Would ASEAN want to be American colonies like EU?

 Question is why did ASEAN invite the Devil in Chief into the house in the first place? Whose idea was it really? Or was ASEAN being forced to? You know, the 'You are either with US or against US' is a very forceful threat.

Europe incorporated the devil into the house and failed to get rid of it and been used by it to further its interest. Now Europe is suffering. This is a good example for ASEAN not to follow. But the USA already has a strong footing in ASEAN affairs with the Philippine at its whims and fancies. The USA found its weak link by holding Mickey Mouse hostage, using his father's wealth in its hands as a bargaining chip.

Other countries in ASEAN, with the exception of you know who, are not at all falling in line with the devil. Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia are close to Beijing. Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia have important trade links with Beijing and knows who is buttering their bread. But the USA will continue to try to split the good relations. This is to be expected. Chinese influence in South-East Asia is still strong.

Why would ASEAN, with its relatively peaceful existence, want to engage in geopolitical conflicts like the Europeans to benefit someone else. It will bring them nothing good. China will always be around and will not collapse tomorrow. China has been around for 5,000 years and did China create much trouble for ASEAN? Hardly, other than the disputes in the South-China Sea that had been around for, perhaps centuries, and just hyped up over the last couple of decades. 

Anonymous

Ukraine War - What are they fighting and dying for?

 Trump is now caught between a rock and hard place trying to end the Ukraine War, with Biden antagonizing Putin by allowing Ukraine to use longer range USA missiles to attack Russia. Biden, or should I say his handlers, just placed a roadblock in front of Trump to make sure peace does not come easy.

In any case, I read somewhere that Putin already knew that Trump's 24-hour peace deal is just impossible to work. It is just a con-man's job that Trump is trying to pull.

Putin knew that for Russia to keep the territories it occupied today is not going to be agreeable to NATO or Zelenskyy. After all the massive sacrifices by both sides, who is going to accept the status quo for nothing? What were they fighting for?

On the other hand, asking Putin to get out of Eastern Ukraine or even Crimea is out of the question, again touching on the massive sacrifices already made by Putin in those two years of war. Kursk was just a distraction, an attempt by Zelenskyy to extract a bargaining chip, but Russia is not taking the bullshit. Russia can take its time retaking Kursk. It has all the time on its hands. Just remember that Russia, like the former Soviet Union, thrives on long wars of attrition.

Anonymous

Yunnan Tour - A pictorial essay of Shaxi ancient town in Dali

 I was on a 8 day tour of 4 cities in Yunnan, Kunming, Dali, Lijiang and Shangri La, visiting the touristy sites and taking a peek into the lives of the minority tribes in this mountainous southwestern province of China. There are many minority tribes here. Our guides were from the Yi, Naxi and Tibetan tribes, driver from the Hui tribe. Many of the businesses were owned by the minority tribes with some earning the stature of being among the top few richest and prominent players in the economy of Yunnan.

The people here are very busy doing their businesses and participating in the growth of Yunnan's economy and in the growth of China's economy in general. China is spending a lot of effort and resources to promote tourism by upgrading the infrastructure in anticipation of a boom in the tourist industry. The transportation, accommodation and associated facilities are adequate and very well organised and professional. The toilet facilities are expansive, clean and well designed, modern and could handle a hundred tourists at one time. 

38 countries have been granted 30 days visa free to enter China. This is going to be another big source of revenue for China where tourists can get real value for money in safe and enchanting China with thousands of years of history.

The people in Yunnan are participating in the booming tourist industry in particular and the province's economic development in general, and getting wealthier and comfortable in their way of life. I will post more pics of the places visited. Below are some pics of a pictorial essay of a little town called Shaxi,沙溪古城,  made famous in a TV series called, To a windy place, 去有风的地方, starring Liu Yifei and Li Jian, 刘亦菲和李现 .  Shaxi, an ancient town of a few hundred year, in Dali, is one of the few Horseback Tea Road still standing. Here is the first installment of my tour.

 

Entrance to Shaxi ancient town of a few hundred years. The horseback tea trade had a stop in this town. Click to enlarge pics.

 

View of the river and mountain from entrance of Shaxi Town.

Street of Shaxi. The Cafe/home of the TV serial was a short distance from here. A wet day when we visited.

 

This is the Cafe/home in the TV serial. Tourists gathered to take photos.

 

Open air theatre stage in the town square.

A title casts magic on the unthinking...or deluding the unthinking?

 Put a crown on a donkey and call it a king and it goes like magic, everyone would be bowing or kneeling in front of the donkey with obedience and fear. It is a king and deserves great deference and respect. His words are wisdom, his jokes are good jokes....

The Arab leaders were pointedly calling Blinken a war criminal. They would not want to shake his hand, not want to be lectured by him or talk to him, let alone take photo ops with him. But to the many unthinking, he is the Secretary of State of the USA, a very powerful position, a very powerful man. How can people be rude to him? Wherever he goes, he deserves the red carpet treatment. What criminal? What war criminal? And a walking zombie is the President of the USA. Never mind if he cannot find the toilet and needs prompting and reading from a card.

The USA has just elected Trump as President. Who is Trump, what is Trump? What crimes and ill reputes Trump has were well published and confirmed, not lies, not fabrication. They are real. But once the title of President of the USA is attached on Trump, he is a different man. He is the President and must be treated with all the honour and decorum of a President. He is a scoundrel, a cheat, liar, sexual predator, etc etc now do not matter.

More important, his intelligence suddenly shot through the roof, he is now smarter, cleverer, his words are the edicts of an emperor. People seek his advice, listen to this words of wisdom and wise cracks. He is no longer the D grader in school and university. Trump and the likes of Bush Junior are not your normal D graders. They are from rich and well off families with all the resources to support their education pursuits, the best teachers and tutors to coach them do well, unlike the poor students who could not afford to go to schools, or the IT and computer nerds that dropped out without a degree. Both are basically not very bright, but they are genuine D graders.

Now, with the title of President, Trump's is now a smart man, a clever man, making wise decisions to make American Great Again. He is the hope of the USA. Can you imagine that? Alright, he wields power, tremendous power take could shake the world, could take lives, go to wars and destroy countries. These are easier things to do, just order the soldiers to do it. But to make America Great Again is not so simple as raising tariffs and imposing sanctions. They need real intelligence and serious deep thinking that D graders are incapable of.

This is what the world believes in, a title. A title changes everything in the man. A donkey can be a king, a criminal can be a President, a D grader can be expected to save America!

What do you think? America will be great again? The hillbillies have high hopes on their President, whoever or whatever he is. A president is a president! This is the epitome of American Democrazy, the best political system for the world to emulate.

AngloSaxon terrorists are everywhere to cause unrest and wars

 Nury Vittachi on his site 'Fridayeveryday' just put up piece on this topic titled 'Claims that HK unfairly jailed 45 activists are missing the real story'. Do watch it.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) the regime changing arm of the USA had invested more than two decades in trying to create chaos in Hongkong poring in huge sums of money too. Its failure in Hong Kong was a huge setback, but it is still engaged in such activities in many other places like Moldova, Georgia and closer to home in Myanmar, Cambodia and I suspect eventually in Malaysia, not to promote democracy but more in retaliation over its recent stance.

The fact is that failure seems to derail its nefarious activities all over the world lately. In Russia, huge resources were expended to cultivate Alexei Navalny in the hope of festering a regime change in Moscow to get rid of Putin. His death puts everything into the garbage bin, and all the investments turned into dust. As expected, Putin was blamed for his death. Now, they are cultivating his widow to take over.

Elsewhere many attempts were being made to topple the legally elected Venezuelan leader Nikolas Maduro and trying to install a stooge so that the USA can have access to Venezuela's massive oil reserves. Trump even gloated that he wants to steal the oil reserves. Fancy that!

Another example was in an attempted regime change in Kazakhstan in 2022, which resulted in the intervention by Russia to help stem the riots. And how can we forget Xinjiang, where the radicalized Uyghur Muslims were roped in to create unrest and terrorism issues. That failed too!

Anonymous