Wuzhen: Ancient town cruising on information superhighway

By Chua Chin Leng (chinadaily.com.cn)Updated: 2015-12-14 13:22
In a few days, more than 2,000 delegates from the modern cities of the world, Internet and computer savvy, will descend into this little water town that could be mistaken for a town from Lee Ang's Wuxia movie 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon'.

The water town of Wuzhen in Zhejiang with 1,300 years of history is anything but an unlikely candidate to host the 2nd World Internet Conference (WIC). It hosted the first WIC in 2014 and the delegates were so impressed by its modern Internet facilities, an ancient town all wired up for the challenges of 21st Century demands of the Internet world, that Wuzhen is now the permanent home for the WIC.

An aerial view of the town gives the impression of a sleepy ancient town, wholly intact in colors and architecture as if time has stood still. There are no gleaming glass panel skyscrapers in the vicinity to this little town of 57,000 inhabitants that boasts of all the smart and innovative technologies one can think of, e-commerce, Internet financing, intelligent logistics, cloud computing, big data, Internet driven information and medical technologies and 380 start ups in the last six months.
Quoting from Ge Huijun, director of the publicity department of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee:

"Wuzhen has fully merged with the "Internet Plus" concept, with online medical services, smart tourism, and intelligent traffic successively put into operation. Its charm will further increase with the free Wi-Fi."

President Xi Jinping will arrive in this little town to give the keynote speech this week. In his company will be Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Karim Massimov, Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Temir Sarivev, and Prime Minister of Tajikistan Kokhir Rasulzoda and many ministerial-ranked officials. Many representatives of leading Internet technology companies will also be showcasing their latest products and equipment during the conference not unlike what is happening in Silicon Valley.

The presence of Xi marks the importance of this conference and China's intent to play a leading role in cyber development and cyber security. The theme of the conference is 'Our Interconnected world shared and governed by all, Building a Cyberspace Community of Shared Destiny'. Up in the agenda will be the structuring of cyberspace regulations and governance, two contentious areas where the issues of national security, freedom of expression and transparency would be put to test. With 650 million Internet and mobile users, China would be in a position to chart the course and direction of cyberspace development, in governance, technologies and innovations.

The contrasting backdrop of ancient Wuzhen and the task of the WIC is a testament of the past and present, of history and cutting-edge innovations, when the different dimensions of time come together.

The author is a political observer from Singapore.

How good is our air defence today

Senang Diri’s confidence assurance article, ‘Forging Sabre 2015 XFS 15 is proof of concept for Singapore's deterrence strategy’ is pleasing to read and for the innocent and untrained mind, a big confidence building, to feel very safe and please with our defence capability. Let me quote his first paragraph,

‘Six moving targets - the same number found in a typical rocket artillery battery - were destroyed at the same time by the Singapore Armed Forces (SAF) during its Forging Sabre war games.’

Senang Diri gave a detailed account of this major ADEX in Arizona and how effective and advance are our air defence forces. Hitting 6 moving targets at one time is a great feat. In the early years, the exercises will have target streaming in one at a time to be shot at. Now they are practicing on hitting 6 targets at one go. When would they be able to hit 10 or 20 targets coming in at the same time? Or when would they go test a real situation scenario where the enemy would throw in their one hundred attack aircraft all at one go?

The Taiwanese shrank in fear when the PRC said they would rain 1000 missiles onto Taiwan at one go. The American Naval Carrier Group Commander and his 10,000 crew would equally shrink their balls if the Chinese were to fly 200 DF21s or DF26s at the same time at the aircraft carrier when they only need on hit to sink a carrier. How are they going to block a rain of a few hundred missiles? What kind of defence umbrella can shield them from such a heavy downpour? Iron Dome or Iron Net full of holes?

In an exercise scenario, you can programme the enemy to send in the number of targets at your own choosing. A smart enemy, actually no need to be smarter than the average guy guarding the sky, will want to send in all they have to saturated the defence system to a point of jamming or confusing the defenders and stretching whatever limited resources they have.

And not sure if they have added further sophistications like electronic jamming by the attackers, flares, evasion and decoy attackers? In an exercise scenario, the enemy is supposed to be dumb, flying straight and level to be intercepted and hit by the defence weapons.  And the defenders are safe and sound and allow to do what they wanted and not under stress of being attacked or disrupted at the same time. In a real situation, the enemy forces will be deploying everything they got at the defenders on the ground as well. A real situation is dynamic, full of deceptions and evasions and counter defensive tactics involved, no sitting duck scenario. The enemy attackers would be flying at levels difficult to detect and destroy.

In an exercise it is so easy to plan the attack and plan the defence as well and testing the defence at the level it is competent at not the level that will be challenging or the level of incompetence.

Never confuse between what is real and an exercise scenario. What would be the real nature of our external threat? Should we be practicing how to defend against an attack by Martians or to watch out for real and imminent threats by terrorists?

Who says the Americans should be the leader of the world?

Someone asked me this question. Why should the Americans be the natural leader of the world? Many of the westernized countries or anglophiles will not ask such a question. They have been eating potatoes and hamburgers everyday and think this is their normal diet. They have forgotten that they used to eat rice and noodles. They do not question why breakfast must be bacon and eggs and not porridge or nasi lemak.

After the victory over Germany and Japan, American leadership as the most powerful country to rule the world was unquestionable. No one bothered or thought there was a need to ask such a question. There was no challenger. And since then, the western media kept repeating that America is Number One, America is a benevolent superpower, all kindness and compassion, all virtuous, like the army of God. After a few decades of growing up with Pax Americana, and with America dictating the norms, controlling world media, those who got brains or those who got no brains, or those who got brains but forgot to use it for thinking, they will all echo the same truth. America is a fair and benevolent super power that created a world of peace for the rest of the world to progress and improve their lives. That was true. The Americans rebuilt Europe and Japan didn’t they? Under the American World Order, there was peace and stability and all should be thankful to the Americans. Where got war? Korea, Vietnam Pakistan, Afghanistan, Middle East, Eastern Europe, Africa were all so peaceful. Under Pax Americana there was no war. Just believe that this is the truth.

Who is asking why the Americans should rule the world? They did a very good job didn’t they? Now there is a China growing economically strong and everyone is saying, we need the Americans to balance the rising power of China, or this bad China would conquer every country and be the new evil hegemon. And every turkey kept gloating this silly myth and every monkey will nod his head like real. They forgot time has changed. The Americans today are not the Americans immediately after WW2. They forgot that they have a brain in between their ears, a thing called the grey matter that they can use to think.

How did China become the evil hegemon or will become the evil hegemon of tomorrow? Why is there a need for the world’s Number One hegemon to balance a militarily weak Number Two that may or may not be the next hegemon? Did someone speak to God and God said so, that China is the new evil hegemon and must be checked by the current hegemon? Did anyone ever ask the village bully to balance a new kid coming into the village, presuming that the new kid must be evil, worst than the incumbent bully?

Kishore told the Americans, if you want China to behave well, you better behave well, teach the Chinese to behave by showing good examples, not by threats of B52s and warships. Clinton, the husband, also said so when he was the President. The China of tomorrow will act and behave the way the Americans are behaving today against China. The Americans will create a new and belligerent hegemon in China if it keeps misbehaving like a bad hegemon towards China.

Who is saying that America is needed to balance the rise of China? Did he think before he said that? Or someone else did the thinking for him and he just parrots what someone else said before, without thinking?

Why should the Americans be the natural choice to rule the world?

The 3 Ks of Singapore’s political tapestry

The kiasu, kiasi and kia chenghu mentality of Singaporeans is most pronounced in the political landscape for many decades. Opposition parties tended to play it safe, avoid controversies for fear of having a date with Sue. Many of the pioneering generations of politicians have learnt it the hard way and paid for it dearly, bankrupted and spending time in jail. So one cannot simply blame the opposition parties for wanting to play it safe, see nothing, hear nothing and say nothing.

The most successful of the opposition parties, the Workers Party, thought they had the successful formula to take on the ruling party, by the tortoise and hare race, slow and steady and they will get there at the end of the day. They avoided controversies and concentrated on building grassroot support, devoted to solving municipal affairs, to show the residents that they are indeed a very hard working party working for the people. It failed badly in the last GE, but not just because they did not work hard and adopted a wrong policy. Of course there were many other factors that led to a farcical result that no seasoned political observer thought was real.

Opposition parties cannot just work quietly on the ground, to clean and sweep the roads, make sure that the drains are cleared and the amenities are working. They are national parties and should be involved in national issues affecting the people. Not saying anything, not doing anything would not do. They must speak up and stand up to be noticed, to mean business.

After the debacle of the last GE, it was like a death bell to the opposition parties. If they cannot reinvent themselves and discard the 3Ks, they can forget about standing for election in the next GE and think the people will give them their votes. As political parties, political leaders, Kiasu, Kiasi and Kia chenghu, how are they going to represent the people, to speak up for the people? There are risk, big risk, but this is politics. If one is afraid of risk taking, then one should not be in politics.

Some changes are starting to happen albeit very carefully and in a very small way. We are hearing the opposition parties starting to talk about current issues. The MRT breakdowns and the Hepatitis C outbreak are receiving attention from the opposition parties. Chee Soon Juan has been vocal and so is Goh Meng Seng. And it is a welcoming change that the WP is also coming out from the caves in Hougang and Aljunied to speak up on the same issues. The new and second generation leaders in WP like Leon Perera, Dennis Tan, Gerald Giam are breaking away from the old mould of Low Thia Khiang and Sylvia Lim and are speaking out.

Yes, opposition leaders that want to be leaders must speak out. How can political leaders aspiring to be national leaders have on opinion or views on issues that are affecting the people? Ridiculous! If political leaders are afraid of Sue, better to find safety in a 8 to 5 job as an employee. There is still time, 4 years to the next GE, for the opposition leaders to make themselves known and heard by the people, to speak up for the people and to tell the govt that wrong is wrong, mistake is mistake, and take the govt to task if they fumbled, just like the PAP took them to task in the AHPETC affair. Take the bull by the horns and face the music, challenge the conventional thoughts, challenge the ruling govt, but without being reckless.

The opposition parties must work hard from now, not during the few days before the GE. There is a need for a dynamic change and a new paradigm in the way they want to politic and to win the hearts and minds of the people. Running away and hiding in the caves are not an option. Stand up, speak out to be counted. You need to make yourself a familiar face with the people, to be easily recognizable, to be assessed and to prove yourself that you are able to form the next govt. You have 4 years to establish a credential of credibility.

Amos Yee arrested again

In the news yesterday a teenager was arrested for making derogatory remarks against a religion. Though no name was mentioned, there were hints that it was Amos. Amos has confirmed that it is him.

So, everyone is speculating how many years will Amos be spending behind bars this time. For the police to arrest him, they must have serious evidence, and Amos is as good as guilty. And if he has posted in his Facebook, it will all be in black and white, hard evidence.

How many years? I think it should not be more than 8 years. Kong Hee only got 8 years for an offence involving $50m of round trippings.  Unless what Amos posted is more serious than the $50m, at most this looks like the maximum sentence he is going to get.  His first application to be in Changi somehow was short spent. This time his will become a PR, or a few years at least, flirting on religious issues.

I would advise people like Veritas and Matilah Singapura to take note of the seriousness of religious matters and avoid making uncontrollable and inflammatory remarks on religion in this blog.