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| At the International School in Berne, Switzerland |
Monday 6 September 2010
It's believed Kim Jong Un is about 27 years old now. Jan 8 I982 or 83 depending on how you count birth as 0 or 1
Saturday 4 September 2010
China and Korea
As time goes by I'll organise this blog into something with a structure, with pages regarding China and North Asia. There are a few very good reference books that I know of about China; ones that dont just provide a geo-political view but rather something more interesting and personal; including the ties that bind and the remarkable tensile stregth of families. I've travelled to various points well across China by plane and train three times and I know that isn't much but at the same time it is something and worth relating. I think you'll find that I do go on a bit about the scale of humanity when talking about China. It really is The People's Republic of People.
The way the top-down rule system works, a well thought through policy can lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into a much better life faster than these things have ever happened before in the world. At the same time a bad policy can do enormous harm. It is this point in particular that really does astound me.
A nation that is building a new city of 20 million people every year and has been doing so for about 2 decades and will continue on this track. That's China. To me it really is mind-boggling. I'll also include some re-edited the articles on China that I had published in the Bangkok Post over the past few years.
Last year China began the relocation of 200 million people from rural areas into new and existing cities...I think the annual rate is about 20 million people per year, so the plan for the next ten years is established, in place, and operating now.
A big change will come with the hand-over of power from the current Chairman Hu to the next Chairman in 2012. Both Hu and Wen are social-engineers whereas the new guys I think come from stronger political roots with closer ties to the Peoples Liberation Army and that will mean a lot in terms of re-structuring defense systems and providing everything from a brand new full sized modern navy to anti-satellite missiles and some form of nuclear shield. So the future is very interesting and so much depends upon China, the soft-power re-unification of Taiwan, and the sway of power across the Koreas. There is no North or South Korea, really; it is a divided country much the same as Vietnam was divided, but is now unified. How this happens with the Koreas will be quite devastatingly important to world peace.
The Middle East is always unsolved simply because it is not really worth the effort of the 'great powers' to solve. There's just not the human density nor resources there that can really make much difference no matter who has what weapon. If peace mattered there, it would have happened by now. Whereas in North Asia the combination of huge populations, massive resources, clashing ideology and strategic world power is right there, right on a 'tectonic plate' of humanity where if one thing goes wrong, everything can change very quickly; and if something does go wrong then everything, for all of us, will change very quickly.
The way the top-down rule system works, a well thought through policy can lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and into a much better life faster than these things have ever happened before in the world. At the same time a bad policy can do enormous harm. It is this point in particular that really does astound me.
A nation that is building a new city of 20 million people every year and has been doing so for about 2 decades and will continue on this track. That's China. To me it really is mind-boggling. I'll also include some re-edited the articles on China that I had published in the Bangkok Post over the past few years.
Last year China began the relocation of 200 million people from rural areas into new and existing cities...I think the annual rate is about 20 million people per year, so the plan for the next ten years is established, in place, and operating now.
A big change will come with the hand-over of power from the current Chairman Hu to the next Chairman in 2012. Both Hu and Wen are social-engineers whereas the new guys I think come from stronger political roots with closer ties to the Peoples Liberation Army and that will mean a lot in terms of re-structuring defense systems and providing everything from a brand new full sized modern navy to anti-satellite missiles and some form of nuclear shield. So the future is very interesting and so much depends upon China, the soft-power re-unification of Taiwan, and the sway of power across the Koreas. There is no North or South Korea, really; it is a divided country much the same as Vietnam was divided, but is now unified. How this happens with the Koreas will be quite devastatingly important to world peace.
The Middle East is always unsolved simply because it is not really worth the effort of the 'great powers' to solve. There's just not the human density nor resources there that can really make much difference no matter who has what weapon. If peace mattered there, it would have happened by now. Whereas in North Asia the combination of huge populations, massive resources, clashing ideology and strategic world power is right there, right on a 'tectonic plate' of humanity where if one thing goes wrong, everything can change very quickly; and if something does go wrong then everything, for all of us, will change very quickly.
The Facts
"Every one of us comes up from time to time with an idea that is enormous in its impact and meaning. I dont believe that it is in the province of politicians, priests or businessmen, marketeers or publishers, or any of the lesser forms of human flotsam, to proclaim propriety rights over world understanding or direction.... What is meaningful does not have an address and does not accept cash or Visa cards."JF2010
Friday 3 September 2010
The Works of Yukio Mishima
My Reading List: Thirst for Love, The Temple of the Golden Pavilion, & Spring Snow (the first of the cycle of novels titled Sea of Fertility) all written by Yukio Mishima. I love the Kinokinuya Bookshop chain. You can get any book there, either off the shelf or by fast mail. Any book. Michel de Montaigne's 1580 "Apology for Raymond Sebord'...in French, English, Hindi, or Mandarin...anything. The facility-base is astounding and has nothing to do with the crass limitations of new technology, or of borders.
What Mishima did, with his Sea of Fertility 'tetralogy', was set in place a 'cycle of novels' so that when you've read through the bunch, you can approach the first one, Spring Snow, with an informed knowledge that can take you through it all again, and the rest, at the next level of understanding.
This is why he said when he started the work that the day he finished it all, he would kill himself; and he was true to that, and did that. Fuck, I'm not going to do that, but I appreciate the fact that he did do that.
It's only when faced by such people I realise I am not a very good writer at all; but it doesn't diminish the joy one iota. I am becoming, again, as between years 12 and 30, a great and passionate reader, which is where the joy begins and belongs and endures as real knowledge.
What Mishima did, with his Sea of Fertility 'tetralogy', was set in place a 'cycle of novels' so that when you've read through the bunch, you can approach the first one, Spring Snow, with an informed knowledge that can take you through it all again, and the rest, at the next level of understanding.
This is why he said when he started the work that the day he finished it all, he would kill himself; and he was true to that, and did that. Fuck, I'm not going to do that, but I appreciate the fact that he did do that.
It's only when faced by such people I realise I am not a very good writer at all; but it doesn't diminish the joy one iota. I am becoming, again, as between years 12 and 30, a great and passionate reader, which is where the joy begins and belongs and endures as real knowledge.
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