States and Western powers; they eventually come under the leadership of armed groups who are hailed as freedom fighters by the Wall Street Journal,

FOX News and other media; and finally the government targeted for overthrow by the CIA is fully demonized if it uses police or military forces.

In the case of the “pro-democracy” protests in China in 1989 the U.S. government was attempting to create a civil war. The Voice of America increased its Chinese language broadcasts to 11 hours each day and targeted the broadcast “directly to about 2,000 satellite dishes in China operated mostly by the Peoples Liberation Army.”viii

 The outrageous Voice of America tried to stir up in fighting among the PLA UNITS. PART 7

The Voice of America broadcasts to PLA units were filled with reports that some PLA units were firing on others and different units were loyal to the protestors and others with the government.

The Voice of America and U.S. media outlets tried to create confusion and panic among government supporters. Just prior to June 4 they reported that China’s Prime Minister Li Peng had been shot and that Deng Xiaoping was near death.

Most in the U.S. government and in the media expected the Chinese government to be toppled by pro-Western political forces as was starting to happening with the overthrow of socialist governments throughout Eastern and Central Europe at the time (1988-1991) following the introduction of pro-capitalist reforms by Gorbachev in the Soviet Union in 1991.

In China, the “pro-democracy” protest movement was led by privileged, well-connected students from elite universities who were explicitly calling for the replacement of socialism with capitalism. The leaders were particularly connected to the United States. Of course, thousands of other students who participated in the protests were in the Square because they had grievances against the government.

But the imperialist-connected leadership of the movement had an explicit plan to topple the government. Chai Ling, who was recognized as the top leader of the students, gave an interview to Western reporters on the eve of June 4 in which she acknowledged that the goal of the leadership was to lead the population in a struggle to topple the Communist Party of China, which she explained would only be possible if they could successfully provoke the government into violently attacking the demonstrations. That interview was aired in the film the “Gate of Heavenly Peace.” Chai Ling also explained why they couldn’t tell the rank and file student protestors about the leaders’ real plans.

“The pursuit of wealth is part of the impetus for democracy,” explained another top student leader Wang Dan, in an interview with the Washington Post in 1993, on the fourth anniversary of the incident. Wang Dan was in all the U.S. media before and after the Tiananmen incident. He was famous for explaining why the elitist student leaders didn’t want Chinese workers joining their movement. He stated “the movement is not ready for worker participation because democracy must first be absorbed by the students and intellectuals before they can spread it to others.”

Twenty-five years later – U.S. still seeks regime change and counter-revolution in China

US GOVERNMENT FRUSTRATED BY THE DISMAL FAILURE OF THE REBELLION. PART 8

The action by the Chinese government to disperse the so-called pro-democracy movement in 1989 was met with bitter frustration within the United States political establishment.

The U.S. imposed economic sanctions on China at first, but their impact was minimal and both the Washington political establishment and the Wall Street banks realized that U.S. corporations and banks  would be the big losers in the 1990′s if they tried to completely isolate China when China was further opening its vast domestic labor and commodities market to the direct investment from Western corporations. The biggest banks and corporations put their own profit margins first and the Washington politicians took their cue from the billionaire class on this question.

But the issue of counter-revolution in China will rear its head again. The economic reforms that were inaugurated after the death of Mao opened the country to foreign investment. This development strategy was designed to rapidly overcome the legacy of poverty and under-development by the import of foreign technology. In exchange the Western corporations received mega profits. The post-Mao leadership in the Communist Party calculated that the strategy would benefit China by virtue of a rapid technology transfer from the imperialist world to China. And indeed China has made great economic strides. But in addition to economic development there has also developed a larger capitalist class inside of China and a significant portion of that class and their children are being wooed by all types of institutions financed by the U.S. government, U.S. financial institutions and U.S. academic centers.

The Communist Party of China is also divided into pro-U.S. and pro-socialist factions and tendencies.

US, The Evil Empire will never cease its persistent plan to topple China. PA5T 9

Today, the United States government is applying ever greater military pressure on China. It is accelerating the struggle against China’s rise by cementing new military and strategic alliances with other Asian countries. It is also hoping that with enough pressure some in the Chinese leadership who favor abandoning North Korea will get the upper hand.

If counter-revolution were to succeed in China the consequences would be catastrophic for the Chinese people and for China. China would in all likelihood splinter as a nation as happened to the Soviet Union when the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was toppled. The same fate befell the former Yugoslavia. Counter-revolution and dismemberment would hurtle China backwards. It would put the brakes on China’s spectacular peaceful rise out of under-development. For decades there has been

a serious discussion within the U.S. foreign policy establishment about the dismemberment of China which would weaken China as a nation and allow the United States and Western powers to seize its most lucrative parts. This is precisely the scenario that cast China into its century of humiliation when Western capitalist powers dominated the country.

The Chinese Revolution has gone through many stages, victories, retreats and setbacks. Its contradictions are innumerable. But still it stands. In the confrontation between world imperialism and the Peoples Republic of China, progressive people should know where they stand – it is not on the sidelines.

China needs to be on constant perpetual alert and come out on top above US, The Evil Empire

Subsequent articles by Southernglory1 will focus on US as the prime masters of massacres, killings, genocide and lynching of Native Americans, African Americans and Chinese Americans as well as the evil and outrageous plots of CIA in its perennial mission of killings , assassinations , regime change and mass murder by drones. The whole American government machinery both past and present including all the Presidents, congress , senate, military , police and national guardsmen who were and are still perpetrators of the killings , assassinations, massacres and genocide should be reviewed, investigated and sentenced by United Nations.

The CPF Dialogue – The people taking the initiative

Roy Ngerng and his concerned Singaporean friends held a protest at Hong Lim Park to demand for more transparency and accountability on the people’s savings in the CPF. Other than demanding the return of the CPF savings, they also demanded for better interest rate, how the CPF savings are being invested, abolishing minimum sums, and a list of other things.

This is the first time the people are initiating the conversation, a public conversation on a very important issue affecting every Singaporean. Would the Govt make an effort to respond to the issues and demands raised by the speakers at Hong Lim? Or would this be another monologue, the people talking to themselves just like the Natcon initiated by the Govt, talking only to the convert? In the Natcon it was like the Govt telling the people these would the things they would do to the CPF. The people mumbled and grumbled and that was it. Last Saturday was like the people rising up to tell the Govt what they wanted, what they agreed and disagreed. It is so funny that we have two national conversations but there were no meeting of minds, like two people talking talking but not wanting to talk to each other.

Did the Govt invite critical views like those from the opposition parties or Govt critics to join in the Natcon? Did Roy Ngerng and Hui Hui invite the Govt to Hong Lim Park to speak as well? Apparently up till last Saturday, both sides are keeping each other at a distance or at arm’s length. There was supposed to be a press conference at the end of the rally. When the media were invited to speak, none spoke as if the media were not even there to cover the event. Were the local media present? The foreign media were there.

Hri Kumar is holding a public dialogue with residents of Thomson and Toa Payoh next Saturday to talk about the CPF. Hri Kumar called his public dialogue ‘CPF, An honest conversation’ and invited his residents to register their attendance.

Kenneth Jeyaretnam, Roy Ngerng and Ariffin Sha were reported to have registered for the public dialogue. It would be an interesting dialogue when the two camps met to have a serious and in dept discussion on this very important matter. I think many people from other constituencies would also like to attend. Maybe I should also register my attendance to get enlightened by the two very informed parties on the CPF issues. This initiative by Kenneth and Roy, to make an effort to talk to the other camp, could address a lot of issues and misconceptions about the CPF. It would definitely benefit all Singaporeans.

The avoidance to meet and discuss cannot go on while keeping on a wayang of talking and listening. A healthy exchange in a constructive manner would be a good start to a real dialogue. Now many have doubts whether such a dialogue would be possible, would really take place. Would Hri Kumar welcome Kenneth, Roy and his friends to this dialogue? Or would they be ruled out of order, not qualified to attend?

Kopi Level - Green