Breaking News - National Day Rally halted

My gosh, I was watching Hsien Loong delivering his ND Rally speech and saw him tilted to his right and the camera was cut off, showing a stunted audience. The next moment when it pointed to the front rows, many of the seats were empty, the two deputy PMs, Ho Ching and a few senior ministers were also not in their seats. There was an uncomfortable silence among the invited guests.

An announcement came over inviting the guests to proceed for the reception.  The Rally has been temporary terminated. Heard a comment, 'Hope he is ok'.

Hope Hsien Loong is ok. This is so unexpected. He was looking so normal, speaking in his usual self, with no hint of anything like that coming. During the last moment of his speech he halted, tilted to his right.... The officer in charge of the cameras was quick to react to turn the camera away.

Wish him well.

PS. If you have nothing good to say, please refrain from saying anything unkind.

A stroke a day will be the end of Singapore

We cannot afford to lose our super talents to stroke. If a stroke a day is going to be the new normal, we will soon run out of super talents. We have the ex President still in critical condition due to stroke. Kishore's condition is not known and after such a long silence, it is not looking too rosy. Heng Swee Kiat, the youngest of the three, also the luckiest, is on the road to recovery. Probably he is not wanted in heaven yet.

There were or was another ex junior minister that was reported to have stroke and now on light duties. Would there be more coming, on the way? Was it due to too much good food and good life or too much work stress? What is the common thread among the stroke victims at high places? Is there any correlation that could explain this phenomenon? What have they got in common other than stroke, money, plenty of money, or power?

Trying to make a sound and logical finding on this is serious medical science stuff, not political science.

No more Unequal Treaties for China

The rulings of the Hague Tribunal, a private organization, was nothing more than piece of paper issued by some backlane mobsters brought together to make a summary judgment using gangland justice. They appointed their own judges and judged with a predetermined set of objectives against an unwilling and non present victim. This kind of mafia tactic is now touted by the West as an authoritative and international judgment that a non partisan victim must obeyed or deemed to be violating international law and order. Which international law and order did the victim, in this case China, violated by refusing to accept the farcical rulings?

To make this farce easier for the daft and unthinking to understand, take the case of a football match where one side appointed all the referees and linesmen, paid them for their special services to rule in their favour, and went scoring against a non present team and an empty goal and demanded the absentee team that refused to play to respect and honour the scores, that they had lost the game fairly. Is this easy enough to understand?

The approach and outcome of the tribunal smacks of the Unequal Treaties brought against China in the late 19th and early twentieth centuries when a weak Qing Dynasty was defeated by the combined forces of foreign powers.  They drafted all the treaties with all the unequal and abusive terms that China must accept.

Today, the Philippines thought a weak pauper country could imposed such crude and mischievous terms on a super power like China and expecting China to accept the trash. The US and Japan and a few other countries thought they could gang up again to force the issue on China. They have forgotten that the China of today would not be pushed around anymore, not even by the US or a combined international force. China would tear such unequal treaties in the face of the perpetrators and send them packing. No more western and Japanese treachery against a new China.

No country can be foolish enough to think it can run roughshod over China, not even the US unless they are prepared to have a bloody nose. China today would stand firm and defend its territories by force if necessary. Not an inch of Chinese territories would be ceded to anyone by illegal means, by force or by deceit.

Small little countries and big countries must face the new reality that China would not be pushed around anymore.

F35 - The $114m wonder pill

The Americans are producing the so called state of the art warplane that can do everything except eating and shitting and is pushing it around to their allies to pay for it at $144m a piece, basic, minus the weapons systems that could be another $100m if the aircraft is not just to fly to show off but to do all the things it is supposed to do.  I hope the Americans are not dangling this piece of toy as a Christmas for the children to say ‘I want, I want’, but actually twisting the arms of the allied countries to pay up or else?

Singapore was rumoured to be interested in 10 or 12 pieces of this wonder pill and in many occasions was rumoured to have made the order or closed to signing on the dotted line. In the ST on 11 Aug, it was reported that Singapore is still considering this deal and delaying it till a later date.  One strange smell emits from this F35 episode. The Americans are never easy to sell their top end, state of the art, air superiority warplanes to anyone except themselves and a few extremely die hard allies. The fact that they are pushing so hard to sell this piece of toy to so many countries is something to ponder over with. Is it just a commercial piece of crap that they want to make the most money from, another bottle of snake oil? The Americans would always keep their best weapons system to themselves, not to anyone. Even the sale of the THAAD system to South Korea is for strategic reasons in favour of the Americans and would be fully under the control of the Americans. Why would the Americans be so generous to sell this wonder pill to all and sundry begs questioning. A can of problems? When a snake oil salesman says buy, run as far as you can from him.

Anyway, what are the reasons for a small little country to want to cough out billions to purchase 10 or 12 pieces of this aircraft and what can a few pieces do to improve the odds? Does Singapore really need such an expensive and sophisticated toy that should rightly be flown by a super intelligent robot, not an ordinary no talent Singapore boy? Or should Singapore than go all over the world to recruit foreign talents to fly these toys if it could not find enough Singaporeans to fly it?

Some of the considerations for Singapore to want to flatter itself with such a hyped piece of machine must be what Singapore is up against, the potential enemies and what they have that we don’t have and we need to be better than what the enemies have. Are our F15s good enough against the Russian toys of our potential enemies? If our potential enemies are buying inferior stuff and flown by not so able pilots, do we need to have these wonder drugs to be superior over them? Aren’t our F15s and our well trained pilots more than good enough to be on top of the situation? Do we also need to pay for the billion dollar system called THAAD?

Please take note, we are not the USA and our enemies are not the super powers and we need not be like the Americans to want to have the best of every military hardware to be the Empire. We only need enough to be an effective deterrence against little countries. We don’t stand a chance against the super powers even if we lelong the whole island to pay for all the F35s that we think we need to take on a super power.

Heard of prudence when spending public money? Let’s not behave like those boys and girls gambling with OPM, buy everything, everything is a goodbye, oops, I mean good buy, and hoping for the best. Lose money never mind, got more OPM to play with? Singapore has a lot of money to spend, money is not an issue?

Do we really need this wonder pill called F35?

The objective thinkers in red dot

The absence of Kishore Mahbubani in political debates has exposed a glaring big gap in the number of objective thinkers in the little red dot. Many are passing their subjective and one sided political narrative as intellectual thinking when they appeared nothing more than little brats trying to appease their masters in the West. There seems to be no one else out there to challenge political thinking from objective and intellectual thinking for quite a while.

Fortunately this gap is increasingly being filled by Simon Tay who started to present a more neutral view in the intellectual debate and on what is good for Singapore without becoming a little USA while calling other states as Trojan Horses. Do they know what is a Trojan Horse when they see one, or is one themselves without knowing it?

In his latest article in the Today paper titled ‘How will S China Sea dispute affect business in Asean, Simon discussed the mutually interdependent relationship between Asean and China and how China is taking the initiative in the AIIB and OBOR to improve connectivity and infrastructural development in Asia that would benefit Asean as a whole compare to the military buildup and dangerous provocations by the Americans and Japan that would lead the region to war. Which is the better option going forward, to promote more trade or more wars?

China needs peace and Asean as much as Asean needs peace and China for the good of everyone. Why would Asean take an increasingly hostile stance against China? Why would Asean increasingly align itself to the Americans to promote American military domination in the region?  There are great economic and strategic benefits both for Asean and China with more cooperation than antagonism.  According to Simon Tay, Asean does not need to be anyone’s puppet but be a worthy partner to key players in the region.

Asean benefits most by being neutral, taking advantage of big power rivalry to improve Asean’s bargaining power and interests. Asean would be doomed if it takes side in the big power conflict. Asean’s recent position, to throw itself into the American camp against China could be a short sighted gambit. By going against China and sucked into the American embrace, what would happen should Donald Trump become the next President and closes its door to Asean in an inward looking policy? Where or who would Asean turn to then? China would be happy watching the fallouts without offering a helping hand.

This is the first time that Asean is taking a non neutral position in big power rivalry against the wisdom of its forefathers. And the champions of taking sides, to be little Americas, are gaining grounds, unchallenged. Is Asean digging its own grave, led by American Trojan Horses strutting around as little USAs?

Simon Tay said these in his concluding paragraphs: ‘Asean can only remain central by pairing its political centrality with economic dynamism and moving ahead with integration. This is the way to better manage bumps and controversies, even sensitive concerns such as the South China Sea, and move ahead on an agenda for integration and reform that all – governments, businesses and ultimately Asean citizens – may partake and benefit.’