John Fitzpatrick. About New China, the Koreas, Myanmar, Thailand, and also about Japanese and Chinese writers and poets. The main emphasis is on North Asia and the political tectonics of this very important, powerful, and many-peopled area.
Friday, 5 June 2020
as a member of HACSU I note that when you put a legitimate comment about HACSU on the site, and its removed in a minute, then, a member feels they might as well withdraw their $500 a year membership and spend it on the charities of their own choosing. $500 is a lot of money to be wasted. I don't have that kind of money to waste just because my Union is interested in funding themselves and other vague changing social notions that never deliver improvements to their members pay packet. We are talking in the Decades now.
Sunday, 24 May 2020
As an Australian, On the whole, I don't mind Trump at all. He hasn't launched a major war or conflict in his time as President. In this way, he has done more for world peace than Obama, and all the previous presidents going back to Carter. Sure, he is in favour of Americans in America having guns, but they only shoot other Americans with them. That's fine. The world doesn't need more Americans. And, yes, he is pulling US Forces out of Asia, which is great for all of us for enduring world peace.
Tuesday, 19 May 2020
HISTORY LESSON: Recalling Australian desire to form a free trade-association with China. A decade before the decision by Tony Abbott, New Zealand agreed to a very good trade deal with China, with the New Zealand players noting...well, China is the biggest economic market place on earth, and we are a really small country, and we got a very good deal! Very true indeed. For that decade Australia was told by the USA not to have a free-trade agreement with China, or suffer the consequences of the USA not being our friend...thus the USA had the opportunity, and took it, to sell all the same kind of stuff we wanted to sell to China without having us as a competitor. It was only when, after that ten years, that President Xi noted in a public forum that China WOULD sign a free-trade agreement with Australia that same year, and then stuck a $30/ton tariff on Australian coal until we agreed it was a good idea...as soon as the tariff was imposed, the then PM Tony Abbott flew immediately to China, signed the deal, and said it was a great achievement, and we were the best of friends, whilst the US Secretary of State, at the time, Hilary, said we shouldn't have done it. It interfered with USA export profits to China. How was Australia a friend of the USA if also a competitor? The "Smart" Australian view was to basically 'ride two horses, with one foot on each'...unfortunately, they didn't notice that the horses were going in opposite directions. Not Smart, Australia. Best to have gone one way or the other, way back then. Too late now. 2020: Australia: Broke both legs....and no real friends.
Monday, 27 April 2020
As for the USA relaxing covid-19 restrictions, well, why not? See how they go. It's kind of like watching what happens in a petri-dish from a long way away. \Same with their gun laws...or lack of laws. If guns and disease make them happy, well, good. They don't need to ask anyone else's opinion, and they never do anyway. If it all means less Americans, the real world can cope with quite a few million less of them in a minute.
Friday, 24 April 2020
Trump is a poor leader. Yet he hasn't waged major war anywhere so is very unlike Obama, Bush, Clinton etc, going way back to that remarkable man Jimmy Carter. I'm not an American and I do see them as bizarre foreigners in an adolescent ridiculously powerful and greedy culture usually bent on attacking anyone they like...but always only countries that can't fight back. As for Trump, well, if he continues to pull troops out of Europe and Asia, well, that's great! As for being an effective leader within the USA, well, no, he is not good, he is quite bad, but, they elected him and thus deserve him. I expect he will win the election. I feel the same with the remarkable propensity for Americans to have and need guns. If they only kill their own people within their own borders, then, well, that's their own choice and that's their own business.
North Korea and South Korea remain the broken tectonic plate for the world. This remains the only place that one could have a war involving pretty well everyone. The geo-position of the 2 Koreas, between China, Russia, Japan, and the floating USA armada means it is the most sought-after real estate on Earth. This is North East Asia. This is the big time. Israel and Saudi and Palestine fall into profound insignificance in comparison. The religions of both South and North Korea are indeed fascinating. I will write more about both. North Korea is very difficult for the USA to invade, which is why they haven't done it. Any invasion would meet with a huge number of feisty Chinese PLA soldiers arriving first in Pyongyang, followed by Russian soldiers. Then the US would be third to arrive...and then a big face-off between the 3. Not pleasant. This geo-position means North Korea will remain independent for a long time to come. The current Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un, educated in Switzerland, is in his thirties and surprisingly has survived in a very cut-throat system by being the 'most cut throating'. He is not positively healthy with a family disposition to diabetes and the cancers. Here is a picture of his sister, Kim Yo Jong, a serious and high ranking politician in the propaganda and agitation department, and his wife, in pink, Ri So Jul. It is believed that Kim Jong Un and his wife have 3 children.
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