Singapore’s perilous dance with the USA

Singapore’s diplomacy and dance in the world stage suffered a double whammy with the election of Duterte and Donald Trump as presidents. Duterte’s refusal to play the role of American barking dog scuttled a well choreographed conspiracy led by the Americans and the Japanese and supported by the Little USAs against China. The game was to badmouth China, strangle its activities in the South China Sea and the containment of China in the international arena.
 
And then came Donald Trump who has pledged to drop the TPP, a pet peeve of Singapore as if its whole economy and future depended on it. If this is so, this would really be troubling time for Singapore as the last hope for economic recovery in a sagging economy would see its last flicker of light snuffed out by Trump.
 
What should Singapore do, send its two most vocal and powerful diplomats to Washington, to tell Trump how good the TPP is to the Americans? And add to that, to tell the Americans how good and useful Singapore has been to the USA and its pivot to Asia, and how important a role Singapore has or had played in support of American political and military actions everywhere, in particular the wars in the Middle East?
 
The raising of Singapore’s relationship with the US to a strategic partnership level, wonder what that means, culminating in a White House dinner in honour of the PM by Obama, reached an euphoric state with Singaporeans feeling so proud of the achievement and honour bestowed to their PM.  Unlike in Malaysia, there is no charge or allegation of Singapore being ‘sold off’ to the Americans. In Malaysia, the opposition accused the govt of a ‘sell off’ to Chinese interests with the pivot or tilt towards China. The Channel 8 Singaporeans are not feeling uneasy and did not think that their interests have been sold out by the Channel 5 Singaporeans to the USA.
 
To be sure, it would be a mistake to cast Singapore’s cosy relations with the US as a zero sum game in the game of big power politics as doing so would ignore the deep fundamental relationship between Singapore and Beijing. There are strong historical people to people relationship as well as newly built economic partnership and Singapore’s support of the AIIB and OBOR.
 
While the US believed in a strong and constructive relationship with China, the same logic should apply to Singapore having a strong relationship with China and the USA.
 
The implications of Hsien Loong’s visit to the US, to Japan, India and Australia and how would these impact on the viability of the TPP and the American pivot to Asia would only come to light after Trump took office in a few months down the line. Would it bear fruits or would the fruit be still born is yet to tell. With no due disrespect, the trips by Hsien Loong would not have the same impact as that of LKY in his time but more a continuation of what LKY had paved in the past, a continuation of LKY’s legacy.
 
The elevation of Singapore US relations to a new high is not without challenges and risks for the two countries. Did the Americans learn anything from their fiasco with the Philippines, with poking in the domestic affairs of Thailand and Malaysia that have backfired? The increasing profile and meddling of the Americans in the SCS would not only come under scrutiny but would only raise tension that sensible Asean states would not want as it would destabilize the region. Many Asean countries have seen what and how the Americans were doing behind closed doors to agitate the Asean countries to go against China in the SCS. This kind of offensive meddling of Asean and regional affairs must have raised eyebrows and caution among the Asean states as to what the Evil Empire is capable of doing and has been doing all these years.
 
The Americans are jumping into the region to exploit the overlapping island claims by China and some Asean states, to stoke the fire to benefit from the tension and counter claims. Their attempt to front up for the Philippines had hit a blank wall and similarly facing the same fate with the other Asean claimant states.
 
In this context, the close relations between Singapore and the USA could backfire and become a liability when the Americans failed in what they wanted to do, and with Trump coming into the picture, the adventure of American intervention in the SCS as well as the TPP to contain China would simply fall flat. It would be an ironic twist if Singapore has to turn towards China to rebuild ties when the USA under Trump turns isolationist.
 
While the English educated Straits born are still thinking that they are in charge and could ignore the Chinese educated and those that still have favourable views of China, they really did not have a clue how these groups, the so called Channel 8 Singaporeans really think with the leaning towards the US and less friendly towards China. This could be a potential crisis awaiting to happen with the Americans pushing too hard in the SCS leading to open hostility and forcing the Channel 8 Singaporeans to take sides. Would the ruling govt still be able to count on the support of the Channel 8 people that form the bulk of its political base?
 
While the ascendency of Trump as the next American President takes centre stage and his isolationist policies take shape, how would these affect the military alliances with the Asean states and the relations with the Little USAs? Would Trump start to reverse the Asia pivot, reduce American military presence in the region? Or would there be a turnaround and Trump turns aggressive and pushing a fight with China in the SCS? How would the close military relationship between Singapore and the US play out in the big power rivalry? Would there be arm twisting by the Americans for Singapore to send military forces to patrol in the SCS or to support American provocations against China?
 
For sure, Hsien Loong has brought Singapore much closer to the USA than LKY whose legacy was to balance the interests of superpowers without having to take sides. The new Singapore US relationship is not necessary a bad thing as it is also Singapore’s policy to be friendly to all powers, except this time a bit more explicit in being more pro Americans.  However, with the pushy Americans, at least under the Obama regime in his pivot to Asia, Singapore’s less than neutral position between China and the USA would become a distinct disadvantage when it comes to dealings with the Chinese and to clinch more economic deals especially in the OBOR Project. There would definitely be some expectations from the Americans as well as the Chinese for Singapore to toe the line with the sensitivity of the SCS situation and the competition for influence.
 
Singapore must be careful as the Americans could withhold the privileges for training grounds and military aids while Singapore still needs to secure China’s economic lifeline to solve the problems facing a slowing economy. Singapore is in a conundrum. How would Singapore maintain its political and strategic neutrality as it grows more dependent on American military support while becoming more dependent on China economically and for trade?

Elected President– Another thought

I have been thinking a lot about this EP thing and looking at as many angles as I could to look at the issues and potential problems that may pop up later. This is national service in a way, or being kaypoh. I just though of another point that I think, just a thought, that this may have slipped the minds of the super talents in their haste to get this EP changes passed for the next election. I am not trying to be intellectually arrogant as comparing to the super talents, I am just a minnow. Maybe they have thought of it, thought about it but did not think it important enough at this point in time to raise it.

Let me just share this little nitty problem that could cause some head scratching later.  Singapore was lucky that all the past presidents survived their terms in office. With the stringent criteria to be eligible as an EP, the $500m company or as very senior politicians or civil servants, the potential candidates for EP are likely to be quite advance in age. And many would have lived the good life and full of good life sicknesses from too rich food and lack of physical activities. Now you get what I am driving at?

There is always a possibility that a sitting President could mati prematurely from sickness or whatever reasons. Assuming that the next EP passed away after 3 months, 6 months or one year or a couple of years, would that mean that the Malay minority President had used up its quota of one term and so the next EP would be open to all? Or would there be a make up reserved EP election for the remaining years or months? No one can rule out this possibility.

Here is the worm. If the tenure of a minority President is prematurely terminated, would the minority feel cheated and would demand for another by election to serve out the full term of 6 years? Where to draw the line, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years?  Or would it be the same practice as in the case of a mati MP, wait out the full term with the seat empty or someone else covering it? When the Constitution provides for such minority rights, you can expect the rights to be demanded to the fullest, no half past six or partial satisfaction would be enough.

What do you think? Would this be another problem for minority grievances and unhappiness? Would this be the seed for future racial tension?

PS. I am thinking of the implications of the Eurasians and Others being lumped together with the Indian category. This one is another can of worms and deserves another post on it.

Trump triump revealed the stupidity of Sillyporeans

I read this in Yahoo News.

'A majority of Singapore residents — 84 per cent to be precise — would have voted for Hillary Clinton in the US election over Donald Trump, according to a survey commissioned by South China Morning Post and done by Blackbox Research last month.

The same survey revealed that “arrogant”, “unpredictable” and “morally unfit” were the top three character traits used by the Singapore respondents to describe Trump, who has just won the US presidential election.

Not surprisingly, many Singaporeans, including those in the US, were disappointed that the Republican defeated the Democrat nominee.’

 

And many daft sinkies are shocked that Hillary lost when the main media were rubbishing Trump and rooting for her. How could one see clearly when one is blind? The blinds that have eye defects are really not that blind as they have other organs to keep them informed. There are those that have eyes but chose to ask the blind to show them the way. These are the real blinds. Another more serious type of blinds are those that have eyes but refused to see, afraid to see, have no confidence in what they are seeing, and asked others to see for them and would believe when told that white is black and black is white.

 

How could the daft sinkies believe the media wholesale without questioning? The Brexit experience, the silly UN backed Hague Tribunal, and now, the US President Election, the media have been pushing their own agenda, telling half truths and lies. And many Sillyporeans just believed everything they read, even believing the evil woman is God sent, a lovely lady fit to be the President of the USA. I heard in a Channel News Asia programme on the Silk Road and the producer wrote the script that in the 1962 Sino India border war it was ‘China that invaded an unprepared India’ when declassified secret documents floating around confirmed that it was India that started the war and was well prepared with a special Army Corp formed for the war.

 

How could the Sillyporeans understand the plight of the working class Americans losing their jobs to foreigners and are getting poorer by the day, losing jobs and their pride? How could they understand the red neck Americans, the majority of the masses, and how they think and their perspective of the world? What Trump said, about immigration, struck a common cord in them. If they could understand they would not be conned by the lies and politically correct deceptions of Hillary.

 

It is actually asking too much of Sillyporeans to understand the USA and the plight of the common Americans when they could not see the rot in their own country and the plight of their fellow citizens. That is how daft Sillyporeans have become. They did not know what is happening except what they read in the main media, the bigger echo chamber of lies and half truths.

  

LKY – No crutch mentality

The history of Singapore has always been ‘no crutch mentality’ since the colonial days through to the days of LKY.  The British brought in the migrants and left them to their own doings. They worked themselves out to eke a living. Some made it good, some made it less good. The only leg up given by the British was to the Eurasians and those English educated.

During the earlier years of the PAP rule, there were pressures and great temptations to offer the crutch to the minorities but were stoically and firmly opposed by the no nonsense LKY govt. Crutch mentality is not only dangerous and a burden to the system, it was also rightly resisted by the LKY govt for undermining the pride and drive of the favoured group.

The minorities have survived the last 50 years without a crutch and did well though could have been better. Some may complained but there is pride in their achievements against the odds for being minorities.

Are the minorities asking for the crutch or should the crutch be offered to them and compromise their efforts and achievement all these years that they could only do so with the help of a crutch?

The changes to the Constitution in favour of the minorities because they are the minorities and must be favoured,  would it all end up with giving the minorities a crutch that the past govt had resisted to do so? Is this progress or regress? Minority EP lifted by a crutch! Is this something good, something to be proud of? No compromise on meritocracy, the best of the best? Would the minority EP be saying I am the President on my own right, merit man, or because of a crutch? Without the crutch they would not be good enough, would not make it?

Some have quoted that it was the desire of the Malays to want a Malay President. That is fair, every minority or majority would want that. But would be like the Chinese saying, ‘xin xiang shi cheng’ or 心想事成, just wish and your wish will be granted? What would be the next wish, a Malay PM?

What do you think?

Elected Presidency – Another Uniquely Singapore innovative idea

The most creative and innovative people in Singapore must be the political leaders. They are coming up with mind blowing ideas that no one could think of and always work. The latest is this great idea called Elected Presidency. It is like a genie coming out from a bottle to solve all the critical problems of Singapore, ie, to protect the nation’s reserves from being squandered by rogue govt, to unify the country, to give the minority a chance to be the president, thus be seen as participating in the main stream of the country’s politics. The unifying factor in a multi racial society, where he is seen as a symbol of racial unity is really crucial.

Whenever I write a piece praising the govt I know for sure that I would get a lot of walloping from my readers. But I am just saying the truth. This EP idea is so innovative and so effective that soon other countries would be borrowing it from us. There is a genuine fear that the ruling govt of the day would turn rogue, and Parliament and all the parliamentarians, all 87 of them, could not do anything and someone must rub the bottle to release the genie in the form of a EP who would then be able to slam down the rogue politicians from running amok. I am not sure whether a minority president is more important or the protection of the nation’s reserves, the rush to make the next EP election a Malay President election would give an indication of which is which.

One genie, a very exceptional one, with all the stringent qualifications, with no compromises on meritocracy even if chosen from a reserve minority EP election, will be able to take on a whole Parliament of rogues.  This EP is the last man in the defence of our nation’s reserves, incidentally include the people’s CPF savings, so don’t pray pray.  Your savings in the CPF depends on the EP to protect. With this genie EP, your CPF savings are safe, forever.

And there is no worry that the genie would turn bad himself. His power can also be limited by the non elected but appointed Council of Presidential advisers that are smarter and more powerful than him, to control him if the genie misbehaved. If this is not enough, the Parliament could overrule the EP with a 2/3 majority I think, correct me if I am wrong on this. The genie is the most powerful factor, but can also be controlled. This is called checks and balance.  Who says Singapore got no checks and balance? Some may think this concept a bit ‘mao dun’, but the virtue of it is that it works to the point of flawlessness.  Many million dollar heads, the best in the island, have been put together to ensure that this is the perfect thing to have, so how can it be wrong, or how can it not work?

I don’t think any genius or any country could come up with a better and sounder idea, a better man, a unifying figure, all powerful to protect the nation’s reserves from a rogue Parliament,  all rolled into one man, but its power can still be curbed when needed, by the same Parliament it was designed to control. With the EP in place there will be stability, no gridlocks, and our democratic Parliamentary system will be safe. And this is a responsible thing to do for the future generations. Anyone opposing this idea or offering alternative ideas is irresponsible.

PS. Someone said that Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton both qualified with flying colours when the stringent criteria for an EP are applied on them. This is a good proof that the formula and criteria are good since Trump and Clinton are good enough for the USA, so cannot be wrong. The formula has been tested.

Native Americans call Whitemen pale face who speak with fork tongues and are untrustworthy

I refer to yesterday's article ,    'Gunther Ottinger, You 'slit eyes and sly dogs'

White men think too highly of themselves. In the last few centuries during the hay day of their imperialism they were able develop and enrich themselves at the expense of the people of Africa, Asia, the Americas and Australia. With the might of their guns they were able to attack, invade,  kill , slaughter and rob off the wealth and resources of  their colonies with impunity. They have forgotten that before the 17th century the Europeans were by and large living a drab and miserable poor life compared to that of the Chinese in China. But the twist of fortune seems to have changed against white men now and they don't seem to realise that their fortune is at the ebbing tide and will soon reach the nadir of their misery again. They are too full of themselves and like to disparage and cast aspersions on others with very rude and uncivilise remarks.

Some years back in 2010 , a  British  musician had seen fit to call Chinese people as subspecies, and I had to object to what he said and wrote a reply to tell him that he and his likes are not only uncultured and uncivilised but also worst than subhuman. Below I reproduce the article of my reply to his ill remark.

PostPosted: Mon Sep 06, 2010 7:42 pm    Post subject: Low class British musician calling Chinese "subspecies "    
Low class British singer calling Chinese "subspecies".

A low class British singer called Morrissey described the Chinese people as "subspecies",saying that he did not like the way some Chinese treat animals. He said this in an interview with a British poet Simon Armitage in the Guardian Weekend magazine. This most uncultured and uncivilised barbarian whom I will describe as lower than subhuman conveniently prefers to ignore that his own kind the Westerners or Europeans have for centuries willfully illtreated animals in the form of sport or game and as a stake in mass gambling. I refer to the wanton and extreme cruelty meted out to bulls in the rings where their matadors stab the bulls repeatedly with very sharp steel daggers causing the bulls to die a slow agonizing death. While the matadors were carrying out the senseless and merciless killing of the bulls ,the whole horde of spectators would watch with scintillating delight by clapping, stamping their feet and shouting endless encouragement to the matadors , treating them as heroes. In the meantime millions of dollars were made by the organisers and the matadors , while the masses by and large made or lost further millions in betting. It is a casino at the expense of cruelty to the innocent bulls. A similar kind of cruelty to dolphins are being carried out in certain Scandinavian countries. Here the European contestants challenged to see who can club to death and cut off the most dolphin heads. The only difference here is that the arena of death for the dolphins is in the beaches. But just as in the bull ring money is made at the expense of killing the innocent dolphins and when the killing is done the sea is turned into a sea of red with the dolphins blood.

The sport of killing innocent animals was extended to killing of innocent humans as a sport. The wild marauding White men from Europe would descend on Africa and the Americas in the cruel days of colonisation in the seventeen and eighteen century . Here the white men would challenge to see who could shoot the greatest numbers of natives - men, women and children , no exception taken.

May be Morrissey and Simon Armitage would like to clarify how civilise and how human Westerners are compare with other people.In the case of other people, cruelty to animals may be sporadic and limited to small group of individuals, but in the case of Westerners cruelty to animals is a national sport as witnessed in the bull rings in Europe and United States and the bashing of dolphins to death in some Scandinavian countries . The sad thing is that the sport of killing animals is extended to the killing of innocent and defenseless natives in both Africa and America. Maybe Morrissey would now like to let the whole world know who belong to the "subspecies" and whether he himself is uncivilised , uncultured and worst still less than subhuman.

Under the guise of championing Human Rights and Democracy, whitemen led by white Americans are now on a killing spree again. They are now creating wars everywhere, killing innocent people by the hundreds of thousands , bringing great suffering and pains to millions more, destroying countries and toppling regimes to achieve their evil objective of world hegemony and total control. They are uncivilised, uncultured and being lower than subhuman they are lacking even in the most fundamental limits of ethics and morals of human conduct and behaviour and must not be allowed to go on a killing path again with impunity.

Southernglory1

9th November, 2016

Gunther Oettinger – You ‘slit eyes’ and ‘sly dogs’….

This is the 21^st Century, and the world is getting smaller, but such racist remarks are still coming out from the mouth of not ordinary westerners but a Vice President of the EU, a German that thought it was ok to call Chinese ‘slit eyes’ and ‘sly dogs’. The Chinese would definitely be offended. Singaporean Chinese would not, I supposed, since they are Singaporeans and not Chinese, and definitely the bananas would nod in agreement with Oettinger, that Chinese are ‘slit eyes’ and ‘sly dogs’, bananas don’t have slit eyes and are not sly dogs.

Though under pressure from the threat of losing his promotion, he made an apology for his rude and racist remarks, his explanation actually made things worst. He said his remarks were ‘free from the liver’ or gut feel, not intentional to insult the Chinese, but just gut feel, if you know what gut feel meant. It is inside him, part of him, how he actually, really felt about the Chinese, a second nature reaction, nothing more, nothing less.

And he is not alone, he said, ‘his remarks merely reflected the colourful language typical of his home state, Baden Wuerttemburg’. Yes, he confessed and revealed that those were what his home state Germans are calling the Chinese, ‘slit eyes’ and ‘sly dogs’. He and his German did not intent to offend, just saying what they are saying all the time when referring to the Chinese.

This is his apology, appearing in the ST. ‘This was not my intention and I would like to apologise for any remark that was not as respectful as it should have been.’ How many Chinese would accept this as a sincere apology? Or would the Chinese said it is ok, he did not intend to insult, he was just saying things from his gut, all the Germans in his home town said it, it is common, normal, the Chinese are ‘slit eyes’ and ‘sly dogs’?

You fucking racist Germans. Please go to China and see how they would return the favour. But not to worry when you are in Singapore, we have no Chinese, only Singaporeans and they would not be offended, some may like it even.