Diego Garcia, Guam and Spratleys, what’s the big deal?

The Americans have been bombarding the Chinese daily about their constructions of buildings and airstrips in the islands in South China Sea. To the Americans, these actions are unacceptable, even acts of aggression that could lead to war. The Americans are all behind the Philippines to cry foul against the Chinese and even agitating the Asean countries to form a naval force to challenge the Chinese for building structures in their islands. And everyday there will be reports in the New York Times or other American media highlighting the Chinese activities with aerial photographs and condemning them. The drumming of war has started.
 
What is so wrong with the Chinese construction of buildings and airstrips in their own islands? These are islands the Chinese claimed as their own under the historical law of finders keepers. These are uninhabited islands, with no natives, no human life forms in them.
 
What about Diego Garcia and Guam? These were islands with islanders, natives living in them. And one is in the Indian Ocean and the other in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. The Americans went in and seized the islands from the natives and built buildings and air bases for military purposes. These are two military fortresses owned by the Americans, taken from the natives. These islands are owned by the natives.
 
Why is it acceptable, no crimes, no aggressive intent? Why are the Americans allowed to treat the islands belonging to the natives as their own, without the permission of the owners and happily strutting around as a right? American Exceptionalism? The islands are not no man’s land. There are natives living in them.
 
China should show aerial photographs of the military bases in Diego Garcia and Guam to the world, get the New York Times to publish them and make comparisons on why one is acceptable, nothing wrong, and why the other is unacceptable and wrong. No man’s land is finders keeper. Land with natives are own by natives, like the continent of North America, Australia and New Zealand, and of course Diego Garcia and Guam. Who conquered them, robbed them from the natives?
 
Did China rob any natives of their islands in the South China Sea? Oh, other Southeast Asian countries are claiming them too. When China founded these islands, these Southeast Asian countries did not even know of their existence. They were not even nation states in the western concept of statehood. They have more rights to the islands than China?
 
The Americans should stop their bull and stop using its bigger military size and power to bully China. China would not take it lying down. When would the Americans stop their hypocrisies? The Americans must remember that the Chinese would not forget the attack on their Embassy in Belgrade. One day, one of the American Embassies will suffer the same fate when China is ready to stop the bullying. Sleep well America! What you sowed you shall reap.

When the Japanese did the sneak attack on Pearl Harbour, all the Americans were crying for blood and blood they did extracted from the Japanese with the two Atomic bombs. What makes the Americans think that they can get away with the sneak attack against the Chinese Embassy?

From foreign students to PR to citizenship

Responding to Png Eng Huat’s query on the number of foreign students taking up PR and citizenship, Iswaran was reported to have said ‘that about 7,000 foreign students at the secondary and junior college levels became permanent residents between 2001 and last year on their own merits. Of the 7,000, about 840 of them or 12 per cent subsequently took up citizenship’
 
Let’s look at the numbers more intimately. In 14 years, from 2001 to 2014, 7000 students became PR and 840 took up citizenship. These mean that 500 students became PR and 60 took up citizenship yearly for the same period. Not every encouraging right?
 
Another question to ask, presuming that all of them were on govt scholarships, how many of them were here during these 14 years and how much were spent on them using taxpayers’ money. These numbers would help to work out how much it cost to get one PR or one citizen. Then maybe the number can be used to compare if it is better to use the money on our citizens to encourage them to produce more babies. Just give the money to every child that is born, that may be cheaper in the long run.
 
What do you thing? It would be interesting to know the absolute number of foreign students given scholarships under this scheme and how much were actually spent. The former would give a percentage on the success rate. Could it be 10%, or 20%?

PS. Based on the 12% taking up PR, total scholarships given out would be 58,300 over 14 years.

Naming monuments after LKY

This is about the most important thing to think about and to do today. The whole population is thinking of some ingenious ways to honour the founding father. And many great ideas have been mentioned in Parliament about naming this and that or erecting this and that to name after LKY. Of course my idea of a 100m Statue of Liberty, I mean Statue of LKY, at the Marina Barrage is not well received as no one seems to want to mention it. So far the thinking has been very positive and everyone is very high about this, like on drugs.
 
Before anyone gone too far overboard and over excited by this exercise, just consider for a moment about the not so savoury part. Think of assholes, yes assholes like Matilah Singapura and the likes of him. Think of what rascals like him would be thinking and what they would be contemplating and would want to do. Just bear this in mind before doing anything. Think security. Think vandalism. If these hints are not good enough, think of Ah Long, I mean the loan sharks and what they are famous for when they went chasing for bad debt.
 
I think by now people should have a good idea what I am driving at and what they should do and should not do. It is always good to think positive, but at times it is important to consider the unthinkable. Not everyone is head over heels about this matter. Maybe a better idea is to ask people like Matilah Singapura, to read his mind to understand what they may be up to and not to make things too easy for them. Yes, pay him a consultation fee, kind of learning from a thief to catch a thief.
 
Get it?

PS. Careful about the acts of God. Remember the Merlion? A little proactive thinking would go a long way.

Shanghai Singapore Connect – An Impossible Dream

The success of the Shanghai Hong Kong Connect has been making many people here salivating. Why are their markets so active and bullish while the touted as the most progressive and advanced SGX is still in ICU? No doubt the exuberance in Shanghai/Hong Kong exchanges is having a spillover effect on the otherwise dead but artificially boosted computer infested market and giving it a semblance of life. But do not believe much in it as the bulk of the trading is done by computers, not real participation from real investors.
 
With the surge in prices and volumes in both Shanghai and Hong Kong, some are questioning why the SGX would not do a Singapore Shanghai Connect and bring some life back to the market. It is wishful thinking for many reasons but most important is the philosophy behind Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges. The Chinese are promoting Shanghai and Hong Kong as the alternative trading model to the excessively manipulated American modeled exchanges that are dominated by computer trading, cheating on the innocent investors and the fund managers.
 
China would not allow such unfair practices to operate in the Shanghai Hong Kong exchanges. No way. How then could SGX dream of a connect with Shanghai and Hong Kong to form a holy trinity when one is obviously looking ungodly?
 
Actually SGX should have no fear as it is the best exchange in the region with all the best practices and hi speed computers and the most advanced trading concepts in the system. There is no need to be envious of the Shanghai Hong Kong Connect. Soon Shanghai and Hong Kong would fail and would adopt the same practices like the SGX. That is the only way to go forward. Everything is so fine in the SGX. And with the new reputation as a Mickey Mouse stock exchange inundated with penny and penniless stocks, with tiny bid sizes, smaller lot sizes, the market is idea for all ages. Children can also afford to buy stocks with their pocket money. It is so liquid and so cheap to play in this Mickey Mouse stock market, not much more expensive than playing Monopoly.
 
And with children participating in the market, as proxies since they cannot trade directly, the de facto number of investors could easily doubled or tripled, to give the added trading volume or if not, the number of investors that can be theoretically playing the market.
 
The Shanghai Hong Kong stock markets are incompatible to the SGX as the value of their stocks are too expensive, the bit size and the lot size are also too big and expensive for children to play. They are playing in a different league, adults only. And how can they allow a connect to a system that uses computers to trade against the innocent and ignorant investors to take advantage of them with their computer power? No way. Unfair trading is unfair trading.
 
The Chinese would go their own way, do their own things. The SGX would be happy with its Mickey Mouse status and image and targeting a different clientele, investors that can only afford to play super penny stocks.
 
A Singapore Shanghai Connect under the present arrangement and operating platforms is simply no go. The only way to operate a sustainable and sophisticated stock market is the SGX way. The Shanghai Hong Kong model will not work, for long if the foreign funds would have their ways, to force them to be more like the SGX or the New York Exchange.

The most powerful Asean state going to declare war with China

The most powerful military state in Asean is drumming at ever higher pitch to start a war with China. With its battle order headed by the biggest warship in Asean donated by the Americans, the Americans wanted to scrap this WW2 junk but found a country that could put it to good use, and a few patrol boats donated by the Japanese, the war machine of the Philippines is formidable. China’s navy would soon be wiped out and all its South China Sea islands would be taken over by the Philippines. Maybe Aquino would be generous enough to offer a few pieces to the Americans for more antique warships to invade China.
 
The Pinoys, without failed, have been drumming up fears of a China monster sitting in the South China Sea, the picture of this monster is even more vivid than what the Americans could envisage and imagine. And the Americans and the Japanese believe that this is true. Not sure if the monster was created in Hollywood or in Tokyo, not sure if the Pinoys were given the image of this monster to whip by the Americans. Or was it created by the top intellectuals from the Pinoy think tanks?
 
Anyway the origin of this monster is not important. What is important is that more military agreements would be signed between the US and the Philippines and more American troops and hardware would find their way to the Philippines, more war games and more provocations to get China into a fight.
 
The Pinoys are sure to win this war. Singapore got to be extra careful. Some of the Pinoys have unintentionally divulged a Pinoy state secret, that they are harbouring the ambition of making Singapore a state of the Pinoy Empire. I think the proof is still floating in the internet. Just google Edz Ello and you will get the message. Indonesia also has to step aside. It is no longer the most powerful country in Asean, militarily. Subic and Clark Air Bases would come to life again with American soldiers helping the Pinoys to rule South East Asia. The Pinays would have a lot of good jobs to do and no need to be foreign maids.
 
We are witnesses to the rise of a regional military power in South East Asia. The country that would defeat China and seize control of China’s islands in the South China Sea, the Philippines is the new and top regional military power.