- After two years of repeated accusations of espionage, no concrete evidence against Huawei has been produced
- The US obsession with Huawei can only be understood in light of its national security goals – it means to thwart China’s rise as a world power by means fair or foul
When someone shares with you something of value, you have an obligation to share it with others.
Wednesday, 15 April 2020
Never mind the coronavirus, Trump’s America is still going full throttle in its attacks on Huawei
Monday, 17 February 2020
Coronavirus triggers an ugly rash of racism as the old ideas of ‘Yellow Peril’ and ‘sick man of Asia’ return
A headline referring to China as the ‘sick man of Asia’, a cartoon of the Chinese flag with stars replaced by coronaviruses, an increase in xenophobic incidents against Chinese people: the epidemic seems to have brought out people’s uglier side
SCMP
SCMP
Saturday, 18 January 2020
Donald Trump’s campaign against Huawei is a symptom of digital orientalism, ignoring similarities in Chinese and Western surveillance
- The US’ targeting of Huawei is rooted in long-standing fears that China might challenge the idea of civilisational superiority on which the West constructs itself
- Focusing on Chinese surveillance effaces the threat posed by Western tech giants
Thursday, 21 November 2019
CITIZENS OF THE WORLD: YOUR MEDIA IS LYING TO YOU
International media coverage of the Hong
Kong protests is wildly distorted, independent data researchers say.
And the result? As I write this, guerrilla
groups of vandals, financed by the US (evidence below), have shut down the
metro train station and the buses. My
wife and children are on the phone, unable to get to where they need to be.
A crowd of blameless Hong Kong people are
stranded at the nearby bus stop, some tearful with frustration. Children are
trapped on public buses: they can’t get to school and they can’t get home.
And the Western media? They have already
started applauding.
SOMETHING BAD IS HAPPENING
The truth: Coverage of Hong Kong is
motivated by anti-Chinese sentiment, in both right-leaning outlets like Fox
News and left-leaning outlets like the New York Times, the findings from a UK
group clearly show.
The result is the chaos and misery I see
all around me this morning. Many of my co-workers have crucial deadlines to
meet: all our livelihoods are at risk.
Who’s at fault? Skewed media coverage has
been encouraging violent radicals and hobbling attempts to deal with them. Hong
Kong’s careful, non-lethal ways of trying to stop the violence has received
unprecedented amounts of negative coverage from Western journalists—while the
documented brutal killing of hundreds of protesters all over the world has
received little or no coverage or at all.
SOME NUMBERS
An October 25 search for “Hong Kong
protests” over a single month produced 282 responses in the New York Times—but
“Chile protests” produced just 20, reported Alan MacLeod of the Glasgow
University Media Group.
“The unequal coverage is even more
pronounced on Fox News, where there were 70 results for Hong Kong over the same
period and four, two and three for Chile, Ecuador and Haiti respectively,” he
wrote in a summary of his findings for Salon.
The huge discrepancy cannot be explained
away by “news value”. Hong Kong protests have produced no direct killings, no
army call-out, no coups or martial law—while other anti-government protests
have been far more brutal, with hundreds of deaths in Iraq alone.
TERRIFIED RESEARCHER
“Western journalists are guilty of gross
dereliction of duty,” says one Hong Kong university researcher who will not
give her name because of the very real danger of her office being smashed up—an
incident that she believes no Western reporter would cover.
“What are all those people at the Foreign
Correspondents’ Club doing?” she asks. “Will not one reporter tell the truth
about Hong Kong?”
So far, she’s right. The real story, which
no Western reporter will touch, is that “the Hong Kong has won the war to
maintain stability,” says Tom Guendert, a Hong Kong based commentator. “The
Hong Kong dollar has not been devalued, and Kyle Bass’s campaign to scare
institutional investors has failed.” Importantly, “direct police action
casualties have been avoided.”
Why will no one print that?
MISLEADING THE WORLD
Looking at the hard data, it is difficult
to avoid the conclusion that foreign correspondents are grossly misleading the
global public.
The Western media continuously conflates
the violent radicals demanding to “liberate Hong Kong from China” with the
actual majority residents of Hong Kong, who in truth want the exact opposite:
they don’t want independence from mainland China, but want a positive
relationship.
The media also conflates the Hong Kong
civil service with Beijing, and Hong Kong’s imperfect but generally non-corrupt
police force with China’s very different PLA.
PROOF OF FUNDING
Western news outlets automatically pour
scorn on suggestions that the protesters receive funding from the United
States—despite the fact that an internet search taking literally 0.02 seconds
will give any interested party the truth.
US$22 million has been sent to unnamed
persons for efforts to promote Western-style democracy in mainland China and
Hong Kong since 2014 by the National Endowment for Democracy, as MacLeod points
out.
A significant portion has gone to unnamed
activists in Hong Kong: it’s right there in print to anyone who can use
Google—and is honest enough to tell the truth.
BLATANT BIAS
The media bias is often stunning. The UK
Guardian labels self-described pro-democracy campaigners in Ecuador as
“rioters” but avoids using that word to describe Hong Kong protesters who are
clearly and unmistakably filmed in the act of rioting.
Why such gross distortion?
China is seen as the enemy of the West, so
anyone fighting China is painted as a hero—even when what they are really doing
is firebombing the offices of Hong Kong civil servants, a gentle, largely
female group of milky-tea drinkers who are often more British than the British.
WHO ARE THE VICTIMS?
The result is that the self-labelled
“silent majority”, which includes a significant section of the Hong Kong
public, plus the civil service, the police and so on, may actually be the real
victims – but the Western media won’t cover that angle as it doesn’t fit the
anti-China narrative.
“They will show far less enthusiasm for a
story when the ‘wrong’ people are the villains or the victims,” says MacLeod.
“The New York Times even invented the
phrase ‘aggressive nonviolence’ to describe the Hong Kong protesters’ actions,
so eager was it to frame the demonstrations against China as unquestionably
laudable.”
MARCH THAT NEVER WAS
A particularly egregious example is the
infamous “two million people” march in Hong Kong in June.
Scientists say it never happened. All the
scientific ways of measuring crowd-flow show that hundreds of thousands of
people marched, but not one million, let alone two. And any reporter with an
ounce of self-respect knows that “organizers’ claims” are pure fantasy.
Yet Western reporters silence their
fact-checkers to present fantastic claims as fact. Why? I know some of these
people. They’re not evil. They’re just extremely eager to believe the worst
against people they've decided are bad guys and the best of any group which
opposes them, even if some members are bigoted vandals throwing firebombs.
TRUTH CAMPAIGN
If the international media has abandoned
the Hong Kong people, how can we get the real story out?
There have been lots of ideas, such as
letter-writing campaigns to newspapers, or the patient countering of propaganda
with real facts.
It’s difficult. As this writer has found
out, any attempt to give a more nuanced picture of what’s happening in Hong
Kong leads to multiple accusations of being a “paid CCP stooge”.
KEEP THE FAITH
But we mustn’t give up. I got up early and
got to work before the protesters barricaded the roads.
I’ve just heard on the phone that some
co-workers at the publishing company I’m working at this morning are going to
walk the whole route.
Some local residents are going to meet and
dismantle the barricades, especially ones trapping school buses.
That’s the local spirit. We need to stay
strong. Keep smiling. If people place obstacles in our way, metaphorically or
literally, we'll patiently move them. Anyone who bets against the people of
Hong Kong will lose.
Peace.
From Nury Vittachi, who works at Poly University.
Wednesday, 9 October 2019
Stricter NRIC data collection rules to kick in from Sunday
Companies
have less than a week to comply with stricter rules by Singapore's privacy
watchdog governing the use, collection and disclosure of the NRIC and other national
identification numbers.
In a
statement yesterday, the Personal Data Protection Commission (PDPC) reminded
organisations that unless required by law, from Sept 1, it will be illegal for
organisations to physically hold on to an individual's NRIC and collect its
full number.
This applies
to birth certificate numbers, foreign identification numbers and work permit
numbers as well. The commission had announced changes to the NRIC advisory
guidelines last year as a result of established practices that involved the
rampant use of the NRIC.
Details from
the NRIC were being used in a range of situations - from people filling out
lucky draw coupons and membership applications, to retailers registering
customers for parking redemptions.
"NRIC
numbers are a permanent and irreplaceable identifier issued by the Singapore
Government primarily for public administration purposes and to facilitate
transactions with the Government.
"As
NRIC numbers can be used to retrieve data relating to individuals, there is a
need to reduce indiscriminate or unjustified collection and negligent handling
of NRIC numbers," the PDPC said in its statement.
Organisations
that have collected the NRIC numbers have been encouraged to assess if they
need to retain these numbers and, if not, the commission suggests they dispose
of them responsibly and in compliance with the Personal Data Protection Act
(PDPA) disposal methods.
The law
already prohibits the indiscriminate collection of consumers' personal data and
requires organisations to account for its use.
But privacy
advocates have argued that NRIC details were still being collected, sometimes
for frivolous reasons.
From Sunday,
NRIC numbers or copies of the NRIC can be obtained or shared only if they are
required by law, such as when subscribing to a new phone line, making a
doctor's appointment or checking into a hotel.
NRIC details
may also be collected when it is necessary to precisely verify an individual's
identity to a high degree of accuracy.
This would
include visiting pre-schools or transactions involving healthcare, financial or
real estate matters.
Organisations
that continue to indiscriminately collect, use or disclose NRIC numbers would
be flouting the PDPA, and could incur a financial penalty of up to $1 million.
One company
that has made changes to the way it uses the NRIC is security services company
Prosegur Security, which employs about 1,400 security officers in Singapore.
In the past,
some of its clients had asked the company to collect the NRIC - either the full
number or the card itself - before allowing visitors to enter their premises.
The company
now tells its clients that such requests cannot be made, and amendments have
been made to its standard operating procedures (SOPs), including the way
clients verify the identity of visitors.
Mr Vincent
Wong, human resource manager at Prosegur Security, said: "Clients
generally are also earnest about doing the right thing and are participative in
implementing, amending or enforcing SOPs in line with the requirements."
Its staff have
also been briefed about the dos and don'ts of data collection.
About three
months ago, the company disseminated the PDPC's advisory guidelines to the
sites where its staff work, to allow the officers to refer to them when they
need to.
Recruitment
portal JobStreet has also taken steps to get itself ready before the Sept 1
deadline.
A spokesman
told The Straits Times that since June, it no longer collects the NRIC numbers
of job candidates as an optional identifier on its online registration form.
Those who
had previously provided the numbers were informed that the company would remove
the numbers from its databases from June.
Who can collect NRIC numbers from Sept 1?
From Sunday,
organisations will be legally barred from collecting, using or disclosing NRIC
numbers or making copies of the identity card, under new and stricter rules
enforced by Singapore's privacy watchdog, the Personal Data Protection
Commission.
Organisations
that flout the Personal Data Protection Act can incur a financial penalty of up
to $1 million.
WHEN DO I
NOT HAVE TO GIVE UP MY NRIC?
Unless
required by law or when it is necessary to accurately identify you, you do not
need to give your full national identification number. The organisation also
cannot retain your card.
This
includes when applying for retail memberships, signing up for contests or lucky
draws, renting a bicycle, buying movie tickets online or completing survey
forms - longstanding practices that use the NRIC details as identifiers.
You should
also not furnish your NRIC or its details when entering the premises of a
private condominium or using a computer at an Internet cafe.
WHEN MUST I
RELEASE MY NRIC INFORMATION?
You have to
provide the information when the law requires it. For example, when seeking
medical treatment at a general practitioner clinic, which is required under the
Private Hospitals and Medical Clinics Regulations.
The
information is also required under the Hotel Licensing Regulations, when you
are checking into a hotel.
Subscribing
to a phone line also requires you to give your NRIC details, under the
Telecommunications Act. You can also be asked to give your NRIC details when
the inability to identify you accurately could cause significant harm.
The details
may also be needed for property transactions or healthcare matters, such as
when applying for insurance and making medical claims.
MUST I SHOW
MY NRIC WHEN ASKED TO VERIFY MY AGE, OR TO VERIFY MY IDENTITY?
This is
allowed, when just the sight of an individual's physical NRIC and information
is needed for verification purposes.
It is
permitted as long as there is no intention to control or possess the physical
NRIC, no personal data is retained and the NRIC is returned immediately.
DO THE NEW
RULES APPLY ONLY TO THE NRIC?
The stricter
rules apply also to cards with your NRIC number on them, like a driver's
licence, as well as other national identification numbers like birth
certificate numbers, foreign identification numbers and work permit numbers.
While
passport numbers are periodically replaced, organisations should avoid
collecting the full passport numbers of individuals as well, unless justified.
WHAT ARE
ALTERNATIVES TO THE NRIC FOR IDENTIFICATION PURPOSES?
Alternatives
may include organisation or user-generated IDs, tracking numbers or organisation-issued
QR codes, or partial NRIC details of up to the last three numerical digits and
letter.
WILL I STILL
BE ASKED FOR MY NRIC DETAILS TO ACCESS GOVERNMENT SERVICES AND PREMISES?
Yes. The
advisory guidelines on the NRIC do not apply to the Government.
The NRIC
number is a unique identifier assigned by the Government to each Singapore
resident that is often used for transactions with the Government.
As the
issuing authority for the NRIC, the Government says it rightfully uses the NRIC
to discharge its functions and services with citizens in a secure manner.
Friday, 6 September 2019
Venezuela, Ukraine, Hong Kong, … : Color Revolutions and Regime Change, A Modern Scourge Spawning Economic Destabilization and Civil War
And once again, the US and European mainstream media and various government and quasi government entities are supporting destabilization of the government in Hong Kong, with an August 6 meeting between US Consulate Official Julie Eadeh and Hong Kong opposition figures Martin Lee, Anson Chan (who also met with Vice-President Pence in March) and Joshua Wong of “Occupy Central” in 2014.
Wednesday, 4 September 2019
US using trade war to stop China overtaking it: ex-Singapore diplomat Kishore Mahbubani
- Kishore Mahbubani says the US could have solved its trade dispute with China if it wanted to, but it is now a ‘geopolitical contest’
- China’s Belt and Road Initiative was a ‘pre-emptive strike’ against the US and current world order
Tuesday, 20 August 2019
The US-China problem in the South China Sea: one man’s militarisation is another man’s self-defence
The US accuses China of militarising the South China Sea, but to Beijing, it is the Pentagon that has aggressively projected power in the region. The US also has a troubling policy of taking pre-emptive action against perceived threats
SCMP
SCMP
Friday, 24 May 2019
How Huawei Could End Up Challenging Google’s Dominance
By imposing
restrictions on Huawei Technologies Co., the administration of U.S. President
Donald Trump may force the Chinese company to do something that no one in tech
has dared to do for a long time: Challenge Google’s control of the Android
universe, which earned the U.S. company a huge European fine last year.
Huawei faces two big
threats from U.S. technology export restrictions. One is the loss of American
components for its products, a blow it cannot parry immediately if it wants to
keep making top-flight smartphones. The other is the potential withdrawal of
its Android license, which would stop Huawei from preinstalling the latest
Google-approved version of the operating system and some key services Western
users see as necessary — above all Google’s Play Store, the biggest repository
of Android apps. This particular obstacle could, under the right conditions,
turn into a Huawei strength in Europe, a market that accounts for almost a
third of the company’s smartphone unit sales, according to market analytics
company IDC.
Last July, the
European Commission fined Google 4.34 billion euros ($4.85 billion) for
imposing illegal restrictions on smartphone manufacturers. In exchange for the
right to preinstall the Play Store, they had to agree, among other things, not
to sell devices running versions of Android not approved by Google: so-called
Android forks. These operating systems are developed from the open source
version of Android, which anyone can use, including Huawei if the U.S. bans it
from using American technology. Amazon.com Inc.’s Fire OS is the best-known
Android fork today, though there are others around.
The commission wrote
that by obstructing the development of Android forks, Google and its parent
company Alphabet Inc. “closed off an important channel for competitors to
introduce apps and services, in particular general search services, which could
be pre-installed on Android forks.” In its ruling, it made a strong case for
forks as platforms for Google-independent innovation that, if they were allowed
to spread widely, could have curbed Google’s market dominance in various areas.
Google has appealed
the ruling, but it has also removed restrictions on handset makers to avoid
further fines. This, however, hasn’t led to the proliferation of alternative
platforms based on open-source Android: Big phone makers are locked into
comfortable relationships with Google and see no need to experiment. Days after
the European Union fined Google, Huawei, at the time the biggest phone
manufacturer that provided an easy opportunity to install alternative
Android-based operating systems on its devices, ended the program without
explanation.
If Google takes away
the Android license, it’ll yank Huawei out of its comfort zone. The company
isn’t likely to give up the European market without a fight, after spending
billions of dollars developing a customer base. Consumers in some European
countries now appear to be put off Huawei by the U.S. attack, although,
paradoxically, it appears to have fueled the brand’s popularity in France.
The company has said
it developed its own operating system (likely an Android fork), and it’s been
trying to lure developers to its app store. If the U.S. stops Huawei from
preinstalling the Play Store, the Chinese manufacturer probably won’t spend
much time educating consumers on how to install it on their own (the way people
do now with phones bought in China). That’s not what most users expect on a
new, expensive device. Instead, Huawei will want to offer developers an easy
way to sell apps not just in the Google store but also in one preinstalled on
Huawei devices — to “multi-home” them.
Huawei hasn’t been
eager to get into an open confrontation with Google, which was a valued
partner. But a breakup ordered by the U.S. government changes things. Huawei,
with plenty of resources of its own (and most likely with support from the
Chinese government, determined to fight back against the U.S.), could soon be
investing heavily in the marketing and improvement of an Android fork. Given
Huawei’s marketing potential, the effort isn’t necessarily doomed. And it could
boost Asian and European developers deterred from competing in some areas —
such as mapping, video services or even search — by Google’s enormous power.
Given the pushback in
recent years against U.S. tech companies’ relentless data collection and the
widespread mistrust of Trump’s administration in Europe, there could well be
demand for a Google-free phone from a major manufacturer known for superior
hardware. I know I’d be interested, and the French would probably lap it up,
judging by their reaction to the U.S. threats. The EU regulators, too, might be
intrigued to see evidence that perhaps the Google antitrust ruling didn’t come
too late.
This is something of a
utopian scenario, I know. Huawei may never need to go on the warpath against
Google: The U.S. and China could strike a trade deal that would make the
specter of restrictions go away. Or, if Huawei is banned from buying U.S.
technology, it could find itself unable to produce marketable phones for a
while. And, of course, it is a company from Communist China, making it
difficult for European regulators, and even for private developers, to embrace
it as a savior from the overly dominant U.S. tech companies.
Monopolies in tech
don’t last forever, however. Sometimes they just need a push to start showing
cracks. If the U.S. moves against Huawei, it might be unknowingly giving such a
push to Google in the smartphone market.
This column does not
necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its
owners.
By Leonid Bershidsky –
Bloomberg
24 May 2019
Huawei Beyond Smokescreen
The issue of Huawei first floated when the Chairman’s daughter, who is also the CFO of Huawei, was arrested in Canada. The Americans claimed that she has violated sanctions and wanted her to be extradited to US for trial.
This is not the first time Americans had extended its legal arms outside of its country’s boundary. Huawei is not an American company. Why should it be subjected to American political sanctions? It was not very clear why American government wanted to do that at the very beginning. But later on, it becomes clear that the Americans have reverted back to their dirty tricks.
This is not the first time the American government had used its political dominance to attack foreign companies to curb their growth, or even forcing them to be sold to American companies.
Toshiba was once a fast growing Japanese company but it was targeted in the 1980s, with two senior executives jailed on the charge of selling high precision machinery to Russia. Chinese ZTE was forced to the knees with political administrative means and $1 billion fine was extorted before it was let off. There were also European companies subjected to American pressures in the past.
The coordinated attack on Huawei started from a charge of “breaching American sanction on Iran” to charge of “espionage via Huawei’s hardware”.
It is no secret that Americans have been spying on the whole world, including its allies in Europe over the past decades via communication infrastructures installed using American products or technology. Snowden had actually leaked information on how NSA spies on each and every country through the use of backdoor implemented in communication hardware.
So it is not something new but simply hypocrisy on Americans’ part in playing dirty on Huawei.
Perhaps the Americans have found out that they can no longer have an easy hack on Huawei’s equipment to spy on other countries, which is why they are making so much noise.
I would not be surprised if the Chinese government emulates what the American government NSA has been doing all this while, spying on other countries through similar method. But at this very moment, there is absolutely Zero evidence provided by the Americans except the speculative insinuation put on Huawei’s Chairman, who is an ex-PRC army personnel.
This may be one of the minor reasons why Trump wants to attack or even destroy Huawei at all cost, even if it means hurting American companies which supplied over $11 billion worth of components to Huawei.
Yes, it might be the 5G technology that they are so afraid of. But this is not only about the commercial dominance of Huawei’s 5G technology.
Ultimately, it points to military supremacy. US is able to bully its way through the world for all these decades simply because of its military supremacy. It can have trillions or zillions of deficits but it doesn’t care at all.
But Huawei’s advanced 5G technology has the potential of tilting the balance of Military strength towards China. In modern warfare, more and more sensors will be used and there will be a revolutionized war communication technology to enhance battlefront monitoring and controls.
Huawei’s advancement on 5G technology or even faster hidden technology will give PLA a boost and multi-level upgrades in war theater command and management.
This is the greatest fear of USA, a potential adversary having more advanced military communication capabilities. This is why no matter how damaging it is towards its own Americans companies, Trump has to destroy Huawei.
However, I suspect that Huawei does have the Chinese government’s support for the simple reason that it has critical technological assets that could help it modernize its military.
It is not an exaggeration for Chairman Ren to say that Trump had underestimated the strength of Huawei. This is because it would most probably had secured full support from Chinese government to protect its critical technological assets.
It would be interesting to see how Huawei could turn the table around and build up its own in-house components manufacturing capability within one year. The problems of operating systems are just smokescreen to the bigger picture.
Make no mistake about it. It is Cold War II in the making.
Goh Meng Seng
This is not the first time Americans had extended its legal arms outside of its country’s boundary. Huawei is not an American company. Why should it be subjected to American political sanctions? It was not very clear why American government wanted to do that at the very beginning. But later on, it becomes clear that the Americans have reverted back to their dirty tricks.
This is not the first time the American government had used its political dominance to attack foreign companies to curb their growth, or even forcing them to be sold to American companies.
Toshiba was once a fast growing Japanese company but it was targeted in the 1980s, with two senior executives jailed on the charge of selling high precision machinery to Russia. Chinese ZTE was forced to the knees with political administrative means and $1 billion fine was extorted before it was let off. There were also European companies subjected to American pressures in the past.
The coordinated attack on Huawei started from a charge of “breaching American sanction on Iran” to charge of “espionage via Huawei’s hardware”.
It is no secret that Americans have been spying on the whole world, including its allies in Europe over the past decades via communication infrastructures installed using American products or technology. Snowden had actually leaked information on how NSA spies on each and every country through the use of backdoor implemented in communication hardware.
So it is not something new but simply hypocrisy on Americans’ part in playing dirty on Huawei.
Perhaps the Americans have found out that they can no longer have an easy hack on Huawei’s equipment to spy on other countries, which is why they are making so much noise.
I would not be surprised if the Chinese government emulates what the American government NSA has been doing all this while, spying on other countries through similar method. But at this very moment, there is absolutely Zero evidence provided by the Americans except the speculative insinuation put on Huawei’s Chairman, who is an ex-PRC army personnel.
This may be one of the minor reasons why Trump wants to attack or even destroy Huawei at all cost, even if it means hurting American companies which supplied over $11 billion worth of components to Huawei.
Yes, it might be the 5G technology that they are so afraid of. But this is not only about the commercial dominance of Huawei’s 5G technology.
Ultimately, it points to military supremacy. US is able to bully its way through the world for all these decades simply because of its military supremacy. It can have trillions or zillions of deficits but it doesn’t care at all.
But Huawei’s advanced 5G technology has the potential of tilting the balance of Military strength towards China. In modern warfare, more and more sensors will be used and there will be a revolutionized war communication technology to enhance battlefront monitoring and controls.
Huawei’s advancement on 5G technology or even faster hidden technology will give PLA a boost and multi-level upgrades in war theater command and management.
This is the greatest fear of USA, a potential adversary having more advanced military communication capabilities. This is why no matter how damaging it is towards its own Americans companies, Trump has to destroy Huawei.
However, I suspect that Huawei does have the Chinese government’s support for the simple reason that it has critical technological assets that could help it modernize its military.
It is not an exaggeration for Chairman Ren to say that Trump had underestimated the strength of Huawei. This is because it would most probably had secured full support from Chinese government to protect its critical technological assets.
It would be interesting to see how Huawei could turn the table around and build up its own in-house components manufacturing capability within one year. The problems of operating systems are just smokescreen to the bigger picture.
Make no mistake about it. It is Cold War II in the making.
Goh Meng Seng
Saturday, 20 April 2019
A Brief Synopsis of India's China War. - 1962
Below are some salient points and facts behind the Sino-Indian border war of 1962. A good knowledge of the historical background of the disputed boundaries is essential to the understanding of the dispute.
Link
Link
Tuesday, 26 March 2019
Mexico demands apology for colonial abuses, Spain says no
The 500-year-old
wounds of the Spanish conquest were ripped open afresh on Monday (March 25)
when Mexico's president urged Spain and the Vatican to apologise for their
"abuses" - a request Madrid said it "firmly rejects."
Spain's centuries of
dominance in the New World, backed by the Catholic Church, leapt from the
history books to the headlines when Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez
Obrador called on Spanish King Felipe VI and Pope Francis to apologise for the
conquest and the rights violations committed in its aftermath.
"I have sent a
letter to the king of Spain and another to the pope, calling for a full account
of the abuses and urging them to apologise to the indigenous peoples (of
Mexico) for the violations of what we now call their human rights," Lopez
Obrador said.
He made the remarks in
a video, filmed at the ruins of the indigenous city of Comalcalco and posted on
Facebook and Twitter.
"There were
massacres and oppression. The so-called conquest was waged with the sword and
the cross. They built their churches on top of the (indigenous) temples,"
added the anti-establishment leftist.
"The time has
come to reconcile. But let us ask forgiveness first."
Spain's rejection was
immediate and blunt.
"The government
of Spain deeply regrets that the letter the Mexican president sent to his
Majesty the King, whose contents we firmly reject, has been made public,"
it said in a statement.
"The arrival, 500
years ago, of Spaniards to present Mexican territory cannot be judged in the
light of contemporary considerations," it said.
"Our two brother
nations have always known how to read our shared past without anger and with a
constructive perspective."
300-year reign
Lopez Obrador made the
remarks during a visit to the Mayan pyramids of Comalcalco, in his native
Tabasco state, in southern Mexico.
He later visited the
nearby city of Centla, the scene of the first battle between Spanish
conquistador Hernan Cortes and the indigenous peoples of the land now known as
Mexico, on March 14, 1519.
With the help of
horses, swords, guns and smallpox - all unknown in the New World at the time -
Cortes led an army of fewer than 1,000 men to defeat the Aztec empire, the
start of 300 years of Spanish rule over Mexico.
The abuses continued
until independence from Spain in 1821, and beyond, Lopez Obrador said.
"Thousands of
people were murdered during this period. One culture and civilisation imposed
itself on another," he said later in a speech.
"There are still
open wounds. It's better to recognise that abuses were committed, and mistakes
were made. It's better to ask forgiveness and seek to be brothers in a historic
reconciliation."
He added that he, too,
planned to offer an apology, "because the repression of indigenous peoples
continued after the colonial period."
It's complicated
Mexico has a
complicated relationship with its colonial past.
Its history, culture,
food and the Mexican people themselves are the product of
"mestizaje," the mixing of the Old and New Worlds.
According to a
government study, 98 per cent of Mexicans have some combination of indigenous,
European and African ancestry.
But although that
mixture made modern Mexico - and gave the world the gifts of chocolate, tacos
de carnitas and Day of the Dead - it is also a past tainted by violence, rape
and oppression.
Lopez Obrador, 65,
took office in December after a landslide election win that represented a firm
break with Mexico's traditional political parties.
A folksy populist, he
pulls no punches in going after traditional elites, and has sought to cast
himself as a champion of Mexico's indigenous peoples.
But he had so far
cultivated cordial relations with Spain and the Vatican, including during a
visit to Mexico City by Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez earlier this year.
Sanchez, a fellow
leftist, marked the occasion by presenting the Mexican president with his
grandfather Jose Obrador's Spanish birth certificate, from 1893.
Sunday, 24 March 2019
Sunday, 24 February 2019
Huawei Frightens Europe's Data Protectors. America Does, Too
A foreign power with possible unbridled access to Europe’s data is causing alarm in the region. No, it’s not China. It’s the U.S.
Bloomberg
Bloomberg
Tuesday, 12 February 2019
Friday, 1 February 2019
The US is waging war on Chinese hi-tech, but it can’t thwart Beijing’s ambitions on its own
Joergen Oerstroem Moeller says the global rules-based trading system is under threat as Washington seeks to conscript other countries to its economic war on Chinese technology
SCMP
SCMP
Wednesday, 2 January 2019
The War on Huawei
The Trump administration's conflict with China has little to do with US external imbalances, closed Chinese markets, or even China’s alleged theft of intellectual property. It has everything to do with containing China by limiting its access to foreign markets, advanced technologies, global banking services, and perhaps even US universities.
Project Syndicate
Project Syndicate
Friday, 28 December 2018
Why Trump’s exit from Syria is another lesson in trust for Asia
America has a history of broken promises in the region, so
it’s likely the Koreas, Japan and Taiwan are watching his abrupt withdrawal
from the war-torn nation closely
Tuesday, 25 December 2018
US paranoia is fuelling talk of war, not China’s ‘rise’
As China commemorates the 40th anniversary of formal
diplomatic relations with the United States, the arrest of Meng Wanzhou – the
CFO of one of China’s top technology companies, Huawei, by Canadian authorities
on behalf of the US – appears to vindicate the Thucydides Trap thesis that the
US and China may be locked into a path to war.
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