Alibaba – The power of the pen

Alibaba paid $375m for South China Morning Post (SCMP) in Hong Kong.  It looks like a risky but normal commercial deal for Alibaba to want to diversify into the media industry that could compliment its complex and worldwide business empire.  According to the New York Times reporting from Hong Kong, there is a bigger agenda for Alibaba in this purchase. I quote,

‘Alibaba Group Holdings in taking over Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post (SCMP), is making an ambitious play to reshape media coverage of its home country, taking aim at what company executives call the negative portrayal of China in the Western media…the deal was fuelled by a desire to improve China’s image and offer an alternative to what it called the biased lens of Western news outlets….’

The power of the pen to shape how people think by telling stories laced with carefully crafted toxic messages has been a blatant transgression of the media industry. The Western media have two centuries of head start to mould and shape the thinking of western educated readers all over the world to think, act and behave the way they wanted them to. Many Afro Asians are now more familiar with the folk tales and history of the West than their own history and culture and subconsciously adopted a western persona without know it. They spout nonsense and hate against anything Asians and Africans without a clue as to why they are doing it and who they really are.

The Singapore’s version is the anglophiles, the western thinking bananas fed with with a diet of potatoes and hamburgers and a mind full of hate against China and anything Chinese. Thanks to the contributions of western media like the NYT, Washington Post, CNN, Fox News, Agencies, Reuters and what not. They have nothing good to say about China and would put a negative spin to everything China did and a positive spin to everything western.

The acquisition and control of SCMP is a small step taken by a commercial establishment like Alibaba to share its corporate responsibility towards its home country, to say the right thing, to give China a proper and positive image instead of all the craps and biased reports from small mind hill billies in the US and the red neck Europeans. Two centuries of planting negativities cannot disappear overnight and media like the SCMP would take at least one or two generations to cleanse the mush in the unthinking Afro Asian minds. There will be resistance, disbeliefs, denials and withdrawal symptoms to wean these unthinking minds of bananas to think straight again. Some may realize it faster than others, some may not. The good news is time is on the side of an Asian perspective as the ageing anglophiles will soon be history and not able to spout their rubbish without thinking.

What the Alibaba intends to do with SCMP is similar to what Channel News Asia is doing, presenting Asian news by Asians. Channel News Asia will lose its credibility when it slips back to using westerners to report Asian news and may even be banned by Asian countries from doing so if it is silly enough to stray away from this successful and acceptable formula.

Do not try to resist. Resistance is futile, and the truth shall set you free.

Is Singapore turning against China?

Two articles in the media on 17 Dec, one questioning the deployment of American spy planes in Singapore to conduct missions in the South China Sea to provoke China, and another saying that more SE Asian countries are turning against China, plus a few more articles repeating the American’s anti China position in the South China Sea would suggest that Singapore has up its ante against China in the contest between China and the US.

Singapore used to be neutral, walking a tight rope to be nice to both China and the US and making itself useful to both super powers. In granting more landing rights and acting as a military outpost for the Americans in its pivot to Asia, to challenge and contain China, the author Douglas Chua posed the question, ‘US plane deployment here poses neutrality question’. He added, ‘In the strategic gamble between two powers over sovereignty and freedom of navigation, would we not be drawn into a large involvement in the event of open conflict?’

There is also another issue of Singapore sinking slowly into the embrace of the Americans and compromising on its sovereignty, in the same way South Korea and Japan have became, semi colonies of the American Empire. The Americans would not leave South Korea and Japan, and their military bases are there for good and the two countries are just that, semi colonies, with foreign soldiers in their land and they could not do anything about it. Would Singapore undermine its sovereignty by allowing the Americans to encroach more and more into its sovereignty and independence?

The deluge of anti China articles in the main media, including a few more today notably by Reuters and Agencies, putting China in a very bad light and glorifying the Americans as the shining white knight, that the Americans are needed to balance an assertive China, are they done with the approval of the govt to keep promoting such a line? Is the Singapore govt taking the side of the Americans, shifting away from its neutral position and becoming more anti China with all the publications in the main media and the slant it is taking?

And, quoting Douglas Chua, ‘…the mission of these P8 aircraft using Singapore as a springboard…They are part of the US’ strategic thrust in the South China Sea, a thrust that challenges China’s sovereignty claims, which the US does not recognize. If we are faced with an ultimatum to annul this agreement, would we comply?’

Singapore is increasingly painting itself into a corner, to choose between China and the US. Which side would Singapore choose when conflict broke out between the two super powers?

Amos Yee on the run

Just found out that Amos Yee has escaped from paradise. The police wanted him to report at the police station for his anti religious comment in his Facebook about Islam, and Calvin Cheng. I could not understand why, but Amos Yee found this call to assist in an investigation pretty intimidating or frightening or ominous that it warranted him to run away from home, from his country and becomes a fugitive, a wanted man.

Why is this investigation so serious? What have gone through Amos Yee’s mind that there is no other way and if he reports to the police he could expect the worst? Justifiable? I dunno, I am not Amos Yee.

Amos has resurfaced in the Facebook to console his mother and that he is ok and would be able to look after himself but did not disclosed where he is. And he took the opportunity to show his middle finger to the govt several times and taunting the govt with something like come and get me if you can.

What’s next Amos? Would he be seeking political asylum in the US or in UK and use his new residence as a safe shelter to the govt in the comfort and safety of foreign shore? Would he in the process gain more publicity for himself and the govt in a new war of words?

Or as someone has said Amos Yee has gone bonkers? Or would someone suggest that he should be locked up in IMH? Could this be the fear that drove Amos Yee to flee from paradise?

What do you think is the real reason for Amos to run and make himself a wanted man, no chance of returning to his country and facing arrest on sight?

SGX – Global Exchange of the Year

In November, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s put Noble’s BBB rating under review for downgrading to junk status, ie untradeable. Noble’s share price has since plunged to below 40c. Today (16 Dec) the share price moved up to 43c on news of Cofco wanting to buy up the remaining 49% of Noble Agri.

The important point is that at 40c, Noble is at risk of being downgraded to junk stock. What about the hundreds of stocks in the SGX that are trading below 10c or below 1c?  Are these junk stocks as well? Or can they be having a better rating than Noble’s BBB?

Anyway, with so many junk stocks in the SGX, it did not affect the quality of the
Exchange and SGX has been named the Global Exchange of the Year by a derivative magazine Futures & Options World.  According to Business Times, ‘It was lauded for growing its offshore Asian equity derivatives suite, broadening its commodities clearing and over the counter business and continuing to expand its currency futures portfolio and turnover, SGX said.’

What more can you say about the SGX? The award speaks for itself. Everything is fine, perfectly fine. This is the best stock exchange in the world.

Ok, the award is all about derivative trading, commodities and currency futures. I am not sure if SGX would get what kind of award if it is assessed with the hundreds of penny stocks in the main board.

What do you think?

The American Empire calling for help

The Americans are going to their allies asking for help and more contributions to fight ISIS. They need more men, more weapons and more support of any kind to fight the rag tag foot soldiers whose mode of military transport is Japanese made pick ups and weapons from arms smugglers.  How big is this ISIS force, how well organized, how well armed, what kind of weapons do they have, got tanks, got aircraft, got naval ships?

What kind of military forces are the Americans, the world’s unchallenged Number One super power with weapons of any kind, the most sophisticated kind, boasting of the best trained fighting men and machine, the bravest of them all, the deadliest weapons, they have everything that is enough to control the whole world. They have seven aircraft carrier groups with each group having enough fire power to destroy ISIS thousands of times over. Why are the Americans calling for more help, contributions and participations of their allies?

Does it make sense? The most powerful military force mankind has even built and seen, could not defeat a rag tag foot soldiers of 30,000 men, mostly volunteers from little corners of the world and come running around in the desert?  Is that an organized fighting machine capable of fighting the American war machine? The desert is unlike the jungles and mountains of Vietnam and Korea. The desert is a piece of cake for the American fire power to show how effective it can be. It is a cakewalk in the desert.

The Americans could go in and wipe the arses of the ISIS clean in matters of days if they so wanted to. Why is this need to drag in the allies? Yes, why is there a need to coerce their allies to be involved in fighting the desert rats when the Americans could do it on their own, singlehandedly? And what is the point if their closest European allies are contributing 2 or 3 aircraft or one or two ships when a carrier group has hundreds of aircraft and hundreds of ships to do the job?

Funny? No, just think a little more and ask what is the intent of the Americans to drag innocent and distant allies to fight in the desert when they don’t need to? The Europeans are the smartest and trying their best to avoid being entangled in a war that they should not be involved and giving all the lip services they could to the Americans without really contributing or only minimal contributions. Why should they be sending their sons to fight a war they did not start, have no reason to be there?

Who created ISIS and who turned ISIS into an uncontrollable monster? Why get involved and invite unnecessary trouble to their homeland, to their people?