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Sunday, Apr 27, 2025 - 22:29 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

In This Respect

Seeing as the previous post has sparked either this blog's largest burst in popularity - or biggest DDoS attack - yet, here's the second part of the threefer, on Respect. But before that, a quick recap on current happenings - it's election season once again in sunny/rainy Singapore, but to be extremely frank, one figures that the real action is occurring elsewhere at the moment, what with not too many surprises expected in the local polls come what may. Our local politicos and leaders have actually been fairly clear-eyed and even-keeled on this, with our Senior Minister alluding to arm wrestling (ref. our Feburary 2 post) in his recent dissection of the U.S.-China situation. Our former effectively-First Lady has meanwhile reposted an article likening China's President to a mafia boss, but then this appears to be the new fashion (and honestly quite effective) at the highest levels of global diplomacy these days, so...

Getting back on theme, "respect" has taken centre stage in the international arena ever since tariffs came back in vogue, beginning at least from TRUMP's admonition of Zelensky for disrespect in the White House in March. Then, following U.S. Treasury Secretary Bessent's clear warning for countries not to retaliate after the Liberation Day tariffs, national reactions could be broadly be divided into three camps: firstly, those who indeed heeded the warning and did not retaliate, though with much grumbling and (not very convincing) snide remarks about "regional groups" and "international norms" (i.e. many smaller countries, the ring-kissers*); secondly, those who lashed out with their own tariffs or other measures and loud(er) demands for mutual respect, most notably the European Union and India (the secondary players). These have however largely been suspended, after GEOTUS declared his 90-day pause.

[*Hey, it could have been worse.]

And then there is China.

China was, of course, the primary target of this Game, and this was pretty obvious right from the get-go even when GEOTUS declared universal tariffs on everyone. China would continually vow to "fight to the end" and refuse to bow, but as again explained in early February, it was not as if they would be allowed to bow this early, even if they wanted to. Given this, China would signal that they would not talk if the U.S. would not show proper respect, while curbing Hollywood film imports towards a possible ban. Said requested respect was not exactly forthcoming with Bessent then declaring that China's escalation was a big mistake and that they were playing with a losing hand, which brought us to this whole escalation spiral.



If you want to say that this is purely a coincidence...
I guess I have nothing to say
[N.B. If you want to read further into this, note the direction in which the totally not a bald eagle's phoenix's head is turned - towards its left (where the arrows would have been) - signifying a turn towards war.]
[N.N.B. Traditional Chinese seal designs would show the critter in profile.]
(Source: ainvest.com)


As an aside on Hollywood and American media, their soft power advantage has clearly been dwindling overseas, with some of the downfall being self-inflicted. Much of the rest is simply due to other powers catching up on propaganda media influence techniques and delivery channels (i.e. TikTok), however, and it remains to be seen as to whether this decline can be arrested.

Oh, and about the penguins - they've just crashed an helicopter in South Africa. Never trust the penguins, folks, especially if they approach in groups of four, the innocent look's a front. GEOTUS knew well what he was doing with the tariffs, after all - and when his bid for Greenland gets accepted, those birds can apply for their Golden Visas if they aren't happy about it!

Vice-President Vance (who has gotten into the memespace with his impressive face-changing skills) had in the meantime kept temperatures rising with his reference to "Chinese peasants" in an interview, which was instantly slammed as "a slur", "arrogance" and of course "disrespect" by the Chinese end, and possibly inspired a local restaurant's short-lived stunt of a 104% surcharge on American diners. That said, one does wonder as to whether being called "peasants" should be taken as a negative by good Communists - aren't they the core revolutionary class against the bourgeois elements, and moreover relatively high on the social status ladder going further back? Ah, does one sense resentment at this un-socialist leaning, as they tried with the whole (Greater) co-prosperity thing?



And remember when it was projected last February, that Hollywood would be under threat in ten years? I give it five now.
[N.B. Excellent warning against modern mainstream FAKE NEWS, btw.]
[N.N.B. This is DEI done right, unlike what Hollywood is trying.]
[N.N.N.B. Do I hear a tong-ji for 同志 (Comrade) there?]
(video generated by Kuaishou's KlingAI 2.0)


Anyway, do forgive me if I'm unable to track exactly how the entire tariff slap-fight panned out, but after it reached 245%, the incalculable GOD-EMPEROR TRUMP would praise his Chinese counterpart as the "world's smartest" and hinted at softening tariffs... while also asserting that Xi was trying to screw the U.S. in cooperation with Vietnam, and upping tariffs on solar imports to 3521% (by the way, recall the 50000% tariffs on DeepSeek suggested back in February? Surely not that far away now!)

The point of it all appears to only have been fully realized about a week ago, though, as China suddenly came out, all guns blazing, vowing retaliation against any countries that heeded U.S. calls to isolate them (actually long telegraphed with Canada for example offering to match U.S. tariffs on China in March, before being whacked by China's retaliatory tariffs too). My clever readers may have figured out what is likely to come (hint: return to the Liar Game arc), but since that's firmly in the realm of strategy, let's leave it to the third and final installment of this SRS series, coming soon!

To conclude this post, one of the countermeasures from the American side has been the banning of U.S. personnel in China from having any romantic relationships with the locals, which while perhaps justified by a deluge of reports on possible Chinese espionage (as supposedly mandated by domestic law), substantially detracts from the perks of such postings. One imagines longtime U.S. "embassy staff" being terribly unhappy at this infringement on their legitimate entitlements (a necessary component of respect, by the way), which were previously limited to complaints about the quality of the honeypots on offer. Let's be frank here, everybody spies - but the exchange of substandard goods for secrets? Surely there should be some honour amongst thieves here?



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