Sino Indian relations – Time to wipe off the silly myth of a China threat

Bloomberg has this article ‘India sends China stern message with naval build up’ reprinted in the Today paper on 30 Jul 15.  What stern message? China must be shivering in its pants. Remember 1962? Anyway the message is very clear, India and China are military rivals and India is gaining on China and telling China not to mess around with India. The western media has been playing up the rivalry and hostility between two nations like they are arch enemies, China trying to swallow up India and India in a hurry to fend off an aggressive China? How true is this myth?

The Indian media and the mentality of its leaders did not help either to dispel this myth. They want to believe that China is going to invade and take over India like the Americans telling themselves of Chinese wading ashore along the western American states to take over America. What is the truth? It was America and western countries that invaded China and turned China into a semi colony. And the West has been bullying China and trying to contain China by building military alliances to ring China when not a single Chinese soldier is outside China. Modern China has never invaded any country but being invaded by the colonial powers of Japan and the West. But China is demonized by the West as an ambitious and aggressive power trying to conquer its neighbouring countries when it was the West and Japan that conquered and colonized these countries and China.

What about the fabricated fears of a hostile China invading India? Historically China had never invaded India nor conduct wars of aggression against India. There was this recognition that land over the other side of the Himalayas was not part of dynastic China. What about the Sino Indian border war in 1962?

The Indians have been harping till today that it was China who invaded India when they knew that it was the opposite. The invasion of China, to seize Chinese territories, was an Indian game plan with the formation of a 4^th Indian Army Corp specifically for this purpose. And to move back a few centuries in Indian history, there was really no India for centuries until the British conquered, colonized and consolidated all the loosely held kingdoms in the subcontinent under British rule. The British Empire went further to carve out Chinese territories as theirs at a time when China was weak and broken up.

A formal Indian state came into existence in 1947 when it was given independence by the British. And India claimed that all the land carved out by the British from China is part of India. The border areas were territory snatched from China. China did not attempt to reclaim the land by force. It was an ambitious and ego inflated India that thought it could seize the land by force when China was a weak new country under communist rule in 1962.  The rest is history.

Till today, the Indians are putting on a false front accusing China of invading India. The fact, China repelled the invading Indian 4^th Army Corp, marched to the outskirt of New Delhi, and then withdrew. Would an invading army do that, would an aggressive China harbouring an intent of conquering India withdrew from a defeated enemy on the run? China treated tens of thousands of Indian POWs like lost boy scouts, treated their injuries, fed and clothed them, clean and polished up all the captured weapons and returned the POWs and the weapons to India.  What did all this said about a hostile China?

India should stop its nonsensical accusation of China and the myth that China is waiting to invade India. In 1962 China could over run New Delhi in pursuit of the defeated Indian Army but did not, voluntarily withdrew without looting and raping or burning India along the way. India got away too lightly for its invasion of China.

In today’s geopolitics, conquest and colonizing another country is no longer acceptable and feasible as an option to global ambition. Only the Americans think so. China has no bad intent or ambition to want to have a war with India, to conquer India. All the Indian talks about building intercontinental missiles, aircraft and aircraft carriers and now submarines to defend an imaginary China running over India is simply hogwash. Too much toddy in the head.

India and China should continue to build economic ties and friendly relations and grow economically and military powerful as big countries. There is nothing wrong for the India to harbour wild ambitions to be the most powerful nation in Asia or in the world. But to build a straw man that China is its arch enemy and India must do everything it could to counter a China military threat is simply silly.

Stop drinking toddy and come to your senses, build your military machine for whatever purposes, but don’t create a myth that China is India’s enemy. There is no reason for China to want to invade India or any neighbouring country. North Korea, Mongolia, Vietnam, Laos, Thailand, Myanmar and many central Asian states with common borders with China have not been invaded nor have any border dispute with China. The Indians should negotiate with the Chinese and return the land carved away by the British warlord from China peacefully.

China is not asking for more land, not an inch of an India created by the British Empire. If there is going to be war between India and China, it would be the Indians conniving with the Americans to attack China, not the other way. The hostile and aggressive country is India and its superpower ambition. China is already a super power in its own right by trading and manufacturing and helping countries building infrastructures, without having to go to war, not invading or conquering any country. China is now a superpower without having to grab any country’s land by force. What for?

GE2015 – A hand with no aces

The past PMs used to hold a hand of aces and kings and queens during an election. And they could simply throw in an ace or a king in a weak constituency or when the opposition mounts a serious challenge. There was no problem when every minister was an ace, a king or queen. If one minister is not enough, throw in another one or get a heftier minister and the constituency was won. It was as simple as that. And PAP’ strategy was a strategy based on strength. And they went to battle to rout the opposition. There was no contest when a minister was thrown into a GRC.

Today, when Hsien Loong holds up his cards, he cannot imagine that the cards are so weak. No aces, maybe a few kings and queens, a number of 2s and 3s and the rest of the pack are the 6s and 7s. How to play with such a weak hand? How to go into an election with a hand of cards that spells losers?

I can imagine the strategy for this election would be drastically different from the past. It would be a defensive strategy on how to save and protect the weak ministers? Hsien Loong would have a hard time trying to place them to save them and keep them in his cabinet. The East is a sea of blue. Too dangerous.  The mentioning of Aljunied would send fear to potential PAP candidates. Where are the safe GRCs to hide the weak ministers and to prevent a GRC from being overran?

The end result would be considered good if lesser ministers were lost in battle. Notice the change, from a minister taking the fight to the enemy to a situation where ministers would have to be carefully placed to prevent losing them and losing the GRC?

Are there still gungho ministers daring to go to the East or to a GRC helmed by strong opposition candidates? Anyone up to it to volunteer to fight in Aljunied or in Marine Parade or in East Coast, or even in Tanjong Pagar?

How did the mighty PAP reach this point when every minister is no longer an ace and with so many no better than a 6 or 7, with some obviously 2s or 3s? Has the tea party gone wrong? Why is the tea party not turning up aces or kings and queens? What happens to all the good men and women? Why are they not appearing at the tea parties to be selected and to stand for the PAP? The few potential that have become the ‘knowns’ are a far cry from what the PAP used to have.  Is it that the good men and women are seeing things that they are not comfortable with, that they did not want to be associated with?

What is the real problem with the PAP? Or I am just having wild imagination, that Hsien Loong is holding a hand of aces and kings and queens and the GE would be just another walkover?

The only ace in the PAP game plan, and the only trump card it has and using furiously, is a man of the past.

Ecuador, a China show piece

The New York Times has an article posted in the Today paper titled ‘China extends global reach with loans and strings attached’ giving a pretty good picture of what China is doing in Ecuador. While the South East Asian countries are still shying away from Chinese infrastructure development, due to centuries of western demonization of China, the picture is very different in Latin America and Africa. The southern American countries have had enough of western colonization, domination and American Imperialism and are striking out on their own to be free. They are embracing China’s offer of trade and development with open arms, better to pay a little more interest than to be robbed by the colonialists and imperialists. Both did not charge higher interest rates, they just came and carted away whatever resources from these countries for free. Which is a better deal?

The Latin Americans are not stupid. They negotiated freely with China for loans and infrastructure development. And they are paying in kind, mainly oil, and other raw material, that the Chinese would have to pump up themselves. In turn, the Chinese have pumped in billions of dollars into Latin American countries. Ecuador alone is receiving tens of billion in dam building that would provide enough electricity to light up one third of the country, according to the NYT article. China is also helping Ecuador to build an oil refinery that would make Ecuador ‘a global player in gasoline, diesel and other petroleum products’. Bad deal, cheated by China?

The Chinese are also building ‘roads, highways, bridges, hospitals, even a network of surveillance cameras stretching to the Galapagos islands’. These infrastructure developments are badly needed by Ecuador to transform itself into a modern industrialized country, something that the west and their formal colonial masters refused to do while extracting all the natural resources for free.

When Ecuador takes off, it would be a show piece to show to the world what Chinese money, technology and engineering could do to rebuild a country. Singapore taught the Chinese how to build an industrial park. China learnt from it and is helping the world to rebuild their countries’ infrastructure and industrial parks. China is helping the developing nations to move up the economic ladder on fair and equitable terms. China is doing everything, providing financing, technology and manpower. The West would not do that. Obama just visited Kenya and talked about helping Africa to develop after the West had colonized and looted African for centuries. And they are the good guys.

The NYT did not miss the opportunity to sabo the Chinese effort in these countries by playing up on higher interest rate, which was anytime better than letting the western powers robbed them for free and meddling with their domestic politics. It also complained about Chinese methodology that would harm the environment and what not. The NYT is assuming that the Latin Americans are daft and could not understand what they are going into and their agreements signed with Chinese companies. If these were bad deals, why would they agree to them when China did not bring their warships and guns like the colonialist and the Americans?

The hard truth, and testimonies to the value Chinese companies are offering to the rest of the world was when they held an economic development conference in Beijing.  Global financial and corporate elite and heads of major banks and pharma, auto and oil companies came to mingle with the Chinese officials. And according to Christine Lagarde, MD of IMF, China’s effort to engage globally through investment and trade and economic reforms, ‘is good for China and good for the world – their fates are intertwined’.

China is all over the world investing in infrastructural developments. Just to quote a para from the NYT article, ‘Chinese companies are at the centre of a worldwide construction boom, mostly financed by Chinese banks.  They are building power plants in Serbia, glass and cement factories in Ethiopia, low income housing in Venezuela, and natural gas pipelines in Uzbekistan.

Not really all over the world as many South East Asian countries are still pondering on what China could offer under the dark cloud of doubts spun by their former colonial masters and the West, that China is bad, China is bad like Red Indians were bad, Red Indians bad. They could not remember that the centuries of colonialism and western domination did not do them much good except being robbed by the very robbers that are telling them China is bad and filled them with imaginary fears and hate against China.  On the other hand, the rest of the world, Eastern Europe, Africa and Latin America did not have the same fear and apprehension and are welcoming Chinese developments in full force on a complimentary basis. The West are telling the South East Asian countries to demand China to go it for free, and China to pay for it as well.

It would take a long time before the South East Asian countries could break free from their colonial mindset, fixed and implanted by their colonial masters and the West over centuries to look at China objectively. China is not there to colonise them but to trade, to help them rebuild their countries with a proven blue print, successfully implemented in China and now sharing with the rest of the world. What did their colonial masters left them after centuries of colonial rule and looting? What have their colonial masters and the West to offer them today other than military pacts and more weapons of war?

The joke, they trust their ex colonial masters more than a China that has never stepped foot on their shores. They trust their conquerors more than China that never had a soldier in their land nor kill any of their people.

GE 2015/16 issues for the voters to consider – Issue 8 – Voting for more subsidies?

Do you want to vote for more subsidies? Subsidies in HDB flats, subsidies in medical bills, subsidies in paying utilities bills, subsidies in school fees, university fees….

What are these subsidies? Are they real or fiction? Heard of market subsidies? Heard of discounts, annual sales, Great Singapore Sales, Great Singapore Lelong?

Are subsidies and discounts just another sales gimmick, deceptions with inflated prices and then telling the customers of the great subsidies and discounts, that it is a very good deal, a great savings or else they will be paying more?

Do you want to vote for more subsidies when you don’t even know the real cost of things or if the prices have already inflated that after subsidies you are still paying much more than you should be paying? Do you know that the more subsidies you get the more you are paying for the goods or services? Everytime there is a subsidy you end up paying more. Not true?

Be careful with what you are voting for? Stop this subsidy thing. Stop being conned and happily thinking that it is a good deal.

Hsien loong –Spore has only 25 years to get demographic balance right

There is this article in the Today paper on 24 Jul 15 about what Hsien Loong said and his concerns for the well being of Singapore and Singaporeans. Why needs another 25 years to get it right when we got it right 20 years ago? Did not we prosper with the mix of population we had? It was not that we got a blessed combination but the govt then made it right, made them work as a people and a nation. Now we are in shit and need another 25 years to get things right again. Obviously things are going bad. Some one must have add a lot of shit into the pot, stirring it and causing it to smell.

In the article Hsien Loong shared his concerns of losing our national identity as Singaporeans, a lack of a Singaporean core and a population growing too big and going beyond this number is going to be undesirable. I quote his words from the paper, ‘With a million foreign workers here, Mr Lee said, this is “not a small number” and he did not think policymakers could “go a lot beyond”.’ Why has it got to this number? Or how did it come about, anyone knows?

For raising these concerns, Hsien Loong is in a way admitting openly that he did not see these coming. Knowing him and his pro active nip in the bud approach for solving problems, these problems would have been nipped in the bud before they reached this proportion. I am sure he did not know who decided to let in so many foreigners into the country. I am sure he did not know that we are losing our Singaporean identity and our Singaporean core.

I too must confess that I did not know how all these things developed to such a state that they are going to break this country apart, and the danger of Singapore losing its Singaporean identity. We are so lucky that Hsien Loong has acknowledged these problems and are standing up to address them. And we are so lucky to know that we have a window period of 25 years to put it right. Tharman needed 30 years to create a Singaporean core in the banking and finance industry. I am not sure how many years would be needed to have a Singaporean core in the IT industry and some other industries that have been taken over by foreigners.

Lee Kuan Yew must be turning in his grave to know that things are happening this way. Let’s hope he will quickly jump up from his grave to get things right again, maybe no need 25 years knowing his style. He wants things done right immediately. No mumbo jumbo, no dilly dally, and allow people to fumble along for another 25 or 30 years and not even sure if things would turn out right.

What would Lee Kuan Yew say or do to get his Singapore right again? Would he be able to put his Singapore together again?