Does Xi Jingping have a plan B for Hong Kong

As a boy in Hong Kong, I enjoyed taking a short trip on the iconic Star Ferry from Kowloon to Hong Kong Island. Even after migrating to Australia, I have always made it my mission to take at least one trip on the Star Ferry whenever I was in Hong Kong. It was on such a trip that I first saw Hong Kong people calling for democracy.

In 1989 while studying at the Queensland University I mourned with my fellow students for protesters in Beijing. This was a watershed for Hong Kongers. The day after the massacre, a million people (one in four) marched on Hong Kong streets in protest. It is hard to imagine that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would not have taken notice.

Prior to the massacre, the CCP sidelined the party’s democratic reformers like Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. Zhao was placed in home detention until his death. After the massacre the CCP realised that they needed to re-brand themselves (Clive Hamilton’s “Silent Invasion”). Then CCP not only continue with their shift to market economy but also replaced Marxist-Leninist ideology with extreme nationalism. Every school child was brain washed to identify the CCP as China. Not being faithful to the CCP means not being patriotic. The CCP also emphasis the humiliation of the Chinese people at the hand’s foreigners. The CCP taught that historic events like the Sino-British Opium war and the Eight-Nation Alliance were a blight to China that a strong CCP/China would erase thus making China great again. (Never mind that Mao inspired Great Leap Forward and the Cultural have killed far more than any conflict with European nations.) It is in this context that Australia’s fate is now linked to Hong Kong. As part of CCP’s dream to make China great again, the CCP use their United front tactic. The result of these tactics has been well documented in the Australian media. For the CCP the new China will replace freedom with stability, law with ethics and democracy with enlightened rule (Clive Hamilton’s “Silent Invasion”). But even a quick survey of a number of Chinese dynasties will tell you that stability, ethics and enlightened rule do not work. And the CCP does not even have an imperial examination system to ensure good governance. In “Flyswats and Tight Traps” John Fitzgerald pointed out that China’s president Xi, at the beginning of his rule has to resort to anti-corruption campaign to rein in corrupt cadres not doing bidding of party central. However, there is no guarantee that the corruption will not return.  Without the rule of law, independent judiciary and proper governing system, China will be like a boat in a rough sea where the crew rushes between corruption and political campaign. Ironically, Xi and his loyal servant Carrie Lam are hellbent in destroying Hong Kong – the goose that have been laying the gold that has raised the living standard of everyone in the mainland.

Even worse the very thing that the CCP hates, freedom, is what distinguish Hong Kong from every other mainland cites. Many mainliners would point out the advances of cities like Shanghai and Shenzhen will make Hong Kong unnecessary. The broadcaster Richard Harris debunk this by arguing that Hong Kong has the rule-of-law and freedom of speech. How can investors have confidence when face with an opaque system?

It is certainly true that Hong Kong people are resilient but ultimately the ball is in Xi’s court. The standoff can be resolved if Xi will direct Lam to implement the five demands of: withdraw of the extradition bill (already done), retract the label of “riot”, release imprisoned protesters, independent investigation of police conduct and finally universal suffrage. The demand for universal suffrage was promised in Hong Kong constitution – the basic law and there is no excuse to deprive Hong Kong anymore. 

For centuries, Chinese rules have persisted with ethics and enlightened rule to find their Gates of Heavenly Peace (Tiananmen) but they have all been thwarted by the reality of the human condition. The Ming dynasty didn’t collapse because of foreign interference (the Manchus). The Ming collapsed because of internal discontent.

  

The west did not wake up one day to democracy, rule of law and human rights. It has taken over 800 years to travel from the Magna Carter to our modern democracy. It is time for China to try something new. Finally, Sun yat-sen , the father of modern China enshrined democracy in his Three Principles of the People so Xi has no excuse.

Peace on Earth can be achieved, but only if we are careful of historical symbolisms

As an Australian of Chinese descent, I, and many Chinese people around the world should be proud of what the Chinese government has done to raise the living stands of millions of her citizens. This is in spite of the disastrous Cultural Revolution of the 1960s. However, I wonder if the recent actions of the Chinese government in the South China Sea and the controversial Belt and Road initiative are the behaviour of a maturing super power? Sadly, the recent APEC forum has generated doubt regarding the maturity of the current generation of Chinese leaders and their ability to work constructively with the community of nations.

2018 is the 100th anniversary of the 1918 armistice and it provides us with a strong reminder to be vigilant of our history. When Germany defeated France at the beginning of World War 2, Hitler insisted that France must formalise her surrender in the same place where France formalised her defeat of Germany in World War I. Hitler knew how to use historical symbolism to exact revenge from France. No details were spared, even the train carriage that housed the 1918 Armistice meeting was dragged out from a museum so Hitler could further humiliate France.

Clearly, deliberately enacted or deliberately avoided historical symbolisms are powerful tools that can be used to reinforce hate or to bring about peace. I lament the lost opportunities at the recent 2018 APEC forum. In particular, the failure of the Chinese delegation under Xi Jin Ping to use the forum’s historical location to repair her relation with an old ally – the United States of America. Worse still the Chinese delegation also managed to put Australia (another old ally) into an unnecessarily difficult, political position.

The important symbolism for APEC 2018 is Port Moresby, the capital of Papua New Guinea. Seven

decades ago, Papua New Guinea, along with the nearby Coral Seas were where the Allies (the USA and Australia) were finally able to halt the Japanese Army and Navy advance in the Pacific. For the first time in history, two opposing naval fleets, Japan and the USA, were able to use carrier-based aircraft to attack an opposing fleet. In fact, the ships from the two fleets never saw each other. By the end of the Battle of the Coral Sea both fleets had lost one carrier each to the enemy. While loses in the two fleets were similar, the e Americans and the Australians gained the upper hand because the Japanese Navy had lost too many aircraft to be able to mount a direct assault on Port Moresby. Instead the Japanese had to go overland to try to take Port Moresby (leading to the Kokoda campaign).

 The Coral Seas and Kokoda are a long way from China but without this first victory, the Battle of the Coral Sea, how many more years would the people of China have continued to suffer under Imperial Japan? How much more would the people of Hong Kong have to suffer under Japanese rule? I still recall my Auntie telling me how Chinese girls in Hong Kong darkened their faces with shoe polish to avoid being targeted by the Japanese soldiers in Hong Kong.

Clearly the people of China owe the USA and the Australians a great deal for defeating Imperial Japan. However, seven decades later, the Chinese delegation blundered into Port Moresby even before the APEC forum began as though they were already the new imperial power. This time the direct assault was in the form of vague promises of infrastructure loans. Did Xi’s team actually research the historical significance of Port Moresby? Do they even know the people of New Guinea suffered as much under Imperial Japan as the people of China? Even the Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe, from a former enemy nation was smart enough to visit Darwin before proceeding to APEC.

Unlike World War 2, the current dispute between China and the United States will not have a winner because the world is facing a far bigger enemy in climate change and continual environmental degradation that no missiles or aircraft carriers can ever defeat. What we need is a community of nations willing to work together where democracy and the rule of law are respected.

Finally, China, unlike Rome, has never been a great conquering nation. In fact, two Chinese dynasties (Yuan and Qing) were not ruled by Han Chinese and yet the it was the Han Chinese who had the last laugh as the Yuan emperors (Mongolians) and Qing emperors (Manchu) adopted the Chinese culture as their own. But isn’t this what the Chinese restaurants have done to the restaurant industry? Is there a single city in Australia that has no Chinese restaurants? As we approach Christmas, perhaps peace on earth can really be realised with a larger dose of Chinese restaurant diplomacy.

To Mr Abbott: Climate Change is real, just Jebi, Florence and Mangkhut

My wife and I were meant to have one more day in Hong Kong visiting relatives and friends. However, at the urging of our relatives and friends, we procured an earlier flight out Hong Kong. It was a good thing that we found an earlier flight for our original departure date of 16/9, will be remembered by the people of Hong Kong for decades to come. Hong Kong’s Chek Lap Kok airport normally servers more than 100 airlines operating flights to 180 countries but according to the South China Morning Post, most flights were cancelled affecting 96000 passengers. Hong-Kong based carriers – Cathay Pacific, Cathay Dragon and Hong Kong Airlines cancel at least 543 flights. I considered our 11pm departure on the 15/9 a major miracle. 

At Mangkhut’s closest approach to Hong Kong on the 16^th the Hong Kong Government raised the Typhoon threat level to 10 which is highest. The streets of Hong Kong are normally chocked by walls of shoppers on a Sunday but they were empty on the 16^th as most people took heed of government warnings. The damages were unprecedented. Modern Highrise offices and multistorey apartments were no match for Super typhon Mangkut. In earlier typhoons, the taping of windows was sufficient but not this time. In some cases, the complete windows were scattered causing glass to fall onto streets below. Some Highrise apartments lost power and with nothing to operate the water plumbs, some residents also found their water supply cut.  People in low lying areas suffered even worse. Many areas were flooded. The only people on the streets were emergency workers, news reporters and foolhardy idiots.

However, Mangkhut was not the only destructive typhoon in 2018. On the 4^th of September the tropic typhoon Jebi made landfall on main land Japan. The destruction to the all-important Kansai airport meant tens of thousands of travellers were unable to leave Japan and holidaying Japanese residents were unable to return to Japan. This was not the only destructive weather in Asia for the month of September.

On Wednesday 12^th of September, while on the famous Star Ferry crossing Hong Kong Harbour (from Kowloon to Hong Kong Islant), I noticed that the usually placid harbour was already rough but that was more to do with typhoon Barijat.  Yes, Hong Kong and Southern China was being threaten by not one but two typhoons!

The famous casinos of Macau the west of Hong Kong was forced to shut down for 33 hours. The South China Moring Post reported that two major casino operators lost as much as US$186 million because of the shutdown.

In 2017, the former conservative Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbott suggested at a London conference that voters should beware of the science of climate change and that higher temperatures “might actually be beneficial” because “far more people die in cold snaps”. Even though another conservative, the National Farmers Federation president Fiona Simpson, has argued that climate change is leading to more frequent droughts in Australia. Overall the picture for decisive actions on climate change does not bode well when Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull was brutally replaced by Scott Morrison. Turnbull was dumped for wanting very modest action on climate change. The new conservative government mantra is best summed up by the new Agriculture minister who states that he doesn’t ‘give a rats’ whether climate change is man-made.

Just as climate scientists are warning of the danger of climate change to Australian farmers and the famous Great Barrier Reef. They are also pointing to the danger of more frequents destructive typhoons like Mangkhut. The Hong Kong Observatory (“The Year’s Weather – 2017 https://www.weather.gov.hk/wxinfo/pastwx/2017/ywx2017.htm) stated that 32 tropical cyclones occurred over the Western North Pacific and South China Sea in 2017. The Observatory concluded that this number is more than the long-term (1961-2010) average.

Beside the drought the other hot button issue for the current Australian government is the cost of electricity. The conservative side want to show Australians that they are more concern for the high cost of electricity rather than the use of renewable energy to combat man-made climate change. Some in the conservative government wants to build more Coal-fired powerplants even though the world is trending away from coal to renewable. This is evident by GE Power, a coal-fired powerplant manufacturer who found their 2017 profit felt by 45% (Reuters “How General Electric gambled on fossil fuel power and lost” 22/2/2018).

For the conservative Morrison’s government turning away from decisive climate change action might look like a short-term fix to win the next election but it completely fails to address the reality of Mangkhut and Australia’s current sever drought.  The former represents a severe cost to our Asian trading partners and the latter a severe curtailment of Australia’s agriculture export. Both will affect Australia’s long-term economic outlook. More importantly, Australia abundant sunshine can one day be used by solar farms to generate hydrogen that can be exported to energy-hungry Asia. Mr Morrison renew energy is Australia future and not a political albatross.

Pandering Lies will not help the Refugee Situation

We are all appalled by the news of Islamic terror attacks in Britain, Australia and elsewhere However, is it as simplistic as Douglas Murray “Why Australia needs to stand firm and protect its borders” like us to believe. For many decades we have had Muslims migrating to Britain, the EU, United States and even Australia and yet the terror attacks and the hijacking of the 70s were not in the name of Allah. The Dawson’s field hijacking was committed by the PFPLA (Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine). The PFPLA was not even religious! They are a secular Marxist-Leninist organisation. In the 80s we have Al-Qaeda which was form as a result of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Even the 9/11 attack on America has more to do with America’s entry into the first Gulf War because of Saddam Hussein invasion of Kuwait. If Murray is fully honest with the facts than he would acknowledge the examples of attacks that he raised only appeared with the rise of ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) in 2014. Even ISIS claim of link to Islam would have to be questioned given that ISIS leaders are entirely former Iraqi military and intelligence officers. More importantly they were members of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath government. The Ba’ath party is based on Arabic nationalism and its ideology is secular. Another Australian columnist David Kilcullen pointed out that there would be on ISIS if not for the Second Gulf War.

So Mr Murray, please stop pandering your baseless extremist views to attack the UN’s attempt to solved the increasingly urgent need to save millions of refugees. Closing our doors to the dire situation will not improve our safety. More importantly, we need to help front line nations like Jordan and Lebanon where already overcrowded refugee camps are being made to take more while the brutal dictator Bashar al-Assad continue to massacre his own people.  If UN cannot help countries like Jordan and Lebanon then the refuges problem will get much worse and it will make the current situation like a walk in the park.

Progress was not built on walls

Currently in the cinema is the movie “The Great Wall” starting Matt Damon. The movie is about a European mercenary group, while searching for gun powder, ended up joining forces with Chinese soldiers fighting alien monsters on the famed Great Wall of China. Fighting alien monsters on the Great Wall is certainly the stuff of Science Fiction but the Great Wall is very real and has over two thousand years of history. The wall was built to keep various nomadic groups from entering China. The wall had been rebuilt many times, the version we see today is from the Ming dynasty (1388-1644). Towards the end of the Ming dynasty the Great Wall failed to defend China from being over taken by foreign invaders. In the 14th century, the new Ming dynasty had sought to strengthen the Great Wall so as to keep out the Mongolian tribes from Northern China. By the 17th century the Ming began to face pressure from the Manchus. In 1644, the Ming general Wu Sangui opened the gates of the Great Wall thus enabling the Manchus to march onto the capital at Beijing. Any wall, no matter how strong, can be undermined by just one single traitor. In the case of Wu, he and his frontier garrison was sandwiched between the Manchus and Chinese rebels intended on bring down what remain of the Ming dynasty. Wu chose the Manchus and this event heralded the start of the last dynasty of China – the Qing dynasty.

The Ming dynasty lasted three centuries and for a significant portion of those 300 years, the Ming emperors poured great resources onto the rebuilding and the maintenance of the Great Wall. There is no doubt that the emperor’s mandate from heaven hinged very much on his ability to protect his empire and ensure continued prosperity for his subjects. But was the Great Wall the only solution available to the Ming emperors? The return of the once British colony of Hong Kong to mainland China is often a reminder of the backward and chaotic world of the Qing dynasty. And yet it was the Qing reformer Liang Qichao that reminded the world of the long forgotten Chinese explorer Zheng He. Admiral Zheng He, under the sponsorship of the Yongle Emperor, made expeditions to Brunei, Java, Thailand, India, the Horn of Africa, and Arabia. According to Wikipedia his first expedition consisted of more than 300 ships carrying more than 28000 crewmen. Zeng He commanded seven expeditions before the expeditions were stopped by Xuande Emperor (Yongle Emperor’s grandson). One has to wonder what China would be like today if Xuande chose to continue his grandfather policy. Instead of an insular Ming dynasty that hid behind the Great Wall, the Ming could have created a second silk road through naval power. Such a corridor would not only exchange goods but also ideas that could have benefited China and beyond.

Sadly the Ming dynasty were not the only ones who believe that shutting out the world is the only way to protect ones culture and prosperity. The Qing dynasty was to repeat the same mistake in setting up the Canton System to restrict trade with foreigners.  Yet out of this backward looking decision the British brought about the colony of Hong Kong. Today with China being the world’s economic engine it is easy to forget that for several decades many on the mainland look enviously at Hong Kong economic growth. All this only changed in the late 1980s when Deng Xiaoping turnaround Mao’s economic disasters and open up China.

Modern day Japan with her efficient Shinkansen (bullet train) also had her experiment with close borders and trade barriers. In the late 16th century, Japanese contact with Europeans has brought about new goods, new technologies and ideas (Christianity). By the late 17th century a significant portion of the population of Kyoto (Japan ancient capital) had converted to Christianity. The scale of this conversion is even more amazing when one see the enormous number Buddhist temples in Kyoto today.  This exchange was even encouraged by the then leader of Japan Oda Nobunaga. However Nobunaga’s successor Toyotomi Hideyoshi was suspicious of the Europeans and the Sakoku Edict was put in place[i]. The edict first decree forbids (violators are executed) Japanese from leaving Japan and forbids (violators are executed) Europeans from entering Japan. The second decree forbids Catholicism and the third decree severely restricts trade with foreigners.

Have the world learn anything from these historical withdraw into isolationism?

Mexican wall will only bring down North America. It will make America Great-ly stupid

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[i] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sakoku_Edict_of_1635

We need dreamers - La La Land - A Review

Went to watch La La Land (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_La_Land_(film)) with Christine. The movie the uses the term "La La Land" for two things. Firstly LA is short for Los Angeles and secondly we often say someone is is living in La La Land to say that he or she is a dreamer.
The two main characters of this film certainly seems like dreamers. On the one hand we have Seb the jazz musician who wants his own jazz club in the "classical" jazz style but he is way behind in his bills. On the other hand we have Mia who is an aspiring actor who keeps getting knocked back.

The movie starts in what seems like a boring traffic jam scene somewhere in LA the audience is left breathless when driver after driver came out of their cars to start singing and dancing in the middle of the traffic. The whole movie is very visual, Emma Stone (Mia) wears brightly colourful clothing and one can't help but remind us of famous musicals from the 50s like Gene Kelly dancing in the rain. We see Seb and Mir breaking doing their tap dancing moves!

One of these dancing scenes occurs when Seb takes Mia out on their first date which somehow ended in the LA Griffith Observatory. They dance round and round the Obervatory's Focault pendulum. From the Focault pendulum the couple ended up in the planetarium where the they started rising up into the sky and the starts  almost like Mary Poppins. Were we supposed to see this as another reminder that we are watching a pair of dreamers in love?

The theme song "City of Stars" talks more of dreaming but now we don't dream alone.

Sebastian's Verse: Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone]
City of stars
Are you shining just for me?
City of stars
There's so much that I can't seeWho knows?
I felt it from the first embrace I shared with you
That now our dreamsThey've finally come true
[Mia's Verse: Emma Or Ryan  Gosling]
City of stars 
Just one thing everybody wants
There in the bars
And through the smokescreen of the crowded restaurantsIt's loveYes,
 all we're looking for is love from someone else
A rush
A glance
A touch
A dance


Well you will need to go and watch it and see if you too is a dreamer!

Advocacy 2016

2016 must be one of the worst year in terms of world politics and democracy. IS (Islamic State) has been waging conventional and unconventional warfare against the West since 2014. To even call it the Islamic State is giving legitimacy that it doesn't deserve. Nevertheless we are now stuck with the label. We shouldn't be surprised that the political pendulum has swing to the right. Starting BREXIT, our own federal election and then the election of Trump as the incoming president of the world's most powerful country - the United States. Clearly a large number of people in the West believe that they only safe if they can regain what they feel is the status quote.

In January, I suggest that the only way to Peace in Iraq is for Sunnis and Shite to work together

In Feb of 2016 my response to Dennis Atkins article

A letter in March 2016 on ISIS

Just like clock work, we have Pauline Hanson rolling out the new (but not improved) One Nation. They gained 4 seats in the Australian Senate. Don't be fooled by the number. Australian senators are voted into the upper house through proportional representation. It is not as if there is a now majority of people wanting to vote them. You only need 14.3% of the state vote to be a senator. And thanks to Malcom Turnbull, we had a double dissolution election which mean all senate seats were up for grab and each senator only needs 7% and not 14% to get in.

On Saturday 19/11/2016, the Courier Mail in their Saturday colour magazine made a great deal about how One Nation is going to be threat to the major party in the next Queensland State election. Nothing like a bit controversy to sell newspaper. Here is what I wrote to the editor:

  

But we cannot just tell the truth about the Australian Politics in light what  I feel is the almost irrational move to make controversy leader. Apparently, One Nation supporters like way that Pauline Hanson say what they want to say but are too afraid to say because of political correctness. Political correctness and self censorship only exists because we are not willing to try to know the truth through better understanding. This is something that Auntie Jean (an Australian indigenous elder) tells me. 

You can understand why Australians are so upset, especially when one sense that our leaders care less (by the way that includes One Nation, see their infighting). Take for example, the numerous high rise that are being constructed in the inner suburb of Brisbane. Has any actually explain the LNP dominated Brisbane City Council (BCC) that Brisbane is not an Asian city and that the BBC don't have to do their bit choke us all to death! And so I wrote a letter to the Westside News. They are great because they combined my letter with others who have similar concern. Really the BCC really needs a kick up its backside.

Finally for the end of 2016, I am able to use the idea of Richard Gibson (the principle of Brisbane School of Theology) sermon in St Andrews. Richard basically argued that we can't stop baby Jesus from growing into Jesus the man. The really cool bit is that my letter got published (the edited version). Even cooler is the fact that Leahy seems to have taken on my theme about raining peace. Well I hope has (on the opposite page).

Leahy's cartoon can be seen here.

https://www.facebook.com/leahycartoons/photos/a.10150656674687688.390716.321732052687/10154182759747688/?type=1&theater