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.