TR EMERITUS

Room 4701, New World International Trade Tower I The United States (via its embassy in Beijing) has announced that it is temporarily shutting down its Consulate General in Wuhan, China, where there is an outbreak of Coronavirus. It has also made arrangement for the evacuation of all its diplomatic staff and family members via a chartered flight, which is expected to arrive in Wuhan on Sunday (26 Jan) and will depart for San Francisco on Tuesday (28 Jan). The chartered plane, which has a sitting capacity of 230 passengers will also be evacuating a limited number of American citizens who wishes to leave. “The health and safety of US citizens, including the employees of US Consulate General Wuhan, is our top priority,” a US embassy spokesperson said. We strongly encourage US citizens in China to enrol in the Smart Traveller Enrolment Programme (STEP.state.gov) in order to receive the latest updates on health, security, and any possible US government plans to assist travellers. The full range of consular services, including American citizen services and visa processing, remain available at the US Embassy in Beijing and US consulates in Chengdu, Guangzhou, Shanghai, and Shenyang. There are currently about 1000 American citizens in Wuhan. Meanwhile, the France Consulate General in Wuhan has also announced that it is making arrangements for the evacuation of its citizens, their spouses and children via chartered coaches. The plan is to take its citizens by coaches to the neighboring city of ChangSha (長沙), the capital city of Hunan province (湖南). The city of 8 million residents has 10 confirmed infections to date. Russia is planning to do the same and reportedly in talks with Chinese authorities to effect the necessary. Wuhan, the epicentre of the Coronavrius outbreak is currently on complete lock-down, all outgoing, incoming and local traffic (private cars included) are banned in the city. As of 26 Jan @ 1930 hours, the deadly Coronavirus has claimed 56 lives and infected 2045 throughout China.      Read More →

Opposition Politics in Singapore is a thankless task. Generally speaking, the role of the opposition in Singapore has been to serve as a punching bag for the government party. The government, which controls some 79 seats out of a total of 84 in a unicameral parliament, has a habit of using every trick in the book to make life miserable for anyone who even considers running for a seat under the banner of anyone except the ruling party. Singaporeans have developed a rather strange attitude to the opposition. The opposition MPs were people you clapped for (“Dude – You’ve got guts”) but you’d never actually vote for them. For many years, we kept Chiam See Tong and Low Thia Khiang in Potong Pasir and Hougang simply because their presence was enough to irritate the powers that be. Then in 2011, we decided that the powers that be needed more than an irritant and so, we handed the Group Representation Council (“GRC or in electoral math – 4 seats”) to Mr. Low’s Workers Party. This was officially the worst showing in the ruling party’s history and things were made even worse when Dr. Tony Tan, the ruling party’s preferred candidate scrapped through the presidency by less than a whisker against Dr. Tan Cheng Bok, a former member of the ruling party. The ruling party seemed to have gotten lucky in 2015 when it called for an election not too long after our founding father Mr. Lee Kuan Yew died and then, it changed the rules to make the Presidency a preserve the Malay Minority, which the rest of us seemed to think was a ploy to keep Dr. Tan Cheng Bok out of the any organ of state. Well, things have gotten interesting since 2015. The biggest start to this was when Dr. Tan Cheng Bok found a “Venture Capitalist for Dissidents,” namely Mr. Lee Hsien Yang, the Prime Minister’s younger brother. Dr. Tan has founded the Progress Singapore Party or PSP. The PSP has become something of a hot stock in the field of Singapore’s politics and I had the good fortune of being invited to their Chinese New Year dinner on Friday 17 January 2020. What a party it was? The food was amazingly good (as Chinese New Year food usually is), there was a rock band called “Evolution” (Dr. Tan has said no to revolution because it involves bloodshed – so he’s proposing evolution) and they were very good. They launched their party song and a mascot. Dr. Tan also introduced new members to his leadership team, all of whom were credible candidates (one of them was a former Air Force Colonel.) However, what was most telling was the fact that the under 35s were in a significant minority in the room. Dr. Tan is 79 and while admittedly sprightly, he’s definitely an old man. There was a token young girl somewhere but by and large this was a party for the New Old. When I think of this fact, I’m reminded of a speech that Mr. Leslie Fong, former Vice-President of Marketing at Singapore Press Holdings gave at Ad Asia in 2005. Mr. Fong was speaking at a forum at a time when respected papers around the world were going “tabloid.” Mr. Fong described the whole exercise as “A futile effort to dumb down for younger eye balls at the expense of more valuable older ones.” I think of that moment and the PSP dinner because it looks like the PAP has forgotten “more valuable older ones.” The people at the PSP had all benefited from the system created by the PAP government. This wasn’t a gathering of louts or the systems losers. The man who was appointed to be Dr. Tan’s number two is a former hedge fund manager. You’d imagine that this lot would be cheering the ruling party on for giving them so much. Yet, they weren’t cheering on the ruling party and there has to be a reason for this. My Mum would argue that this is because while people may benefit from something, they’ll turn on it if it hurts their kids. One only has to think of cases of battered wives who happily put up with a battering and then, when the abusive spouse turns on the kids, she does what she should have done ages ago. What does it say about the state of things when a loyal member of the ruling party becomes a member of the opposition? Likewise, with the “Baby Boomers,” also known as those heading into their 70s. They have benefited from the system but have their children? I’m brought back to the days before I was trying to get my passport renewed to go back to school in England (a process that the government enjoys complicating to ensure kids come back for National Service). My Dad had just lost a contract to shoot an ad for the Air Force to an Australian who had a Hong Kong Crew (My Dad’s crew being Malay but Singapore Born). It was at this point where he said, “I’ll vote for the other guy, even if he’s an idiot. Why is my son doing National Service but they’re giving benefits to the guys whose kids don’t serve?” I think of these moments because the powers that be need to studying the ground. Its moments like what my parents went through that make people change their minds so to speak. The PAP Government has on the whole done a good job for Singapore but it needs to look beyond and build for future generations rather than for a single one. They’ve done well but to remain in power they need to make people feel they’ll continue doing well.   Tang Li *The author blogs at http://beautifullyincoherent.blogspot.com/      Read More →

Throngs of visitors from China are expected to visit countries throughout the world, particularly in Asia during the long Lunar New Year (LNY) holiday, according to figures released by reputable travel agencies. According to Ctrip.com and Trip.com, about 7 million Chinese visitors have booked oversea holidays to about 500 destinations around the world, with the most popular countries in Asia, namely: Japan, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Although countries around the world have beefed up their defense against the deadly Coronavirus armed with temperature sensors at entry points and customs, health experts have opined that these measures are inadequate. "The whole airport screening exercise is to simply give people comfort that there is some government action to protect the public,” said Ramanan Laxminarayan, director of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy in Washington, D.C. “It has no real public health utility in the case of coronaviruses. What really matters is surveillance, infection control and isolation.” Indeed, medical experts in China have acknowledged and confirmed that an infected patient may not necessary develop fever. Ma XiaoWei, director of China’s National Health Commission (NHC) said that the understanding of the new virus and its symptoms changes over time, and that their doctors have observed some patients with low or even no fever as the number of infections increased. Several people who have died from the virus in Wuhan didn’t display symptoms of fever, NHC revealed, though they displayed other symptoms such as breathing difficulty, chest tightness and coughing. Additionally, NHC has also confirmed that the Coronavirus can be contagious even during the dormant period. The fact that the virus could lie dormant for up to 14 days without exhibiting any symptoms, increases the likelihood that carriers are currently traveling freely, intensifying the virus’s spread. The startling revelations would mean that temperature screening – the main line of defense currently being deployed at airports and entry points to control the outbreak – would fail to pick up on at least some cases. Dr David Heymann, a UK infectious disease researcher who advises the World Health Organization has also cautioned that relying solely on thermometers would not be sufficient to catch all possible cases. “Alone as a means of keeping infection out of countries, they provide a false security,” said Dr Heymann. People can cross borders without a fever then get sick after their arrival and taking paracetamol or aspirin can bring a fever down so it isn’t detected, he said. With some of the 7 million possible Coronavirus carriers heading to Singapore, the million-dollar question now is: Is Singapore adequately prepared and are Singaporeans willing to take the risk?      Read More →