Vietnam still nursing its wound from border war with China

Ha Thi Hien was 14 when the PLA launched its attacks into Vietnam following Vietnam’s invasion and occupation of Kampuchea. In a NYT report posted in the Today paper on 7 Jul, ‘Chinese artillery fire echoed across the hills around her home in northern Vietnam and hundreds of thousands of Chinese soldiers swarmed across the border.’ They fled their homes only to run into Chinese soldiers. The Chinese soldiers were all over Langson, all over north Vietnam.
 
Vietnam then was victorious against the mighty Americans, chased them out of Vietnam and went on to occupy Kampuchea and Laos. The speed and extent of the Vietnamese occupation of its neighbouring states brought fear to Thailand and Malaysia and as far south as Singapore. The Domino Theory was revived and was very real as no Southeast Asian country possessed the military might and experience to fight a war with Vietnam. The ease in the fall of Kampuchea and Laos was too frightening to imagine. Thailand was next.
 
The Americans were a lost cause for help, having been defeated and no longer had the appetite to engage the Vietnamese once again. Thailand sought help from neighbouring China. The Chinese responded positively as they too wanted to keep Kampuchea and Laos as independent states. China ordered the Vietnamese to pull out. The Vietnamese refused, after defeating the Americans they have no one to fear, not a relatively weak China. The Chinese gave them an ultimatum and when this was ignored, China launched a border war against the Vietnamese. It was a brutal war.
 
The Chinese went in to teach the Vietnamese a lesson and to pull out from Kampuchea and Laos. The Western media, still nursing the wounds and lost pride of the American defeat at the hands of Vietnam, were too happy to sing a different tune. Vietnam taught the Chinese a lesson. Who did the teaching and who received the lesson and learnt well not to repeat the same mistake? The Sino Vietnamese border was peaceful since then with no major incursions from the Vietnamese. They were ferocious fighters and attacked Chinese positions when told to vacate Kampuchea and Laos. They would not take such orders from China.
Not only that the Vietnamese no longer harbor the adventurism to attacking Chinese positions at the border, they left Kampuchea and Laos in peace. They withdrew. Period. Thailand and other Southeast Asian countries took a big sigh of relief that the Domino Theory would not materialize.
 
Till today, many western sources are still blowing the trumpet that China was taught a painful lesson. It was a bitter war with heavy casualties from both sides. The effective result, Vietnam left Kampuchea and Laos. If the Vietnamese had taught the Chinese a lesson, would they be so willing to give up their two prize catches in Kampuchea and Laos? Why should a victor in a war be dictated by a loser? Or it was the other way? The victor dictated the terms and the losers obliged, the loser, Vietnam, having been taught a lesson quietly withdrew from Kampuchea and Laos.
 
The Vietnamese are cocky and very aggressive in nature. They are very proud of their military triumphs against the French and the Americans. They would not give any respect to the Chinese. But their actions told the real story. They never dare to give any more trouble to China and her neighbours, Laos and now Cambodia.
 
They are starting to be itchy again, and harassing Chinese rigs in the South China Sea with tens of small fishing boats and coast guards attempting to ram the Chinese rigs. China is restraining itself from sinking them and allowing the western media a field day to denounce China as the aggressive party.
 
The recent trip by Yang Jiechi to Hanoi was not a friendly visit but to warn the Vietnamese to stop their harassment or they would be taught another lesson at sea. The Chinese have given enough face to the Vietnamese and even rope to hang themselves if they refused to stop their street punk tactics to ram the Chinese rigs. The Chinese must have told the Americans and the Asean states of what they told the Vietnamese and would take actions if the harassments continue. The Vietnamese are still as determined as ever to disrupt Chinese oil drilling processes. China has up the pressure by starting to arrest Vietnamese boats attempting to do so to mean business.
 
When would another flare up begin and when would a second lesson be taught? The first lesson seems to have lost its effect and faded in time. Are the Vietnamese seeking to be taught another lesson in how to behave as a good boy and a good neighbour?

Kopi Level - Green

This Singaporean reject will not return as FT

‘….Encourage bold visions and idea, no matter what they are. One of the reasons why Singaporeans overseas do not want to come back, is because the smallness of the vision of the local population. The big bold visions draws out the best in us, they draw people to us. No one believed me when I first said we could build a space industry on our own, now 18 months later, the Australian government is supporting its creation along with Universities and Commercial entities in the creation of the Delta –V which is now leading the creation of the Space Industry in Australia.
 
Reduce the amount of red tape to experiment. At Singularity University, I am investigating, Bio electric batteries, next generation drone flight systems, Genetic Modifying organism, and new ways of traveling into space. We know that we can’t do all of them, but we can test all our ideas and experiments on them to validate them.This is incredibly useful for generating new ideas and validating old ones. I intend to already build a similar facility back in Sydney to support the space industry….’
 
Above is part of a letter from a Brian Lim to Jack Sim explaining why he would not return to Singapore. That is not all. If he had not migrated to Australia, he would probably be a hawker or someone peddling goods in the pasar malams. This Brian Lim did poorly in his PSLE, ended in the Normal Stream, repeated his O level, and failed in polytechnic. What kind of prospect or jobs would he be fit to do?
 
Today he earned a Masters in Space and working in NASA in Singularity University in Australia. Would he be invited to be a returned FT? Can we find the reason why there is no talent among Singaporeans and why other countries are producing so many talents? If a PSLE failure can be remoulded into a top talent, surely all the straight As and near straight As students must be better potentials. But no, they are not even good enough to compete against 3rd World funny degree graduates.
 
And this Brian Lim is not a single or exceptional story. There are many Singaporeans overseas that are rejects of our educational system but earning Masters and PhDs and working in high tech, science and engineering industries. Can we figure out what is wrong with this kind of developments?
 
And look at what this Brian Lim is doing, ‘investigating Bio electric batteries, next generation drone flight systems, Genetic Modifying organism, and new ways of traveling into space.’ Some of our super talents would laugh out their dentures if they found out Brian Lim failed his PSLE. Brian is employed by the Australian govt in space exploration and space mining. What are our local talents doing, building more costly shopping centres and monuments? Or maybe trying to study solar flares, earthquakes and tsunamis or desert storms.

There have been many stories of our failed students that turned out to be gems in foreign educational systems. How many of our Einsteins have been wasted in the process and going through the decades of our educational system?

Kopi Level - Green

Roy Ngerng and Han Hui Hui at Hong Lim - 12 Jul 14 (Sat)

Roy Ngerng and Han Hui Hui will be at Hong Lim again this Saturday on a follow up to their earlier protest rally last month. The issues would still be about the CPF withdrawal and Minimum Sum Schemes. They will be doing an update on these issues and on the debate in Parliament.

The protest rally will start at 4pm. Not sure about the speakers but very likely the same as in the last rally. Not sure if they have invited Irene or Renee Yap to speak about her plight. Maybe her problem has been resolved and she has gotten her CPF money back.Anyone got any update about her case, or has it died a natural death?

India: Over 1,000 teaches with fake degrees sacked

‘(AFP, 8 Jul) – India’s Bihar state has sacked 1,100 school teachers in the last five years for faking their own education qualifications, an official said on Tuesday.
 
Bihar’s government has launched an investigation into the eastern state’s primary and secondary teachers to check the authenticity of their degrees, the official said….
 
Bihar, with a population of almost 100 million, has some of the poorest literacy rates in India….
Standards of education in rural India have declined almost every year since 2009 despite huge government investment, a survey by Indian education research group Pratham has found.’
 
The above full article is posted in TRE.
 
Singapore is so lucky that only honest Indian professionals with genuine certificates are coming here for employment. Or maybe it is our strict criteria and controls that are weeding the fakes from coming here. And we have probably a few hundred thousands of honest and genuinely qualified Indian professionals working here, some in very high positions. No problem really, all genuine talents.
 
Dunno who to thank for this or what lucky star to thank for. Or maybe we are just a born lucky country where the houseflies would not think this is a piece of shit, a place fit for them.

Kopi Level - Green

TRE under planned routine maintenance?

Yesterday I noticed the home page of TRE was not normal with overlapping words that could not be removed and thus making reading difficult. Was TRE attacked and defaced?

This morning it is down for maintenance.Oh, it is unplanned maintenance!

Singaporean bashing Round 2

Singaporeans are up for bashing again by Singaporeans that think they are immigrants or anglophiles. An article in the Mypaper titled, “‘Us and them’ drag us down’, gave a no holds bar attack against Singaporeans by a group that is noted for Singaporean bashing. They share the same mindset and together they supported and reinforced each other’s view that Singaporeans are to be blamed for being ungracious to foreigners. William Wan even identified himself as immigrant to take side with the foreigners. We were immigrants and are one of them.
 
Do the immigrants think that they were one of us? The angmohs have been pretty cocky, vicious and arrogant in how they made fun of Singaporeans, teasing Singaporeans with racist remarks, threatening Singaporeans in broad daylight and beating up Singaporeans as a past time. Did any Singaporean do such things to the angmohs? Did any of these angmoh lovers make any vile remarks against the Singaporean beating angmohs?
 
And as for the very nice foreign workers, they burnt our police cars, rioted and beaten up the Singaporean drivers and bus attendant and put all the blame on them for their rioting, causing loss of properties and disturbing the peace. And now our police are even the target of attacks, for being incapable, incompetent and poor leadership in managing the riot.
 
Why is it the fault of the police when the rioting was committed by foreigners? Why is it the fault of Singaporeans for being angry with so many foreigners here and growing impatient and intolerant to their abrasive and boorish behavior and invading our space? Why is there no criticism of foreigners cheating on Singaporeans, sacking and replacing Singaporeans in PME jobs with their own kind? Why is it tolerated when foreigners practiced discrimination in the industries by hiring their own kinds in our very own country?
 
Pauline Straughan even commented, ‘when things get rough and tough in Singapore, it is easy to blame outsiders’. What this group of elite or academics is doing is exactly the opposite. When things get rough and tough, it is so easy to blame the Singaporeans. And the whole gang is whacking Singaporeans, particularly the netizens for the ‘rudest and vilest of comments’. Are these worst off than what the likes of Casey Anton did? Are these worst off than Singaporeans being threatened by foreigners, with a burly angmoh chasing a young NS man into lift and choking his neck, threatening him with bodily harm, and walking away like he owned this island? Are these worst off than those cocky and aggressive angmoh cyclists threatening to beat up Singaporeans on the road, in defiance of the law?
 
And there is this Christine Leong saying, ‘Just because the streets and public transport are getting more congested, people get annoyed and want to find someone to blame for this, and the first group that comes to mind are the foreigners’. Is that unexpected when the average Singaporeans would have to push their way into the trains with the foreigners and to smell their smelly armpits and tolerate their loud talking in the confines of the train? And many of our oldies and young women would have to stand while the young and tough foreigners enjoyed their ride sitting?
 
People living in ivory towers and a different lifestyle that hardly have to bear with the antics of the foreigners could talk cock like in the academia. If they were to encounter the foreigners day in and day out, and be victims of their nonsense, threatened or beaten by them, lost their jobs to the foreigners, would they be talking such nice cock and bull stories?
 
Yes, I must agree that Singaporeans should not blame the foreigners. Singaporeans should blame the policies that brought about the influx of foreigners and be victims of the foreigners. But no, it is not just the policies that made Singaporeans see red. It is the people that made the policies that the Singaporeans should be angry with. It is the people that condone the academics and elite to bash Singaporeans because of their bad policies that should be the target of Singaporeans’ anger.
 
For the past centuries, Singaporeans have been very kind and inviting to foreigners. And they still do except when their privacy, dignity and safety are violated. They have the right to be angry when these things happened to them. And the true blue Singaporeans are born here, not immigrants. Your forefathers may be immigrants, without a country, starting off as foreigners, not even citizens. Now we are citizens of this island, our country. We are not immigrants and we want to have a say in the number of immigrants being brought in and how they behave and how they treat Singaporeans. Bad foreigners must be kicked out of our island, be it that they are very nice angmohs and very nice foreign workers.
 
The people’s tolerance for the foreigners is being tested daily and they are losing their patience. The people’s tolerance for being bashed by our own kind, blindly in support of foreigners, in defending the rights of foreigners but ignoring the rights of Singaporeans, is also being tested. Singaporeans would soon turn to this group of people who think of nothing but bashing Singaporeans for all the wrong reasons except for their fond of foreigners. And they can choose to be immigrants and called themselves immigrants for all they want. The true blue Singaporeans would not tolerate their cock and bull remarks and disgraceful comments against the good nature Singaporeans in general.

Kopi Level - Green

Watching Parliament debate is like watching a horror movie

I managed to catch a couple of minutes of the news when the CPF was discussed. They were talking about the withdrawal of CPF on retirement. The argument went something like this. The govt allowed CPF members to withdraw their money in one lump sum at 55 at a time when life was short. The people were expected to die in 5 or 7 years after retiring at 55. Today, life expectancy is 82, so there is a need to ensure that people have the money to spend after retirement. Letting them have the money at one go and at too early an age would mean depleting the saving faster.
 
Jumping onto this logic, Lim Bee Wah asked the govt to consider working backwards from 82 to allow the people to get a lump sum on retirement. Most retirees are looking forward to touch their life time savings when they retired. Chuan Jin’s reply, extending the logic of longer lifespan, it was not possible to know how long people would live after 82. They could go on living and it was necessary to make sure that they have money to go on living.
 
Here came my goose pimples, and my hair stood on ends. Fear crept up and I was really frightened, like watching a horror movie. No, Chuan Jin and Lim Bee Wah did not turn into Dracula or vampire. It was this sense of wholesome goodness for the people, so caring and so earnest to want the people to live well till their last day. I cannot imagine that there are really people that are so virtuous, so good and so genuine in this world to really want to help other people. No, don’t get me wrong. Chuan Jin was really sincere in wanting to help the retirees. I would have doubts if it was someone else selling his koyok.
 
It was too good to be true. And the scary part is that it was true. And they are going to make sure that the retirees will have the money to spend, and no lump sum return of their savings, and the payback will be delayed for as long as possible to make the money last, perhaps another 100 years. Oops, I shouldn’t say that. They might believe people will live to 200 years and make your CPF savings provide for it. Bad idea to say that. And the people will have to leave their money with the CPF for a very very long time. Irene Yap, or is it Renee Yap, should not gripe about withdrawing her money in the CPF. Going forward, CPF retirees would be expected to leave their money in the CPF to last them their life time being alive.
 
This is now a case of better to overprovide than underprovide. Chuan Jin is right to say that no one can predict how long a person would live beyond 82. But he was silence on how many would not live beyond 55 or 60. Anyway, this part is not important as they would not be a burden to themselves or to the state if they die young.
 
Gan Kim Yong should follow the same principles in his Medishield Life scheme. I think Gan Kim Yong is doing the opposite by providing the minimum, B2/C wards intead of A wards or private hospital wards. Should not Gan Kim Yong follow the same logic, provide for the best, for all contingencies like Chuan Jin? Or why don’t Chuan Jin borrow the principle of Gan Kim Yong, provide for the basics or minimum, and the extra or excessive part would be an option? Gan Kim Yong may be providing for B2/C wards but the people can opt for better wards by voluntarily paying more. For a compulsory across the board scheme, this is a sensible approach.
 
In the case of the CPF, the govt can go for the best, though it claimed to be using the lower income Singaporean as the benchmark, as the money to be retained in the CPF comes from the people themselves. If the money is to come from the govt, would the govt use the same yardstick, to demand the people to keep so much money in the CPF/minimum sum after retirement?
 
I still remember the saying, when the govt says it wants to help you, is so serious and happy and voluntarily offering to help you, be frighten, be very frighten. The thought of saving enough CPF to live up to 100 years or 200 years is really damn scary. I could not sleep the whole night. It was a frightening display of human goodness at its extreme. You don’t need enemies if you have people thinking like that and planning your life and your money…for your own good.

Kopi Level - Green