Is Singapore turning against China?

Two articles in the media on 17 Dec, one questioning the deployment of American spy planes in Singapore to conduct missions in the South China Sea to provoke China, and another saying that more SE Asian countries are turning against China, plus a few more articles repeating the American’s anti China position in the South China Sea would suggest that Singapore has up its ante against China in the contest between China and the US.

Singapore used to be neutral, walking a tight rope to be nice to both China and the US and making itself useful to both super powers. In granting more landing rights and acting as a military outpost for the Americans in its pivot to Asia, to challenge and contain China, the author Douglas Chua posed the question, ‘US plane deployment here poses neutrality question’. He added, ‘In the strategic gamble between two powers over sovereignty and freedom of navigation, would we not be drawn into a large involvement in the event of open conflict?’

There is also another issue of Singapore sinking slowly into the embrace of the Americans and compromising on its sovereignty, in the same way South Korea and Japan have became, semi colonies of the American Empire. The Americans would not leave South Korea and Japan, and their military bases are there for good and the two countries are just that, semi colonies, with foreign soldiers in their land and they could not do anything about it. Would Singapore undermine its sovereignty by allowing the Americans to encroach more and more into its sovereignty and independence?

The deluge of anti China articles in the main media, including a few more today notably by Reuters and Agencies, putting China in a very bad light and glorifying the Americans as the shining white knight, that the Americans are needed to balance an assertive China, are they done with the approval of the govt to keep promoting such a line? Is the Singapore govt taking the side of the Americans, shifting away from its neutral position and becoming more anti China with all the publications in the main media and the slant it is taking?

And, quoting Douglas Chua, ‘…the mission of these P8 aircraft using Singapore as a springboard…They are part of the US’ strategic thrust in the South China Sea, a thrust that challenges China’s sovereignty claims, which the US does not recognize. If we are faced with an ultimatum to annul this agreement, would we comply?’

Singapore is increasingly painting itself into a corner, to choose between China and the US. Which side would Singapore choose when conflict broke out between the two super powers?

Amos Yee on the run

Just found out that Amos Yee has escaped from paradise. The police wanted him to report at the police station for his anti religious comment in his Facebook about Islam, and Calvin Cheng. I could not understand why, but Amos Yee found this call to assist in an investigation pretty intimidating or frightening or ominous that it warranted him to run away from home, from his country and becomes a fugitive, a wanted man.

Why is this investigation so serious? What have gone through Amos Yee’s mind that there is no other way and if he reports to the police he could expect the worst? Justifiable? I dunno, I am not Amos Yee.

Amos has resurfaced in the Facebook to console his mother and that he is ok and would be able to look after himself but did not disclosed where he is. And he took the opportunity to show his middle finger to the govt several times and taunting the govt with something like come and get me if you can.

What’s next Amos? Would he be seeking political asylum in the US or in UK and use his new residence as a safe shelter to the govt in the comfort and safety of foreign shore? Would he in the process gain more publicity for himself and the govt in a new war of words?

Or as someone has said Amos Yee has gone bonkers? Or would someone suggest that he should be locked up in IMH? Could this be the fear that drove Amos Yee to flee from paradise?

What do you think is the real reason for Amos to run and make himself a wanted man, no chance of returning to his country and facing arrest on sight?

SGX – Global Exchange of the Year

In November, Moody’s and Standard and Poor’s put Noble’s BBB rating under review for downgrading to junk status, ie untradeable. Noble’s share price has since plunged to below 40c. Today (16 Dec) the share price moved up to 43c on news of Cofco wanting to buy up the remaining 49% of Noble Agri.

The important point is that at 40c, Noble is at risk of being downgraded to junk stock. What about the hundreds of stocks in the SGX that are trading below 10c or below 1c?  Are these junk stocks as well? Or can they be having a better rating than Noble’s BBB?

Anyway, with so many junk stocks in the SGX, it did not affect the quality of the
Exchange and SGX has been named the Global Exchange of the Year by a derivative magazine Futures & Options World.  According to Business Times, ‘It was lauded for growing its offshore Asian equity derivatives suite, broadening its commodities clearing and over the counter business and continuing to expand its currency futures portfolio and turnover, SGX said.’

What more can you say about the SGX? The award speaks for itself. Everything is fine, perfectly fine. This is the best stock exchange in the world.

Ok, the award is all about derivative trading, commodities and currency futures. I am not sure if SGX would get what kind of award if it is assessed with the hundreds of penny stocks in the main board.

What do you think?

The American Empire calling for help

The Americans are going to their allies asking for help and more contributions to fight ISIS. They need more men, more weapons and more support of any kind to fight the rag tag foot soldiers whose mode of military transport is Japanese made pick ups and weapons from arms smugglers.  How big is this ISIS force, how well organized, how well armed, what kind of weapons do they have, got tanks, got aircraft, got naval ships?

What kind of military forces are the Americans, the world’s unchallenged Number One super power with weapons of any kind, the most sophisticated kind, boasting of the best trained fighting men and machine, the bravest of them all, the deadliest weapons, they have everything that is enough to control the whole world. They have seven aircraft carrier groups with each group having enough fire power to destroy ISIS thousands of times over. Why are the Americans calling for more help, contributions and participations of their allies?

Does it make sense? The most powerful military force mankind has even built and seen, could not defeat a rag tag foot soldiers of 30,000 men, mostly volunteers from little corners of the world and come running around in the desert?  Is that an organized fighting machine capable of fighting the American war machine? The desert is unlike the jungles and mountains of Vietnam and Korea. The desert is a piece of cake for the American fire power to show how effective it can be. It is a cakewalk in the desert.

The Americans could go in and wipe the arses of the ISIS clean in matters of days if they so wanted to. Why is this need to drag in the allies? Yes, why is there a need to coerce their allies to be involved in fighting the desert rats when the Americans could do it on their own, singlehandedly? And what is the point if their closest European allies are contributing 2 or 3 aircraft or one or two ships when a carrier group has hundreds of aircraft and hundreds of ships to do the job?

Funny? No, just think a little more and ask what is the intent of the Americans to drag innocent and distant allies to fight in the desert when they don’t need to? The Europeans are the smartest and trying their best to avoid being entangled in a war that they should not be involved and giving all the lip services they could to the Americans without really contributing or only minimal contributions. Why should they be sending their sons to fight a war they did not start, have no reason to be there?

Who created ISIS and who turned ISIS into an uncontrollable monster? Why get involved and invite unnecessary trouble to their homeland, to their people?

It is about time Singapore learn from Malaysia

The Star reported, ‘PETALING JAYA: Employers of expatriates can be jailed or fined if the application for an employment pass is found to contain fake supporting documents, said the Immigration Department.

Immigration director-general Datuk Seri Mustafa Ibrahim (pic) said those employers found guilty of submitting forged documents can be jailed up to seven years or fined, or both….The companies cannot blame their consultants or agents because a director of the company making an application must be present to authorise the agents,” he said.’

Malaysia is facing the problem of fake certificates and cheats in the same way we are facing. The difference is that we are in a state of denial and people are wondering aloud why all the super talents are acting this way. Is there something that the public does not know or is there a private agenda? The measures we are taking to address this problem is superficial and as the social media has been saying, a big wayang.

So, should Singapore wake up its idea and learn something from Malaysia, tackle the problem at the source, target the employers, the CEOs or Directors for any wrong doing? You can bet none of these turkeys would dare to be funny anymore and there will be order and normalcy in the employment market and Singaporeans would no longer be kicked around like hapless orphans. There will be no need to have so many training programmes to train displaced Singaporeans to be security guards and taxi drivers.

Would MOM do it? Fat hope. There are many simple and effective measures to check on the problems of fakes and cheats. The big question is whether it is the right thing or wrong thing to do. We have the best super talents and there is no reason why they cannot come out with a super talented solution to this fake and cheat problem. What is baffling and puzzling is why not? It cannot be that they are so stupid that they can’t think of a better solution than what the Malaysians can come up with. Why?

Singaporean first policy bad for integration

According to a Professor Elaine Ho, the Govt’s measures to differentiate Singaporeans from PRs and with more benefits for Singaporeans are unhealthy to the integration of foreigners to our society.  We need to integrate the new citizens, do we need to integrate foreigners? Never mind, just bear in mind that at the rate we are converting foreigners into citizens and the presence of PRs and non citizen foreigners, it is only a matter of time that Singaporeans would have to integrate with the foreigners instead. There are just too many of them and too Singaporeans to integrate them. I think this is already the case.

The professor’s point is that the new citizens and PRs in recent years are richer than the earlier batches of migrants. And with the more restrictive public housing policies and quotas on PRs, many of them are buying private properties instead. This leads further to segregate the richer foreigners from the average Singaporeans in the public housing estate. Now this is bad. The professor said, ‘What we want is (for immigrants) to be living alongside the average Singaporeans.’ I cannot understand why but this must be good for the immigrants and the average Singaporeans. Is it because the richer foreigners can rub off their richness to the average Singaporeans or the other way? Never mind.

The idea is good, it is integration. And it is not good for the richer immigrants to have their children studying in international schools. They must study in local schools to integrate with the average Singaporeans. Another very good idea in social engineering, just make sure got enough public school places for them. And make it compulsory for children of foreigners to study in public schools to integrate with the average Singaporeans.

Wait a minute, why would the richer immigrants or the richer Singaporeans want to integrate with the average Singaporeans? Do they have similar interests or lifestyle? Do they speak the same lingo and share the same jokes? ‘Still, Singaporeans also have to be conscious of reaching out to new immigrants, said Assoc Prof Ho.’ Uh, I have one question for the professor, do the richer immigrants want to mix with the average Singaporeans when they are living in their private apartments and enjoying the company of equally richer neighbours? How are the average HDB Singaporeans going to reach out to the richer immigrants of different social standings?

Or should the richer immigrants be made to live in public housing as a govt policy on integration? But it would mean HDB must build more flats for the immigrants.

Why is this obsession to integrate foreigners to average Singaporeans? Are there richer Singaporeans that they can integrate with in private condos?  Would it be enough for the richer foreigners to interact with the richer Singaporeans, go for fine dining and theatres? Don’t forget that different social classes have a natural tendency to interact with the same people with the same social status, and this is normal.

The chicken and ducks would only want to be with their own kind. What is the fuzz all about? Can these clever people stop meddling with how people live and who they want to play with?

What about a foreigner first policy? I think it will be good for integration.

Wuzhen: Ancient town cruising on information superhighway

By Chua Chin Leng (chinadaily.com.cn)Updated: 2015-12-14 13:22
In a few days, more than 2,000 delegates from the modern cities of the world, Internet and computer savvy, will descend into this little water town that could be mistaken for a town from Lee Ang's Wuxia movie 'Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon'.

The water town of Wuzhen in Zhejiang with 1,300 years of history is anything but an unlikely candidate to host the 2nd World Internet Conference (WIC). It hosted the first WIC in 2014 and the delegates were so impressed by its modern Internet facilities, an ancient town all wired up for the challenges of 21st Century demands of the Internet world, that Wuzhen is now the permanent home for the WIC.

An aerial view of the town gives the impression of a sleepy ancient town, wholly intact in colors and architecture as if time has stood still. There are no gleaming glass panel skyscrapers in the vicinity to this little town of 57,000 inhabitants that boasts of all the smart and innovative technologies one can think of, e-commerce, Internet financing, intelligent logistics, cloud computing, big data, Internet driven information and medical technologies and 380 start ups in the last six months.
Quoting from Ge Huijun, director of the publicity department of the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee:

"Wuzhen has fully merged with the "Internet Plus" concept, with online medical services, smart tourism, and intelligent traffic successively put into operation. Its charm will further increase with the free Wi-Fi."

President Xi Jinping will arrive in this little town to give the keynote speech this week. In his company will be Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif, Prime Minister of Kazakhstan, Karim Massimov, Prime Minister of Kyrgyzstan Temir Sarivev, and Prime Minister of Tajikistan Kokhir Rasulzoda and many ministerial-ranked officials. Many representatives of leading Internet technology companies will also be showcasing their latest products and equipment during the conference not unlike what is happening in Silicon Valley.

The presence of Xi marks the importance of this conference and China's intent to play a leading role in cyber development and cyber security. The theme of the conference is 'Our Interconnected world shared and governed by all, Building a Cyberspace Community of Shared Destiny'. Up in the agenda will be the structuring of cyberspace regulations and governance, two contentious areas where the issues of national security, freedom of expression and transparency would be put to test. With 650 million Internet and mobile users, China would be in a position to chart the course and direction of cyberspace development, in governance, technologies and innovations.

The contrasting backdrop of ancient Wuzhen and the task of the WIC is a testament of the past and present, of history and cutting-edge innovations, when the different dimensions of time come together.

The author is a political observer from Singapore.