Dialectics on Education – idealism versus pragmatism, reality versus aspiration

Many pages of the media, many efforts and valuable manhours, and many heads have been put together to untie the Gordian knot of the Singapore education system. The reason for the change, the wanting to change, comes not because the education is flaw, foul or ineffective, but because of stress factor, because of the complaints by parents that their children are unable to cope. What are the statistics on the complaints, type of complaints, relevant or irrelevant, real or just fear, are not given.
 
So a massive exercise has been taken, by the people that may not know much about education, by people that may not know much about what life and living is all about, by people who knows not but pretending or thinking they know a lot.
 
Here are some takeaways from the things said and printed in the media and the contradictions or fictions that have been generated. The most important point raised, and out of a sense of wanting to provide a child with an all round education, to be a knows all of everything but knowing nothing, is this, to develop a whole child, whatever that means. And the present wisdom, a future of uncertainties and it is better to develop a child that can cope with future changes. Let me quote Indranee, a lawyer, not an educationist, not a parent bringing up children. “We now put a lot more emphasis on developing the whole child – not just their academic achievements….The ability to learn, unlearn and relearn will be the key.” And this motherhood statement, ‘Book knowledge alone is not enough, and the change caused by technology and other disruptive factors means that learning, has to continue well into adult life.’
 
I have several questions. How many children require all round development? How many children needs to be educated in the arts and sciences to become a knows all? How useful is a child with a well rounded education that he can use all these knowledge in his job? How many children are capable, with the intellect, to acquire a full rounded education other than being superficial and ended up becoming a good for nothing? In the real world, when everyone needs to get a job to feed himself, other than the super rich, is a general all round education going to be more useful than a specific education with specific skills, but very narrow in nature?
 
Why are Singaporeans, especially the PMETs losing out in the job market, unemployable, because they did not have specific skills needed in the job market? Why are foreigners, who did not benefit from our super all round education, coming from very basic education system, are beating our super talented Singaporeans, with super grades, in the job market? Why are ministers saying that there is no need for university education, all one needs is a skill in demand?
 
Are there contradictions between idealism and reality, between aspirations and the hard truth in life? While talking about educating children to become more flexible and adaptable, would these compromise the children in acquiring specific skills in demand? Funny, if every child is going to become a superman that can do everything, a wholly developed person, are they not going to become one stereo typed, wholly developed person? Assuming of course every child is a genius by nature and could benefit from such a complex and varied education, and without stress.
 
I am not an educationist or expert in education. These are some of my thoughts as a layman, someone who has no deep knowledge about education and I do not pretend to know the answers to how a child should be educated to the best of his ability, his gifted or not gifted talent. A child is not the same as every other child, each with his own special talents and non talents. Should it not be to develop a child according to the best of his natural endowment and according to what society and the new world expects from him? Not what the parents want them to be?
 
It will be a different matter if every child is born a genius and a sports talent and is gifted to do and excel in everything.
 
From comments in Parliament and the direction they are pointing it appears that they are being mislead by a small group of noisy and vociferous parents dictating how the education should be like for their not too bright or even dull children to be admitted to the best schools, play and be happy, without any pressure, no need exams, learn more study less, and end up with super grades in the end. Such things can only happen in third world countries and degree mills.
 
The children come in all shapes and sizes and not everyone is a perfect circle. One way to push them through perfect circles is to enlarge the circles. But they would come out in their original shapes and sizes. The only method to turn odd shapes into perfect circles, or cast iron into steel is through the crucible of fire.
A buffet of schools
 
What Singapore needs is a tough minister to offer to the parents a buffet of schools, from happy schools to tough competitive schools, to specialized schools that would turn out children according to the demand of the schools and their specialization. Play schools would turn out playboys and playgirls. Rich parents can afford these playboys and playgirls as they grow up to party their whole lives without worries, without stress, without having to work for a day.
 
Those who want their children to be engineers, scientists, doctors, and the hard disciplines have no choice but to work for it. There is no other way to master these tough disciplines except through degree mills and pariah school systems in third world countries. Is that what we want?
 
Stop fooling around with our education system and the lives of our young. No pain no gain. Oops, maybe we have magicians in Parliament that could really produce an Einstein who is also a great artist, a great football player without having to work for it. Just pull him out from the hat and viola, you have your superman!

Trade wars and trade imbalance - Another white man's lie

Daily the Americans have been crying out loud that they are suffering huge trade deficits in their trades with China and the rest of the world. And they conveniently blame China and the rest of the world for the huge trade deficits against their favours. Is this true or the real thing or another big white lie.

Take the case of US China trade imbalance for example. One of the biggest factor contributing to the trade imbalance is that the Americans want to buy all the cheap products Made in China but refused to sell to China what the Chinese want to buy, ie high value and high tech goods on the ground of security. Sticking to this American farce and make belief, what else can the Americans sell to China when everything the average or working class Chinese need could be made and produced in China? This only left with a few food items that the Chinese could not produce themselves or produced not enough ie soya beans, meat and wine. There is nothing else that the Americans can sell to China other than airplanes.  China wants to buy of lot of equipment and machinery from the Americans, but the Americans refused to sell. The main reason for trade is to create value and make profits from the exchange. There is no point for China to acquire all the US dollars if they don't use it to buy things from the Americans, converting them to value for its people. See the white lies in this argument?

Relating to the above, the Americans are all the time putting barriers to prevent China from spending their US dollars in the US. China has been prevented from buying many properties and assets and companies which would lead to a healthier trade balance for the Americans. It is the Americans that are refusing to let the Chinese buy or use their US dollars in America to benefit America.

Another major factor is that the Americans did not have to work to have money to buy and buy and buy. They just print money to exchange for goods. Thus there is no incentive for the Americans to want to sell things of value to the rest of the world, especially to China. It could be one of their cunning strategies, let the Chinese accumulate all the American dollars and made the American dollars useless, valueless in a way when the Chinese could not use them to buy American goods.

The fictitious trade imbalance which the Americans refused to admit is that many of the goods and products sold to America were actually sold by American companies operating in China. As the goods were made in China and exported from China, they become exports from China and registered as trade gains to China. An Apple iphone selling for a thousand US dollars would create less than US$10 to a Chinese worker. The bulk of the profits goes to Apple Inc owned by the Americans.

The white men are living with their white lies and using white lies to start another war, a trade war. The irony of this trade war is that ultimately the losers would be the average working class Americans. This is a war that the Americans could win on paper but end up as losers.

What would happen after the trade war?

China would lose the American market. It's products would have great difficulties selling in the USA.
Likewise the Americans would lose the Chinese market. American produces would not sell in China. America would also lose their manufacturing base in China. American companies would no longer make their products in China.

Can China live and continue to prosper without the 300m American market?
Can the American companies survive without the 1.4b Chinese market?
Can the American companies sell its products, NOT  made in China, that would be affordable to the rest of the world?

You make your own conclusion.

Does Mahathir know what is unfair agreement?

The agreements signed between Malaysia and China or Malaysia and Singapore were signed on a willing buyer willing seller basis. Did anyone point a gun at the head of the signatories? Did the signatories sign under coercion?
 
The treaties China signed with the Brits and Portuguese after the Opium War to give up sovereignty of Hong Kong and Macao were unfair treaties signed under coercion, unwillingly by China. No country would willingly sign such treaties against the interests of their countries. Despite the one sided treaties, China abided by them, honoured them as international agreements between two states even if they were unequal treaties. China could have kicked out the Portuguese and Brits long before the treaties expired, but did not do so, as they were treaties, international agreements signed between two govts.
 
Another example of unfair agreements is the McMahon Line drawn by an angmoh thief coming all the way from Europe. He simply put his pen to decide which part of the land belonged to China and which part belonged to the British Empire, arbitrarily without consulting China. And India is basing on this arrogant angmoh twit’s pen to claim that those land drawn by him as part of the British Empire now belongs to India.
 
Today Mahathir simply uttered that the agreements signed between Malaysia and China and Singapore were unfair and this gives him the right to renegotiate. He did not know how much harm he did to his country for being unreliable and untrustworthy, for not abiding by agreements signed by his govts. Who would want to sign agreements with a country that would turn around to dishonor the agreements at their whims and fancy? Maybe this is the key reason why he returned from Japan empty handed. He cannot be trusted!
 
Mahathir must not think that only he can be unreasonable and bickering against legally signed agreements. Singapore is standing very firm on the HSR and Water Agreements. Singapore would hold Malaysia to these agreements and would take Malaysia to the international courts if needed. Mahathir don’t pray pray with Singapore. Khaw Boon Wan has fired the first shot. Vivian Balakrishnan continued with the second shot. Two can play the game. It is not a one sided thing, that only Mahathir can shoot at anyone and think he could get away with it.
 
There is international law to govern the actions and behavior of recalcitrant leaders that try to ignore the rule of law. And Singapore is one big country that would stand very firm on the rule of law or outlaws. Mahathir is not the law and not beyond reproach when international agreements are concerned.

A Brief Synopsis of India's China War. - 1962

Below are some salient points and facts behind the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. A good knowledge of the historical background  of the disputed boundaries is essential to the understanding of the dispute.

There are many cumulative factors that cause the Sino-Indian border war in the foothills of the Himalayas mountain ridges in 1962. There is the historical factor of British colonialism and imperialism in India expanding right into Chinese territories in Tibet, India's ambitious Forward Policy of building military outposts deep into Chinese territories far beyond the McMahon Line , a boundary illaterally drawn by the British but never recognized by China, US/UK Western political and psychological support as well as Soviet Union's behind the scene instigation and support that encouraged India to attack China. Also it was due to India's ambition of inheriting the mantle of British colonialism and imperialism at the expense of China and India's overconfidence and miscalculation that China would not fight back in the event of Indian attack on Chinese border troops , a false and fake feedback given to India by US/UK and Soviet Union that finally goaded India to attack China.

Throughout the 18th and 19th century British colonialism in India expanded maliciously towards the Chinese territories in Tibet. British expansionism incurred on Chinese territories in the Himalayas in both the north west region of Aksai Chin and the north east of southern Tibet in Tawang province. 

England refused to budge from occupied Chinese territories inspite of endless years of negotiations taking advantage of a weak and decadent Chinese government then.

British failure to settle its occupation of Chinese territories before it left India laid the foundation to the border war between India and China. Nehru's India was adament in refusing to talk and negotiate with China over the Chinese lands stolen from China by the British and now inherited by India as fait accompli Indian territories. Thus India wants to inherit the mantle of British colonialism and imperialism at the expense of China.

During the same period of 18th and 19th century another European imperial power Russia was expanding into Chinese territories both in Siberia in the north up to the Pacific coast where Vladivostok ( a former Chinese city ) is and in the south and south west in Xinjiang and Tibet in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountains.

Both England and Russia had the same compulsion to expansion. And wherever new territories were occupied they established military outposts to fortify and strengthen their illicit and illegal occupation and to overcome local resistance. And that was how China lost vast territories to England in the south and three million and five hundred thousand square miles of Chinese lands to Russia in the north as well as thousands of square miles of Chinese territories in the Illi region of Xinjiang.

                                             

                                                   PART      TWO

On 14th March, 1899, in Peking, England agreed that the whole Karakash Valley and all Aksai Chin territory belonged to China. In the Simla Convention in 1914 Britain confirmed that Aksai Chin belonged to China. However, in 1947 when India became independent it refused to recognize Aksai Chin as Chinese territory.

When British forces reached the Himalayas it found that the states of Nepal, Sikkim and Bhutan were all under some sort of Chinese suzerainty. In 1914 England illegally took the Tawang district of southern Tibet from China in which China objected and protested strongly. In 1946 an Indian map of Nehru's book "Discovery of India" 1st edition showed the Tawang province as Chinese territory. However, Britain's failure to reach an agreement with China left unresolved boundary problems to independent India in 1947, when it was granted independence on 14th August, 1947.

China had always protested the stealing of Chinese territories in Aksai Chin and Tawang and considered the Simla Convention in 1914 invalid. In October 1962 , China officially asked India to return to China a large swathe of territory from Ladakh to Assam which include Sikkim and the Darjeeling district.

India not only refused to return Tawang to China but renamed the province as the North-East Frontier Agency. India then adopted a forward policy of the British in grabbing more Chinese lands beyond the illegal McMahon Line and building military outposts to strengthen its occupation. When China called for talks and negotiations to settle the boundary issues it was always rebuffed by India which stubbornly maintained that they were Indian territories and there was nothing to talk or negotiate. India's attitude was on the model of the arrogant Americans or the west and that is 'accept what I claim or else there is nothing to talk about.'

In September 1962, India arm forces pressed forward in the western sector of Aksai Chin and the eastern sector - the North East Frontier Agency ( NEFA ). Thus it was India's forward policy which led to war. India believed and the belief was strengthened and assured by UK,US and Soviet Union that China would not fight back if India pressed forward and attack Chinese troops at the border. This strong conviction that China would not retaliate in the face of Indian attack encouraged India to continue its attack  on China more aggressively from 6th October, 1962.

In the meantime China appealeed to India to talk and negotiate a peaceful settlement instead of resorting to fighting. However, India's attitude meant that settlement must be on India's terms.. When India continued to attack China finally had to retaliate and pushed back Indian forces. It was then that India shamefully claimed that  China had carried out an unprovoked attack on India.

India had committed aggression against China but was quick to reversely put the blame on China for attacking India.It was a terrible shameful lie. It  showed how dishonourable India can be.

India turned panicky with the disastrous defeat of its armies in the border war. Nehru appealed to America and England for military aid. India gave a list of the weaponeries it required from USA . On 29th October, 1962, Nehru accepted US military aid. This exposed India's false and fake non-alignment policy. India was looking at war with China as hours of greatness. From the 12th to 16th November,1962, India carried out large scale attack on Chinese forces in the north-east, NEFA. Again Indian forces were routed by the Chinese peasant armies. 

On the night of 20th November, 1962, Nehru appealed for US intervention to bomb Chinese forces and also requested for US to despatch an aircraft carrier to the Bay of Bengal.

                                                         PART     THREE

                     China declared unilateral ceasefire

On 20th November, 1962, China announced to the world of its unilateral ceasefire and withdrawal to 20KM behind the line of actual control which existed between China and India on 7th November, 1959  -  The McMahon Line which China had never recognized.

China's army had advanced into the territory south of the McMahon Line ,  "in order to  thoroughly rout the Indian reactionaries and to shatter their plan of altering the border status quo by armed force and to create conditions for a negotiated settlement. It was the first time in recorded history that a great power has not exploited military success by demanding something more."  ( Quote from Neville Maxwell ) . China could have marched easily into into New Delhi, India's capital.

China repatriated to India all 6,000 Indian prisoners together with all their  guns, mortars, artilleries, brand new American automatic rifles and a Russian helicopter in serviceable condition.

China called for talks and negotiations again but was constantly rebuffed by India despite appeal by some Afro-Asian nations viz Egypt,UAR and Sri Lanka. Instead India in 1963 conducted a joint Anglo-American air exercise with long range fighter aircraft flying in to operate from Indian Air Force bases. Nehru had in November, 1962 called for Anglo-American intervention in the Sino-Indian border war. It was a betrayal of the Afro-Asian non-aligned neutral spirit. Further India also called for Soviet Union's help to build up her defenses.

It was India's intransigence in refusing to talking peace through negotiations that the borders were therefore settled down into an armed truce and diplomatic relations between China and India were frozen in limbo. In 1969 a suggestion by Mrs Indira Ghandi to mend diplomatic relations with China was rejected by Congress.

Nevertheless, China's long standing offer to negotiate a boundary settlement on the basis of the status quo when India is ready to do so still stands. 

                                                          PART     FOUR

In September, 1971, Neville Maxwell's book on India's China War had aroused a hostile uproar in India. Led by politicians and parliamentarians the public demanded punitive action against the publisher and the writer, Blames for the defeat of the border war were hurled and levelled at each other between and among the different groups of politicians, parliamentarians, Indian Intelligence Bureau and the military. 

Subsequently the retired army general - General Thapar broke his silence and in an article in the Statesman of 9th January, 1971 blamed the civilian defense minister , the director of Indian Intelligence Bureau and the civilian government not only for interference in purely military matters on flimsy political grounds but also for provoking the border war, when the defense minister ordered the army to evict the Chinese from Thag La ridge and other border areas both in the west and the east despite General Thapar's misgivings regarding Chinese reactions and its consequences.

It was generally believed by Nehru , his cabinet  and his generals that China would not react strongly to India's forward policy and to India's attack on Chinese border troops. General Kaul was a warhawk who persuaded Nehru and the parliamentarians to strongly support the forward policy and eviction of Chinese troops from their outposts that led the Indian army to establish advance checkposts to outflank Chinese positions. Further India supported the CIA armed  Tibetan emigres to foment and organize a separatist armed rebellion in Tibet . In fact Mullit the director of India's Intelligence Bureau and Nehru as well as many Indian generals and parliamentarians believe that India's national security can only be preserved by either India's occupation of Tibet or by helping to establish an independent Tibet state subservient to India. This has become a permanent feature of India's foreign policy.

Foot note:       

This synopsis base on Neville Maxwell's book, " India's China War " is written to present the truths elicited from facts to refute the false and fake representations by some overseas - ASEAN Indian intellectuals who still hold strong social and emotional ties to India that they cannot overcome their Psychological pain of India's defeat in the Sino-Indian war of 1962. Therefore they pretentiously claimed innocense of India and blame China for the border war. Thus for years they persistently and consistantly talk, speak and write damaging articles to disparage and demonise China to give China a bad image. They are also quick to condemn China in any dispute between China and other countries viz US, Japan, Vietnam or the Philippines without any logical basis other than their chronic pathological hatred for China .

Hopefully this brief synopsis will set them in the right perspective of historical truth and not base on their irrational thinking arising out of their emotional ethnic ties to India.

Southernglory1

Wednesday, 11th July,2018

 

Kausikan’s megaphone diplomacy? Or is it Singapore’s megaphone diplomacy?

The last article by Bilahari Kausikan attacking China’s covert and overt diplomacy has stirred the hornet’s nest among Singaporeans doing business in China. Many were irked by his unnecessary hostile remarks against China in a forum of American and western audience, in his words, exposing China for influencing and manipulating the policies of govts to favour China. No matter how he slithered to claim that he was not attacking China in particular, no one is going to believe him as the intent of this article was as clear as a bright Sunday morning.
 
Many people have written to the forum pages of the ST to show their displeasure of his hostility towards China. In the ST forum page of 9 Jul, a Lim Ang Yong was equally incensed to question his intent and even suggested that it was Singapore’s megaphone diplomacy that was not good for Singapore China relations.
 
Let me quote Lim Ang Yong, “It seems unwise to shame China in a forum co hosted by American based organizations in front of an international audience. It is also true that we should educate Singaporeans, but that was not the goal of that forum, neither is it the role of a private individual. I am sure it is not the Govt’s intention to let former ambassadors be its proxy voice or lead its thinking and decision making on managing its China relations….”
 
Lim also noted that Kausikan was a former perm sec and diplomat and his knowledge of China interfering with Singapore’s policies were classified and sensitive information obtained while in office. These were privileged information protected under the Official Secrets Act that no ordinary peasant would be accessible to. All civil servants privy to official classified information are under oath to protect such information while in service or out of service and disclosing such information is an offence under the OSA. In his over zealous attempt to discredit China, has he crossed the line and divulged classified information protected under the OSA?
 
Has Kausikan’s disclosure and exposure of China’s behavior violated the Official Secrets Act as what he knew and said about China were privileged information available to him while in office?
What do you think?
 
PS. Lim Ang Yong also asked this question. “Did he get approval to speak as if he were an authority on the issue for the Singapore Govt?”