Can Abe be trusted?

Abe went to Pearl Harbour to lay a wreath and the Japanese made it very clear that he was not there to apologise for the sneaky attacks against the Americans. Actually he needs not apologise for the Americans believe the Japanese are honourable warriors living by the samurai code of honour, no sneaky attacks. This is what the Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshida Suga said of the visit, ‘The visit to Pearl Harbour was to console the souls of the war dead, not to apologise.’

What does he meant by making an official visit but still refusing to apologise? Japan did not do anything wrong. There is nothing to apologise about. Get the message?

And during the visit Abe pompously said, ‘We must never repeat the horrors of war again. This is the solemn vow we, the people of Japan, have taken.’  No more wars, no more atrocities! Then why did Abe and his cabinet tore awaiting the pacifist Constitution that forbid Japan to go to war unless being attacked? Why is Japan so eager to engage in wars overseas, to support wars overseas, including fighting alongside the Americans?

How to believe someone talking about peace and no war when the same person tore away a pacifist Constitution that would not allow Japan to go to war, remilitarize his armed forces with bigger defence budgets and happily sending his soldiers to theatres of war all over the world.

Is Abe a liar or an honourable man to be trusted not to conduct war? The refusal to apologise to the victims of a sneaky attack in Pearl Harbour speaks volumes about what is inside Abe’s head, what he stands for. He did not see it necessary to visit the war memorials of all the countries that Japan invaded except this one in Pearl Harbour, all because Obama had to visit the memorial site in Hiroshima first. He has never visited the memorial sites in Koreas and China, two countries that took the worst blow from the invading Japanese Imperial armies. But he had in many occasions visited the Yasukuni Shrine that honoured the war criminals of Japan that invaded Asia and South East Asia. 

What did all these said of this man Abe and of the Japanese people?

What is Wei Ling’s agenda or intent?

I don’t normally want to comment about the biggies and natural aristocrats, what they say or what they do.  This is reported in the SCMP, ‘Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign ‘to weed out rivals’, says Lee Kuan Yew’s daughter.’  This latest comment by Wei Ling about Xi Jinping’s anti corruption drive came as a surprise. I don’t remember Wei Ling indulging in international affairs, mostly about domestic politics, social affairs and about her father and brother, but this flash in the pan comment is getting all the attention in the social media especially in China.
 
Wei Ling must have known that such a comment is not going to be well received or quietly received in China. Wei Ling must also have known that relations between China and Singapore is at rock bottom and any fanning of fire or adding of oil would only make things worse.
 
Why would Wei Ling choose this moment to launch this remark at Xi Jinping? There are several angles to look at this moment of anger or utterance. One camp said she is supporting her brother, or at least not happy with China about the Terrex Incident. Another opposing view is that she is stoking fire and you don’t have to guess who would be burnt. I must be very sensitive here. These are not my views or interpretations, just what I heard. I have not even seen her full statement except a couple of sentences that appeared in social media.
 
Whichever view, the rage in China against Singapore could only mount instead of cooling down. Why, what is Wei Ling trying to achieve with this comment that is best not said, not at this sensitive time? It is politically wrong to say such a darn thing at this juncture when dark clouds are all over the horizon.
 
This is really puzzling. I can expect the retards involved in foreign affairs and diplomacy to say it but not Wei Ling. Now what? The elite, natural aristocrats, politicians, ambassadors or those connected to the leaders are not daft and know very well that what they said would be noted and would have consequences. They cannot feint ignorance, spoken in private capacity. My two balls are laughing.
 
The higher one perches on the tree top, the louder would be the voice and the further the noise would carry.

The Second China Card

20 years ago the mantra of the day was to have a China Card.  Major western manufacturers must have a production base in China to take advantage of cheap labour, cheap land and the skilled Chinese workforce to lower production cost. This China Card gave the international manufacturers an unassailable advantage to compete in the world market. The European and American manufacturers have become uncompetitive against the Japanese, South Koreans and Taiwanese and the Chinese in producing goods for international consumption due their high labour and production cost at home. Having goods manufactured in China allowed the western manufacturers to regain the comparative advantage to sell to the world.

This old China Card no longer works like before. The new world market, the largest consumer market, is in China. 1.4 billion Chinese are moving up the economic ladder to be consumers of better quality goods and services. The growing middle class is creating a huge demand for higher end goods and services. The buying powers of the Americans and Europeans have diminished and so is the buying power of the Japanese. The big consumers are the nouveau riche Chinese in China. The current wave of China tourists buying overseas would not last for long when China is making all the goods they desired.

The new China Card is to produce in China and sell to the growing affluent Chinese market. Many western and Japanese manufacturers have the foresight to seize on this opportunity to be in China to sell to the Chinese consumers. There will be more and more joint ventures with branded high value foreign manufacturers partnering Chinese businesses to manufacture and produce for the Chinese market. Without this ticket many of the western manufacturers would go the way of the dinosaurs, uncompetitive and without a big enough market to sell to.  The Americans can try to produce at home and sell to the Americans at American prices but would not be able to export anything to the world at a competitive price.

The new China Card is the way to go to survive.  The new China Card is the passport to the world’s biggest consumer market. A new partnership to make and sell to the world’s biggest consumer market in China will mean profitability or heading towards oblivion for the manufacturers of quality consumer goods and services. This is the new challenge and new normal of the 21^st Century.

Who says there will be no qualified Malay candidates for the EP?

There have been talks everywhere that there will be no qualified candidates for the Malay EP election. Some say there will only be one candidate put up by the PAP and since there would be no other contestants, it would be a walkover just like the times of SR Nathan.

I briefly run through my mental computers and could easily churn up such a long list of eligible candidates that is unbelieveable. Top among them would be Halimah Yaacob, Yaacob Ibrahim, Masagos Zulkifli, Ahmad Mattar, Othman Wok, and if ministers of state and Parliamentary Secretaries are eligible, the list would be a few pages long. What about non political candidates? Does it matter, when all the best Malay talents available are in the list mentioned above?

Now who say there are not enough Malay candidates for the EP election? You want three corner fight or four corner fight also got.

One thing for sure, there will be no Second Chance. The EP election is likely to be a straight fight or a walkover, depending on who the PAP will be putting up for the election. Or it could be like a repeat of Ong Teng Cheong versus Chua Kim Yeow in the first election for an EP where only one candidate willing to run and no one really wants to run.

It is a little too late to appoint a Malay talent to head a $500m GLC to qualify for the EP election. It would be difficult if the appointee has to be in an executive position, not just chairmey. Oops, I mean chairman with no executive power.

WP presented with a Godsend gift for 2017

The happenings in the Ang Mo Kio Town Council are outrageous. I am not going to elaborate as the details are everywhere. The similarities between the AMKTC case and the AHPETC case are unstintingly unmistakable. What is the WP waiting for? Silence is golden as usual, or worried about sub judice?

A simple thing the WP could do is to table the same list of questions, objections, problems and recommendations thrown at them to act on. There is no need to reinvent the wheel. Everything that needs to be said about this AMKTC case has been said in the KPMG report. Everything that has been alleged to be bad has been alleged. Everything that is supposed to be about poor management, inappropriate, unacceptable, everything that is supposed to be a violation of rules, good practices, unethical, immoral, unprincipled and against the law, has been said and written in black and white.

All the WP needs to do is to pull out the old copies of letters and reports  that were sent to them, the reports in the media, and compile them in a nice file, and send them to Parliament for an airing.  Then they can all sit back and relax and hear the replay of everything that was said, in defence of what were said and alleged about AHPETC. So simple!

Actually a simple way is to send all the documents and letters back with the words AHPETC changed to AMKTC will do. Oh, the names of people involved should also be changed.

What a piece of cake for the start of a new year. There is no need to say anything new, no need to crack the grey matter. Just do exactly as what was said or done before, would be better if they can hold a press conference and hope that the main media would print exactly what they had printed before.  Would that be nice?

One advice for the WP, do not do what I do, for what I can do you can’t do. What I do is right and good, but when you do what I do, it is wrong and bad.  Understand?

This is an example of a comment in TRE, and there were many more of such brilliant comments that the WP can quote, from ministers and MPs.

PREACHER SHOULD PRACTICE:

January 2, 2017 at 10:48 pm  PREACHER SHOULD PRACTICE(Quote)

IN 2015 – KHAW BOON WAN ON WP’S AHPETC LAPSES, quote:

“By law, the MPs and councillors are ultimately responsible for everything in the town council. They cannot simply DELEGATE their responsibility away to ther managing agent or others.
Unfortuately, throughout the saga we have found the MPs running AHPETC to be evasive, unresponsive and misleading.” (my capitalized ‘DELEGATE’)