China’s peaceful rise

Jean Pierre Lehmann, emeritus professor of international political economy at IMD, Lausanne, wrote an article on the above in the ST on 9 Apr.  His story centres on the rise of international powers starting with the Portugal, Spain , the Netherlands, Britain, France, US, Japan and The USSR.  He traced the history of these powers and the use of violence and wars as an intrinsic part of their ascents. War and violence as parts of conquest and world domination were inevitable before a new power took the pole position.

And now comes China. Would China’s rise as a super power be peaceful, be an aberration and not in the mold of the western powers, predated by wars and violence?  The western narrative has constantly harped on a belligerent and expansive China that would swing its big clubs at everyone on its way up, like the western powers. China would be like one of them, no exception. So beware, China is coming.

China today is the Number Two super power after the US. In a way, China has risen, peacefully, without the need for wars and conquest. This alone would have been enough proof that a super power can rise without resorting to violence. China is what it is today, without the need for conquest but by trade and commerce.  Is this enough to assuage the western thinkers and media to accept China as a risen power, peacefully?

The other notion, China is not there yet. It has to overtake the USA and this last step would force the issue and a war with the Americans. And in Lehmann’s view China has the right to engage in wars. It was the victim of aggression when major powers came to being. China should follow the same pattern in the rise of a super power, through war and conquest, to challenge and defeat the incumbent super power, the USA.

However, according to Lehmann, ‘if China succeeds in achieving a peaceful rise to great power status – that is, dispensing with war, pillage, slavery, conquest and exploitation – it will be the first rising great power to have done so.’ This could be a welcoming outcome if China is left alone to continue in what it is doing for the last 30 plus years. Unfortunately this may not be the case. The Americans are in the way of the peaceful rise of China with its confrontational approach towards China, the pivot to Asia, building anti China trade and military alliances, escalating and precipitating armed conflict, particularly in the Korean Peninsula and the South China Sea.  Today it is reported that the Americans would be conducting sea and air patrol in the South China Sea, not freedom of navigation, as if the South China Sea belongs to the American Empire. Here it is not China challenging the Americans to a show of force. It is the Americans that are standing up to China, confronting China and putting up obstacles to contain China’s rise.

Though the American patrol is only a token show of force, it is a bad precedent. China could ignore this little insect, but in principle it is bad. What the Americans are doing, violating other country’s sovereignty and economic zones, China could do the same. China could announce conducting air and naval patrol in American economic zones as well. Both sides can play the game of bully. The American’s blatant flexing of military muscle to exert control of the South China Sea and in the Korean region should not be ignored by the world community.

In Lehmann’s view, the world must work with China to achieve this historical aberration, that a super power can rise to the pole position without having to go the disastrous and destructive road of war.  China’s march towards the Number One super power status, to eclipse the Americans through economic means, economic development could be a possibility and only a matter of when. It is in the interest of the rest of the world that they work with China for a peaceful rise instead of following a confronational course set by the Americans.

China has risen and will continue to rise peacefully as an economic and military super power. The main protagonist against such an eventuality is the intent of the Americans and its bellicose policies towards China. China is no western nation, has its own culture and values, and is not seeking conquest and colonization. It is a super power more in the economic sense and would grow to be a bigger economic power, without having to control and colonise any country like the western powers did.

China is not seeking war, and war is unnecessary in the Chinese model to be the greatest power on earth. The world can and must work with China for this to happen, peacefully. The world must not allow the Americans to force an issue with China leading to a conflict of epic proportion and destruction. The Americans too knew that a war with China is inconceiveable. China knows that too and is trying to avoid a collision course with the Americans.

If good sense prevails, the peaceful rise of China will be a welcome aberration in the history of humankind.

Free parking is a subsidy, what about free air?

Minister of National Development Lawrence Wong today (April 11th) said that free parking in some car park spaces are not “free” and are in fact subsidies from the government.

“Free parking is not free, it’s a subsidy to the motorist, paid for by non-motorists.”

This is an example to prove that Singaporeans are daft. Only super talent can like that. It requires a very high level of intellect to reason why free parking is a subsidy.

What about free air? Is free air also a govt subsidy? What else that is free is govt subsidy? Sunlight? Haze free air?

What would opposition parties say?

 

Food for thought.

Singapore paying the price for decades of failed education policies

This verdict is controversial of course, depending on how one  measures success and failure of our education policy. If one measures it in our uniquely Singapore ways, like dignity is measured by how much one’s income, and education is measured by how many straight As, then we are very successful. We produced probably the most straight as in the world on a per capita basis. Even the new International Baccalaurette programme that was introduced recently, our students are acing the exams every year since it started. Students that used to score average grades would now get full scores possible.

Producing straight As and more straight As is a matter of moderation, a process that allows the examiner to move the scores of the students left or right of the median grade for whatever they set out to do. It is scientific or mathematical in a way, but whether the students deserves the As is subjective.

What is apparent today, after a few decades of producing straight As students is that the flaws are showing. We are getting a bunch of very brilliant parrot that could regurgitate everything perfectly. But when ask to think, they began scratching their heads, what is that? And in the industries, the lack of thinking talents, people who walked around on two legs and can think, is simply not there. And that is why so many foreigners from God knows where are here and touted as talents because, despite their dubious academic records, they could talk and think and run circus around our duds, the unthinking parrots.

Sure we have many very brilliant Singaporeans here and abroad. The really good and bright people would not be subdued and made stupid by a stupid education system. They would shine under any system or no system. But for the rest, the elite parrots and the masses, the inability to think, and the unique ability to receive and to be taught to repeat what they were told is getting to a very frightening stage, to a point when you tell them eating shit is good, drinking shit water is good, and they will eat and drink with gusto.

The daft Sinkies, not invented by me, I just regurgitate this phrase, like unthinking parrots do, oh, unthinking parrots never used this phrase in their vocabulary, will accept everything they are told to be good. I have recently wrote an article about the things the daft Sinkies were made to believe in. Some of the daft things that Singaporeans would swear to be good are: we are too small, not enough political talents, so cannot afford to have two political parties, when one opposition candidate is voted to become an MP the country will collapse, they dismissed the wisdom of not putting all their eggs in one basket, that power corrupts, and instead believe in one party is best for a democracy and nothing is better than ownself checks ownself.

The idiocy of the unthinking reaches a climax when I read this comment in the TRE.

‘Mr Lee Kuan Yew is not only founder father of spore, he also a war hero. Country everywhere always celebrate and remember war hero and their found father.’

This is a comment posted by someone calling himself True Blue Singaporean. The only consolation is that he is a fake, or at best a new citizen. And everyone reading his comment will know he is not even writing in Singlish. This guy even advised Singaporeans to read our history to verify his claim. With no due disrespect to LKY, I don’t think anyone in govt would dare to glorify him with this war hero title, not even in a state of drunken stupor.

The stupidity of Singaporeans is now legendary. Go ask those PMETs that are now driving taxis and working as temp workers, who replaced them and made them redundant and they would not have any clue. They would not want to know why someone from the 3^rd world with dubious academic qualifications and experience is more suitable and qualified to do his job. He simply accepts the fact and his fate, that he is no good even if he is the product of a world best education system. He is just not taught to think, to be smart, to be smarter than fakes and cheats, so getting cheated is only something deserving in his case.

Not to worry, daft would not make a scene and will disappear into the wilderness, quietly. Oh, he is trainable and very willing to be trained, to become a low skilled worker despite his experience and qualifications as PMETs. This must be a special asset of these daft Sinkies. In Singapore you can literary trained old dogs with new tricks. Just tell them to go for training, for what they don’t care, to be better or worse, they don’t mind. Tell them training is good, like put all the eggs in one basket is good, and they will nod their heads in agreement.

And they can’t even fall back on their life long savings in the CPF when they lost their job or when they retired. The money is kept by the govt for them, for their future well being. And they accept this fate as well.

I like Yaacob Ibrahim

Long long time ago, there was a city in SE Asia brimming with banks and financing institutions. Local brand names like Chung Khiaw Bank, Tat Lee Bank, Keppel Bank, OUB, Far Eastern Bank, Malayan Banking, Industrial and Commercial Banks, International Bank of Singapore, POSB, OCBC, UOB and DBS were common features of the banking landscape. Now only UOB, OCBC and DBS are left standing. The rest of the smaller banks were merged or absorbed by the three big banks.  Many foreign banks also started business here in a crowded financial industry.

In the past there were many big local names, heading the local banks, Ng Kee Choe, Elizabeth Sam, Theresa Foo, Wee Cho Yaw, the late Lien Ying Chow, late Lee Seng Wee,  Lee Hee Seng, Peter Seah, etc etc.  Today there is only one Singaporean left helming a local bank, and he is lucky that he is not replaced by foreigners. What happened to all our banking talents? No more, cannot find, all got no skill sets?

Who is responsible for this mess? This thing did not happen overnight. Someone is sleeping or deliberately let it happened. This is not only a national shame, it is undermining our talent pool in banking and finance. No one responsible for it? Cannot name anyone or else no one would want the multi million dollar job?

Now you know why I said I like Yaacob? He is rolling out a programme to train 1,200 IT professionals from 160 that they are producing. (Correct me if I get the numbers wrong). Yaacob wants to build a Singaporean core in IT. Never mind, don’t ask him why we were not training IT professionals and why he is cramping this training programme.  It is not his fault. No one knows whose fault, cannot mention one.

Good job Yaacob. Please train more Singaporeans quickly before the whole industry landed in foreigners’ hand and all our infocomm security put at risk, in the hands of foreigners. Quick, quick, not much time left. And no need to go to Parliament to kpkb why got no IT talents in Singapore, no banking and finance talents, not enough doctors, no Singaporean talents to be politicians, and not enough of local academics.

Just do it. Get the butts off the chair and start working.

White men speak with fork tongue in a straight face

John Kerry visited Hiroshima to place a wreath at the commemorative site where the atomic bomb landed 65 years ago. The two atomic bombs brought an end to the savages’ imperialistic dream of conquering the world and colonizing Asia. The Americans and the victims of Japanese invasion and savagery were and are still thinking that the bombing was justified. It is not easy to let an army of savages running wild, bombing, killing, looting, raping murdering the peoples of Asia. The Japanese deserved every bit of the two atomic bombs and the 200,000 death which was a small fraction of the millions they slaughtered during their invasion of Asia.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a just dessert for the Japanese for their cruelty and barbarity to their victims and brought an end to it abruptly for the good of Asia. What was mischievous about this Kerry visit to Hiroshima was the things that he uttered with a straight face. In an Agencies article in the Today paper on 12 Apr, it has this headline, ‘Kerry reaffirms US anti nuclear stance during Hiroshima visit’. And the article quoted him saying, the nuclear attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ‘was a reminder of the need to pursue a world free of nuclear weapons’. 

To the innocence, such a statement appears so noble. But when one knows that the Americans possessed the most nuclear warheads among all nations, more than 7000 of them, more ten times the nuclear warheads possessed by all the nuclear countries, what John Kerry said was either crap, white lie or pure stupidity. The USA was the first country that used a nuclear bomb on another country.  The USA was the only country that had on several occasions toying with the idea of nuking other countries. And the USA is the country that possessed enough nuclear weapons to wipe the human civilization off the face of the earth. And it is saying that it is anti nuclear weapons! But not to worry, many silly Asian countries will believe the Americans really meant what they said.

And the Americans are pushing very hard against Asian countries possessing nuclear weapons but not their allies and not themselves possessing more than 7000 warheads.  The American anti nuclear policy means that all countries that the Americans considered as their enemies cannot possess nuclear weapons. Only America and its allies can have nuclear weapons. Period.

White men speak with fork tongue? No? Why must the Americans built so many nuclear warheads and carry them around the world in bombers and nuclear submarines and in bases across the whole world if they are anti nuclear weapons?  Which country possessed the first nuclear weapon and refused to commit a no first use of nuclear weapon policy?

Oh, they are blaming the North Koreans for wanting to go nuclear! It is the fault of the North Koreans that the Americans must have more than 7000 nuclear warheads. It is confirmed, double confirmed. The Americans need 7000 nuclear warheads for peace. The Americans need to sign military alliances everywhere and build military bases all over the world for peace. What more does one need to believe the Americans to be stupid?