Re <<Who [sic] [k]new life could be this much fun?>> YES! We are on the same page.
have been asked to explicitly / no-wishy-washy respond to below e-mail thread <<I wonder what J thinks about article below and especially about some of the comments that follow the article:>>, and shall this day.
the e-mail group carries a bit of weight by various means
so instead of continuing to read the current book I was on, given the stuff that is going on, may be good to give the big and small pictures a think over relaxing drink next to the pool. sort of like walking the dog but instead sheep dogging the jack, and keep company with the coconut as she preps for her exams all given in the coming week.
2026 / 2032 is an absorbing hobby
The book I was reading, the back cover ...
No. It is not what you think. The year is 1897, not 1997. This is a fictional account of Hong Kong being invaded by the combined forces of France and Russia.
This visionary novel by an anonymous author has been forgotten for a hundred years. Yet when published as The Back Doorduring the negotiations between Imperial China and Great Britain over the lease of the New Territories, the story aroused serious British fears about the possibility of defending Hong Kong against attack. Copies were then to be found on the desks of British officials in London. Matthew Nathan, who became Governor in 1904, was advised to read the book. But it was not only in 1897 that the book was accurate in its observations on military tactics. There are many intriguing parallels with the Christmas 1941 invasion by the Japanese and the role of the Hong Kong Volunteers at that time. Three strategically vulnerable locations identified in The Back Doorwere considered for attack in 1941. Had the Japanese read this fictional battle when plotting their manoeuvres? If so, The Back Doornot only taught one way to defend Hong Kong, but also another to attack it.
Gillian Bickley, a long-term Hong Kong resident, rediscovered this story and has cracked the code to identify many of the real people of Hong Kong—Chinese, Indian and European, civil and military, distinguished and ordinary—who play a part in the story. Maps and illustrations help make this fantasy of an alternative future for Hong Kong come alive.
On 2 Jun 2019, at 5:29 AM, R wrote:
safe to assume that talks did not end that well in Singapore?
scmp.com
On 2 Jun 2019, at 4:09 AM, G wrote:
Should be good for cross border shopping. As Americans come across into Canada , to buy Chinese made goods and Cuban cigars
G
On 2 Jun 2019, at 3:04 AM, F wrote:
Acting Defense chief Shanahan vows U.S. will no longer 'tiptoe' around Chinese behavior in AsiaIn his first major speech on the international stage, Shanahan denounced China's efforts to steal technology from other nations and militarize man-made outposts in the South China Sea.
On 2 Jun 2019, at 2:59 AM, F wrote:
I fully agree:
Trade deficit is such a great thing, why would we want to balance that? Just imagine all these countries sending us goods, products, using their labor and polluting their environment while we give them some printed paper in return. What a bargain! Imagine how happy India would be if they can buy everything from us and give us some rupee in return.
F
On 2 Jun 2019, at 2:54 AM, R wrote:
Both China and US should have studied a little Sun Tzu:
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Xi was totally blind sided. I am sure he did not think about how US would react to his 3.5 hour speech promoting "made in China 2025" which started it all.
US has no idea how the Chinese feels about another round of strong arm tactics. Not that I am some historian but I think I can appreciate the motivation behind the Chinese positions better.
But it really doesn't matter who is right or wrong, if there is such a thing. We are at a point that there are no common grounds anymore. There will be some form of an agreement that is as worthless as used toilet paper. The Chinese side is only buying time so they can be self-sufficient, or at least not as US dependent as now. The US side will renege any time something displeases them, such as NAFTA, and USMCA and reneged before anything is signed.
I think China is going to be set back quite a bit but more importantly, I keep wondering what I (being in the US) have to gain?
Trade deficit is such a great thing, why would we want to balance that? Just imagine all these countries sending us goods, products, using their labor and polluting their environment while we give them some printed paper in return. What a bargain! Imagine how happy India would be if they can buy everything from us and give us some rupee in return.
What do we have to gain if Nike moves all production from China to Vietnam? Does Trump know that Vietnam is also a communist country, and, at this stage of their development, they are likely to make Chinese IP stealing look like petty theft. (I have a friend who wanted to move a garment factory to Vietnam. They were not that interested. They mainly want high tech industries.)
On 2 Jun 2019, at 2:35 AM, G wrote:
While she is not wrong re Chinese resolve.
I think many people often confuse the Han and other tribes that have ruled china.
She should likely also study American history and many of the wonderful events governed by the Monroe doctrine and such.
I think she believes the team USA is a rational being and cares about what others , in particular china , thinks.
Probably a fatal mistake to hold such believe In fact it may just be the opposite.
Maybe they are hoping for the reaction. The proverbial sucker punch served up
What next to push team China over the edge
And if the Chinese total lack of control over in the reaction to the Canada huawei instance is any example. It should be entertaining.
China removed any doubt in minds of the average canadian of who side Canada was on.
In fact I would say more Canadians were pro china then pro America leading up to this point.
But the Chinese over reaction both via trade and arrests of Canadians , has definitely moved this needle. Well played team USA. As Canada now firmly on side with team USA. And will move in step on trade policy going fwd.
also well played team USA for having kicked up team canada using renegotiation of trade deal to get the most important point. That Canada cannot nego a bilateral deal with china with team USA signoff - sealed the right flank so to speak.
My own view. With these latest prods from team USA. The Chinese will be like a hornet nest disturbed. The calm veneer will come off. And they will over react. Now I do not know.
As i personally believe that the powers to be in Washington really don't care if all trade with China stops. So they will keep playing hoping for the overreaction that sets everyone on edge.
Also team USA happy to leave the Chinese , Russians and Arabs squabbling over energy and other resources.
Should be fun !
G
On 2 Jun 2019, at 2:22 AM, C wrote:
To me it sounds like the commentators supporting China are rolling out the violins. Poor China. Being picked on again. Another burden to take on and get ready for a long march.
Not to say that US played its cards right. But this big push should have been done during switch from MFN renewals to WTO entry. NOW it is too late to play Trump's game.
Enjoy the show.
On 2 Jun 2019, at 2:04 AM, F wrote:
I wonder what J thinks about article below and especially about some of the comments that follow the article:
Asian Angle by Leslie Fong
Trump’s biggest mistake in US-China trade war: not realising the Chinese will never genuflect again
• China’s collective memory of a century of humiliation by foreign powers, beginning with the First Opium War, has steeled its resolve
• American politicians just do not understand the power of national self-esteem that underpins China’s resilience, writes Leslie Fong
Leslie Fong
Published: 11:30am, 1 Jun, 2019
TOP PICKS
US politicians such as President Donald Trump fail to see the strength that the Chinese can draw from the depths of their soul. Photo: AP
What stiffens the back of China’s leaders and people as they confront a United States bent on subjugating their country through economic and other means ?
I would argue that it is their collective memory of the century of humiliation by foreign powers that began with the First Opium War (1839-1842), a period of unforgettable injury to national pride best captured in that infamous sign “Dogs and Chinese not allowed” which was hung at the entrance of a park in the so-called British concession inside Shanghai.
Lessons learned by China in opium wars ring true in US trade row
American politicians who think of relations between nations only in terms of transactions and deal-making just do not understand the power of national self-esteem that underpins China’s resilience – or the strength that the Chinese can draw from the depths of their soul.
Australia’s former prime minister Kevin Rudd does, and in a commentary published in The New York Times last week, he argued that America’s disregard for Chinese nationalist sentiments had all but closed any window for a speedy resolution of differences between the two countries.
Perhaps some of the hawks in the American establishment do get it, but just do not care. Doubtless, they believe America might will prevail, as it seems to have over the past few decades when the US rode roughshod over other countries.
A 19th century wood engraving showing the bombardment of Canton, China, by the British fleet in 1841 during the First Opium War. Photo: Alamy
Share: And so the Trump administration kept turning the screws, only to find that a people who have stood up at long last after being on their knees for so long are determined not to genuflect again – ever. It will understand soon enough that in the face of even the most intense bullying, the Chinese will not roll over like the Canadians or the Japanese.
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Its brazen attempt to dictate to the Chinese what they can or cannot do to catapult their country to the forefront of industrial and technological development has served only to rip open scars in the Chinese psyche that have barely healed. The Chinese people will be damned if they allow a replay of that traumatic period of their history when, among other indignities, their government had to yield the sovereign right to collect custom duty to foreigners.
China’s wrong, US can kill off Huawei. But here’s why it won’t
China’s leaders know full well that the so-called trade war is not just about buying more soybeans or Boeing aircraft, or agreeing to a trading concession here and a compliance there. The US is demanding nothing less than having China submit to its will and give up its lead in certain cutting-edge technologies and industries. Beijing sees that as a bid to colonise China by another name and has called it out as such through its media.
China’s leaders will fight this full-frontal assault on its sovereignty – to the bitter end, if need be. They have little choice. They know capitulation will undermine their rule. Worse, history will judge them harshly as sinners who have betrayed their nation just as it is poised to resume its rightful place in the world. It is hard to see how President Xi Jinping and his senior colleagues, who see the fulfilment of China’s destiny as resting squarely on their shoulders, will allow such a damning verdict to be laid at their door.
If Trump kills off Huawei, do Asia’s 5G dreams die?
They are not surprised that the West, especially the US, has acted, finally and with a vengeance, on its perception of China’s rise as a grave threat to its dominance of the world order. For the better part of two decades, they have been at pains to tell the world that China is not out to challenge anyone, and hope they will be believed. It is inconceivable that they have also not prepared for the worst.
Well, the worst has arrived – as proponents of American hegemony have decided that it is now or never to take China down while it is still vulnerable. And in the present occupant of the White House they have found their useful idiot, to use the Leninist term, to lead the battering, and take the blame if all hell breaks loose.
Proponents of American hegemony have decided that it is now or never to take China down. Photo: AP
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So what gives when the seemingly irresistible meets the immovable?
For the Americans, it is either doubling down or coming around, however reluctantly, to accepting that China will never cave in and that working out an arrangement in which both countries can cooperate as well as compete without disrupting the entire global economy and order is the next best option.
On the Chinese side, I think they think they can wait if they cannot find a compromise they can live with. Meanwhile, they will continue to look into history, if they have not already done so, for pointers to guide their future action.
Trade war: here are Beijing’s options – and not one looks any good
Apart from the First and Second Opium Wars – from which the chief lesson is that the weak must suffer what they must – there is also much to learn from the first Sino Japanese war (July 1894 to April 1895). In that encounter, China under the Qing dynasty fought Japan after the latter invaded Korea, at that time a Chinese protectorate.
Despite numerical superiority in terms of fighting men and ships, China’s Beiyang Fleet was trounced. China ended up suing for peace and in the 1895 Treaty of Shimonoseki, ceded Taiwan and Penghu Island to Japan in perpetuity.
While the disputed Diaoyu Islands were not named in that treaty, Japan also took the opportunity to seize and annex them as part of its Okinawa Prefecture.
In addition, China had to pay 13,600 tonnes of silver to Japan as war reparations, equivalent to 4.6 times the Japanese government’s total annual revenue at that time.
Chinese President Xi Jinping has marshalled a united front to stave off any Western attempt at disrupting and containing China’s inexorable rise. Photo: Reuters
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The first lesson from this debacle is that an essentially agricultural economy, as China was at the time, could never match a rapidly industrialising state like Japan which had chosen to learn from the West after the Meiji Restoration in 1868.
While China today is no longer a weak agricultural country, what Beijing must think very carefully about is whether it has built up sufficient depth and strength in its economy to withstand a long, drawn-out cold war with the US and maybe large parts of the West as well. This is how it will calibrate the scale and intensity of the Chinese tit for the American tat.
Why China shouldn’t retaliate against US firms after Huawei ban
The second lesson is that China cannot hope to take on an encroaching foreign power if its own government is divided and corrupt, as the Qing court had long been at the time. Li Hongzhang, the leading official charged with warding off the Japanese, did not have the support of the still-influential Manchu princes as well as other officials, who carried on in their corrupt ways as though the war had nothing to do with them.
A statue of Li Hongzhang, a Chinese politician of the late Qing dynasty, at the Hong Kong Maritime Museum. Photo: Jonathan Wong
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Indeed, the Qing Treasury refused to allocate the funds Li needed to buy modern ships and guns, and money that was to have gone into the war effort went instead to pay for the Empress Dowager’s elaborate birthday celebrations. The paralysis resulting from the intense power struggle was utterly demoralising to the soldiers at the front. Little wonder then that Western newspapers at the time commented that it looked as if it was just Li alone, not the Qing government, who was fighting the Japanese.
A trade deal is still possible. But it’ll take a Xi-Trump one-on-one
Further, Li was then in his 70s, did not have the stamina necessary for so immense a task as going to war with a powerful enemy, knew little about strategy and foreign affairs, and had no planning and support staff to assist him in making decisions.
Seen from this perspective, it is now apparent that one of the reasons President Xi has been so ruthless in cracking down on corruption and dissent might well be that he does not want to give any hostage to fortune as he marshals a united front to stave off any Western attempt at disrupting and containing China’s inexorable rise.
Beijing will take the fight to the Americans, not just sit there and wait for their blows to land. Photo: Reuters
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Further, Xi, who appears to be full of vigour and can call on the best minds in the nation of 1.4 billion, is not likely to repeat Li’s three grave mistakes. The first was Li’s forlorn hope for British and Russian intervention to stop the Japanese in Korea. Xi is not going to wait for any country to come openly to China’s aid in the fight against American hegemony.
Second, Li dillied and dallied when it came to dispatching the Beiyang Fleet as well as land forces to the Korean theatre, even when he knew war was going to be inevitable. That delay cost China dearly. And third, when forces were indeed deployed, his order was to preserve China’s battleships, not repel the Japanese armada before it came anywhere near Korean shores.
Beijing will take the fight to the Americans, not just sit there and wait for their blows to land. But it will do so in a graduated fashion – targeting President Trump’s political base, including soybean farmers; American businesses that openly support him; US enterprises in China; exporters of rare earths, etcetera.
And … remember what happened to Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer of Huawei?
Leslie Fong is a former editor of Singapore’s The Straits Times US-China relations
The humiliation of the Han began in 1644 with conquest by Buddhist Manchu Tartars and ends with the 1911-12 toppling of the Manchu
Then the Han try to legitimate their expansion to takeover Manchu conquests 100 years of humiliation by the west is nonsense
________________________________________
From: P
Sent: Saturday, June 1, 2019 1:11 PM
To: F
Subject: Re: SCMP - Trump’s biggest mistake: not realising China will never genuflect again sc.mp
...reasons? Taiping Rebellion?? Boxer Rebellion? Hsin-Hai Revolution, Manchu corruption? The last stand of "Chinese Conservatism"? Warlordism? Communist uprisings? Japanese invasion? Chinese Civil War, Lean to One Side? The Korean War? 3-Antis/5-Antis, Three Red Flags, GPCR, Gang of Four? Mao's 30%? Looks like China's Century of humiliation was entirely self-inflicted ... couldn't have been Western oppression... if anything, European investment was the only force trying to modernize China: railroad, Telegraph, postal service, universities, customs, ... indeed, Western investment was the only force trying to keep China from falling apart? Indeed it's the primary force behind China's current "Rise" ... and soon will become the West's self-inflicted wound, no?
...is it just me?" ...
-------- Original message --------
From: O
Date: 6/1/19 12:25 PM (GMT-05:00)
To: F
Subject: Re: SCMP - Trump’s biggest mistake: not realising China will never genuflect again sc.mp
Whatever the reasons for China's decline from the mid-19th century, the humiliation/foreign bully narrative is central to the national mindset and Xi and co can but play on that with the added benefit of Ttump stelping straight out of central casting.
On 1 Jun 2019, at 11:55 PM, R wrote:
cnbc.com
I wonder if China would include the US demands with this document, and let the world judge which side of this conflict is more reasonable.
-----Original Message-----
From: I
Sent: Saturday, June 1, 2019 2:58 PM
To: M
Subject: Re: Comments - Week of 27 May
Three Fed Cuts on Bond-Market Radar as Curve Inversion Deepens - Bloomberg bloomberg.com
On Fri, May 31, 2019 at 5:06 PM M wrote:
China - always ripping off American ideas..... <g>
bloomberg.com
SNIP:
China said it will establish a list of so-called “unreliable" entities it says damage the interests of domestic companies, a sweeping order that could potentially affect thousands of foreign firms.....
M |
