TR EMERITUS

Thought of the Day - Dorscon Pink? Turning Pink! When I heard PM Lee declared Singapore will not go into Dorscon Red a couple of weeks ago, I was pretty stunned. What he has made is a declaration, a degree, that literally means that no matter what happens, PAP government will never declare Dorscon Red. This declaration is not based on objective scientific criterias or any other objective indicators but purely based on political considerations. This is why PAP is very reluctant to shut the borders totally and lock down or even just shut the schools. They will add on whatever stringent restrictions and impose fines, penalties for breaches but never will they admit that such measures are basically Dorscon Red measures. Well, this is why my friend said this is not Dorscon Orange, not Dorscon Red but simply Dorscon Pink.... Our faces will turn pink soon...   Goh Meng Seng      Read More →

Continuation from Part 1. At my Bank in Riverbend, Edmonton, there is a Teller who is from Urumqi, (she has since been transferred) but she tells me that many Uighurs are now attending Chinese Schools and /or taught various trades, given land to farm assisted in starting a business and nobody is forced to do anything by the Govt, but realistically, they have no choice - the force, if any is the force of necessity.. If they want to succeed in life and earn a living they have to be educated in Chinese and come into mainstream Han (Chinese) society. If there is any 'force' it is the force of circumstance. It is true that as part of their learning a trade the Uighurs learn their trades and work in factories. Women sew, make embroideries, learn the silk trade, men are more into mechanics, maintenance, carpentry, metal works etc. Private enterprise is encouraged. Uighurs are into the restaurant & service business Agriculture and animal husbandry are also taught, families are given enough land and assisted in growing enough for their own needs. And as families are formed into collectives, then there are fruit farms, tea plantations, desert reclamation projects etc which is part of China's absolute poverty eradication programme. Many factories are encouraged to open up in Xinjiang as costs are cheaper and Xinjiang is on the Silk Road to Europe. There is no restriction on the practice of their religion - the largest (and oldest) mosques in China are in Xinjiang. But mostly it is the older generation that attends services at the Mosques. --- This is not unlike our own Churches, mostly the older generation attend, the young are conspicuous by their absence. These 2 Uighurs women that I met, are no longer living in China, they do not have to be politically correct when they speak here. They can speak their mind. One married a Han Chinese and I think the one in the bank is still single. There is a concerted effort by the CPC (Communist Party of China) to lift the Uighars out of poverty. There are about 30M Chinese Muslims in Xinjiang. About 15M are true Uighurs, the others are Tajiks, Kazaks, Turkmenistan, Samarkands, and other ethnics whose ancestors lived along the original Silk Road in central Asia and whose ancestors over the eons lived in Xinjiang and yet never assimilated into Han society. These are loosely included with and are called Uighurs. Why these peoples did not assimilate with the Han is because there were so few Han. Granted until the last 20 or 25 years ago there were not many Han Chinese living in Xinjiang. There are now more Han living in Xinjiang as the central Govt is encouraging more Han to migrate there and also there is a concerted effort to open up Xinjiang - Historically it is part of the Silk Road. The Han are still in the minority in Xinjiang. But Uighur culture and traditions are still allowed and encouraged & their Mosques are still open and festivals & traditions are still observed. Of course there will be some Uighurs that will resist that can be expected in any society, and some have to be de-radicalized. The BBC reports that 1M Uighurs are being persecuted, 1M out of 30 M is just 3% - but this 3% can cause a lot of trouble by being domestic terrorists. Even within Democratic societies there are domestic terrorists - and all leading democracies have their own ways of controlling domestic terrorists But the vast majority are aware that it is for their betterment and have no problem and are supportive. Just last week CGTN reported that between 1950 to 2020 the Uighur population more than doubled. This is also true of many other ethnic minorities in China, most are in Yunan and there are also Manchu and Mongol minoritiesthere is a big effort to get them into the mainstream and out of poverty. Most of China's other minorities are literate in Chinese, China has over 60 ethnic minority groups, the Uighurs and the Manchus are the largest (and the Mongols have become so Chinese-zied (to coin a word) they are hard to tell apart from Han Chinese, but many still practice Mongol traditions. One of our tour guides (Sara) in Beijing was a Mongol. I even kidded with the US tourists in our group that building a Wall does not work - look Sara made it into China and is still here - the truth is that Sara's Mongol ancestors invaded and conquered China. in the 1100's and ruled it till the 1400's. Other minorities inc. the Miao, Shan, Hmong, Yi, Hujias, Hui, Yao, Tibetians, etc... Just look at our own (Canada's) first nations people who are still marginalized because through the generations no concerted effort has been made to get them into the mainstream of society by any of our Governments and lift them out of poverty. To try and European-ize a First nations child in residential schools as was tried just 60 years ago or so, just does not work. A similar comment can be made about how Australia treated its aboriginals but the Chinese way seems to be working. NO one nation is more righteous than another and politicizing such things as the above does nothing toward making a more peaceful world. How many of its own citizens have these nations who are so quick to criticize other nations, how many have lifted its own poorer citizens and minorities within it out of poverty? The US certainly has had Administrations after Administrations that make the rich, richer and the poor, poorer. Has the US ever had any plans to lift its poor out of poverty? I have to mention here that as I see it; The US eradicates poverty by upping the minimum wage. The Chinese eradicates absolute poverty not only by teaching the people how to fish, but also how to farm fish, or fruit or tea and how to get the produce from the remote villages and into the markets in the cities. Roads now connect most remote areas of Xinjiang and 5G and wi-fi just about everywhere. China has lifted over 850 M out of poverty - and along the way has also created many that became Billionaires, it has the most Billionaires (in US$) of any country in the world. [LINK] Since China began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, GDP growth has averaged almost 10 percent a year, and more than 850 million people have been lifted out of poverty. Today, China is an upper-middle-income country and the world's second largest economy. China Overview - World Bank Group In China today, poverty refers mainly to the rural poor, as decades of economic growth have largely eradicated urban poverty. The dramatic progress in reducing poverty over the past three decades in China is well known. According to the World Bank, more than 850 million Chinese people have been lifted out of extreme poverty; China's poverty rate fell from 88 percent in 1981 to 0.7 percent in 2015, as measured by the percentage of people living on the equivalent of US$1.90 or less per day in 2011 purchasing price parity terms. Apart from absolute poverty, As I see it there are at least 2 other kinds of poverty - personal and societal: Personal - well some people will always lack the incentive or the opportunities or the will or health to succeed. "The poor you shall always have with you" Societal - There are groups that are oppressed by the dominant group (Colonialism, Segregation laws, arpathied, and this cannot change without a regime change of the dominant group. barring dictators, and corruption from within when this does happen, see how quickly most of these societies can rebound, Singapore eg, Malaysia, Vietnam and yet not most of Africa.   Tan Kin Lian      Read More →

As of yesterday (the 5th day since the donation drive started), Leong Sze Hian, the veteran blogger and man who crunches numbers like eating peanuts, has received S$77,703. Donations ranged from a few dollars to S$5,000. We don’t know how long it will take for donations to reach S$133,000 which is the sum assessed by the high court judge as damages to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. It is a disgusting and obscene award. But when the Prime Minister finally receives the full sum of S$133,000, he may wish to ponder about the usefulness of his law suit. By then, he will hopefully realise that the money didn’t come from Leong who he considers a thorn in his side, but from the people of Singapore. It is the hard earned money and savings of Singaporeans. They just want to ensure that Leong will not be bankrupted. Despite the hardship caused by COVID-19, they have donated generously. Lee has again sullied his international reputation. But I doubt he cares. He has extracted millions in damages from so many ordinary Singaporeans. Singapore has gone too far down the road with exhorbitant damages awards. It has been that way since 1979 as this article by Singapore Armchair Critic notes. The late Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew (LKY), showed the way in 1979 by suing opposition leader J.B. Jeyaretnam. Shortly after, J.B. won Anson, after nearly two decades of single-party parliament. LKY knew he had to finish off the brave man. Other ministers soon followed, like drinking blood as claims to brotherhood. When foreign journalists saw the injustices and started to write critical articles, they too were subjected to law suits. Completing the runs against opposition and foreigners, the very people who are supposed to be look after are now attacked. It is like they have run out of “enemies”. There is only one way to stop this cruel practice, though we cannot see blood like in Myanmar. The people have to stand together and help each other. Leong is not the first and last case. Terry Xu of TOC, the only independent online media, has also been sued for defamation, both civil and criminal. And many others have been harassed by the authorities. Can we withstand the attacks?   Teo Soh Lung      Read More →