Powered by glolg
Display Preferences Most Recent Entries Chatterbox Blog Links Site Statistics Category Tags About Me, Myself and Gilbert XML RSS Feed
Wednesday, Jan 14, 2026 - 00:49 SGT
Posted By: Gilbert

Some National Resolutions (Part III)


Five undeniably great leaders headline the NYT!
(Sources: nytimes.com, youtube.com)


Part III should be a good place to return the ongoing National Resolutions series closer to home, while also catching up on some loose ends. Reflecting the concerns from Part II, China has just identified Team Blue Europe's real threat as themselves, and pressed them to bar entry to Taiwanese politicians, lest they fall foul of the (Team) "Red line" mentioned; that Venezuela raid seems to have hit a raw nerve with respect to the apparent failure of their radars, though they might take comfort in the latest news that the radars were not connected to the (Russian) air defence systems, probably thanks to U.S. intelligence.

Otherwise, China has indeed been rather quiet on Venezuela after the initial (ineffectual) protests, and one supposes they are willing to wait Taiwan out, especially given their abysmal population replacement rate. On the local end, our Deputy Prime Minister has seen fit to announce that only three per cent of registered retail businesses here are owned by PRCs (with 89% by Singaporeans), to which sharp commentators noted that this statistic neglected that foreign Chinese retail entities would much more likely be large [advanced] chains (e.g. Haidilao, Scarlett and Mixue - that last already the world's largest food-service chain, having overtaken Starbucks), each of which would equal dozens of individual storefronts.

Such strategic information-control maneuvers - as with the latest head-scratcher on TraceTogether not breaking public trust - could then have inspired the New York Times to place our Senior Minister on the same level as TRUMP and Putin* (while omitting Xi somehow), a honour surely matching Hegseth's elevation of LKY from last May. This appears to be due to strenuous nomination from our SM's nephew, who alleged a "pattern of using police investigations and criminal prosecutions to dispose of or exile his (political) opponents", as is currently happening with the (quite popular) Leader of the Opposition, aptly mirrored by TRUMP's investigation of Fed chair Powell.



More great leaders
(Source: channelnewsasia.com)


Our Prime Minister's New Year Message bluntly acknowledged the end of the previous global order while emphasizing economic Strategy and success (which has had our President also sound out on national debt at MIT) as a "means to an end" - the echoing of the U.S. National Security Strategy here might be mere happenstance. Anyhow, one understands if all this was put on the backburner, after GEOTUS TRUMP called him two days later to reaffirm the Strength of their bilateral partnership (as recently supported) - right before Maduro got snatched.

It was all a close partner wishing to deepen cooperation (as with the Chinese, recall?) could do, then, to express "grave concern" over the unilateral military intervention, with our Senior Minister soon saying that it was "quite clearly a contravention of international law", concurrent with the new dean of the LKYSPP (after the previous one left soon after questioning America's place as Number One) raising the need for "international law and rules". On this, let us just assert for now that there is a reason why America (and to a lesser extent, Team Blue) has consistently used the phrasing of "rules-based [international] order" (RBO), instead of (U.N. Charter-based) "international law" - they are quite evidently not the same thing**.

This had local discussants debate Singapore's true foreign policy principles online, and it was realized that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs' boilerplate press statement was in fact essentially the same as that put out for Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 - which is congurent with claims of (relative) neutrality, I guess. Registered Team Blue flag-waver Bilahari Kausikan took the opportunity to repeat former Foreign Minister S. Rajaratnam's description of practical diplomacy as taking place in a "jungle world" - now containing a Great American Empire...



Didn't know it was that happening on USS Iwo Jima
[N.B. The static image in the news sure didn't reflect the fun!]
[N.N.B. The immaculate product placement for the Nike sweatsuit has reportedly overshadowed the viral Adidas Chinese jacket, in yet another show of American dominance.]


[*Who has evidently revived the Cossacks as hinted, this time with satellite internet attached. Some may laugh, but show me an alternative single-seater army vehicle that is fuelled by grass, tackles off-road terrain, and self-replicates over time.]

[**Put simply, America makes (up) the rules.]



comments (0) - email - share - print - direct link
trackbacks (0) - trackback url


Next: A Meaning In Years


Related Posts:
Whiter Than White
Heaven And Hell
A Pigeonhole Theory for Nations
Twelve Mostly Men
Two Years With Covid
Back to top

Copyright © 2006-2026 GLYS. All Rights Reserved.