PBBM, join the SCO already!
Analysis and Opinion
By LCX
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization is ascendant! And the Philippines has a big role to play in it. The Philippines can seize all the opportunities which were never opened to it by the West. The West will be jealous and worried and will entice it with more opportunities. So by the very act of joining the SCO, the Philippines increases its opportunities two-fold. President Marcos! Join the SCO already! You can’t lose.
And here’s why.
The Philippines is in prime position right now, straddling the East and the West. And the West is on shaky ground. Belarus has decided to be with the East, while Ukraine is with the West and soon will be part of NATO and the EU. But the EU and NATO is not looking too strong these days. The UK is in bad shape economically and Germany needs to figure out how to stay warm now while keeping things running. Turkey is not getting into the EU, and might very well be leaving NATO due to friction over the Eastern Mediterranean with Greece among other countries as its opponents. Greece has too much EEZ, Turkey wants more of, it and UNCLOS is not helping at all. And there’s potentially a lot of oil and gas for the EU there, solving its Russian dependence. Similarly, UNCLOS is a neutered institution in the South China Sea. So why not forget about EEZ problems in the South China Sea and instead focus on the myriad of opportunities right now available to the Philippines.
The Bretton Woods system, WB and IMF, is now clearly weak. But SWIFT and various international banking schemes are still very much effective in sanctioning and punishing actors that the West deems unsavory. This causes non-Western nations to worry. Whatever your thoughts are on the matter of sanctions, good or bad, the fact is there’s obviously a clear monopoly of the global financial structure. It’s American. And common sense tells us monopolies tend to be more counter-productive than productive, negating the ideals of stability, progress, and prosperity. Although China is clearly participating in loan-trap diplomacy all over the world, buyer beware. WB and IMF have been doing this and promoting neolib economic agendas to the detriment of third world nations for a lot longer than China. It’s in the interest of the Philippines to change the global financial structure and help bring about competition.
And this is where the SCO comes in.
The SCO is the EU, NATO, UN, and WB-IMF combined, really. China and Russia used to be equal partners, but thanks to Putin’s adventure in Ukraine, Russia is now diminished and China is the main driver. Pakistan and India are now part of the SCO. By next year Iran will be a full fledge member. Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, the UAE, Bahrain and Kuwait are all interested. Turkey soon will be full member, and Syria and Iraq look like they’ll be joining as well. Israel has also applied. In South East Asia, Vietnam, Cambodia and Burma, and I believe also Malaysia, are interested in joining the SCO. With a weakened Russia, China will have no choice but become a better example to all the new members, observers, and partners. It won’t be the same strongman centric organization of the mid-2000s. The SCO will have to be more democratic and transparent to accommodate this expansion, and it’s in their interest to expand further.
If PBBM tenders his application and makes public his interest of joining the SCO now, the Philippines will surely be the belle of the ball. And there will be plenty of balls. The Philippines’ ballspende (dance card) will fill up in no time. Collect, collect and then select. In the area of security cooperation, the Philippines can coordinate with Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt and Turkey and get advice on Islamic extremism and best practices in countering it. I’ve written on this before https://joeam.com/2015/11/22/the-islamic-renaissance-in-the-philippines/ . In military cooperation, similar to security, the Philippines can work with India and Israel, two clear democracies with clear military powers. China can also provide advice in matters big and small, from blue water operations to counterinsurgency, since this was the main point of the SCO in the beginning, to counter Islamic terrorism, extremism and separatism in Central Asia. A closer relationship may alleviate tensions over the South China Sea.
The SCO also purports to coordinate culturally, but with such a wide expanse of interests, there’s really no shared culture in the SCO, except maybe for geographic congruity. Linguistically, there is congruency with Iran, Afghanistan (future member) and Tajikistan, and of course in the Arabic speaking countries. The Stan countries of course speak Russian. English will have to be included as the main language spoken in the SCO, which will make things easier for the Philippines, India, Turkey, Israel and others that don’t speak Russian or Chinese. But the main congruence will have to be in money & currency. And this is where the Philippines can reap the most benefits, in banking , finance and money. Economic cooperation will require consolidation as well as separation from current systems that the Philippines is now part of. But because it is a new story that needs to be told, and be shared, the Philippines can help propel this new monetary system forward. With no local heroes but local animals and plants on paper notes, the new CBDC will be invisible.
Forget the South China Sea. If the Philippines joins the SCO, PBBM will stand to gain more in this new financial structure. In the meantime, as it waits as partner then as observer to the SCO, the USA, its WB-IMF, plenty of Wall Street bubbas will entice the Philippines with better deals to keep it in the fold. Let’s say, for example, it takes 5 to 10 years as partner then observer to the SCO. The old global financial structure will give the Philippines better deals, and with the new financial structure, the SCO also enticing the Philippines, all PBBM and Inday Sara (assuming here that she will be Philippine president after) have to do is ensure they are not falling into any debt traps. Because deals are being made with the East and the West, USA and China, the Philippines will be able to play one deal against the other and have the ability to ensure the best deal is taken.
These deals can whittle down to the most personal level, with so many people being affected by the promise of these deals. Ideally, the individuals involved will be more cognizant and be more involved in the dispensation of said money. I’m assuming, since the SCO bank is not really fully formed yet, that it will be the AIIB or maybe since India is now part of the SCO the NDB (which was specifically formed for BRICS), will play the role of WB-IMF. Also with RCEP, the Philippines will have access to East Asia and ANZ, expanding its potential of more trade and money being made. Checks and balances, in the form of whistle blower protection laws and complaints process, will have to improve in the Philippines, driving corruption down to hopefully zero whilst driving competency up. There are 3 areas where I see the Philippines contributing to the SCO, thus increasing its comparative advantage with other member states. The western sensibilities of Filipinos will contribute greatly in the fields of Ethics, Aesthetics and in the balance of Nature.
In Nature, the Chinese and others in the SCO are hungry for fresh fish and natural rubber, among other needed items. The world likes to eat fish and the world needs natural rubber to function and move fresh fish around. But most importantly, sustainability in these two industries has been well studied. I’ve long proposed that the Philippines should, as a whole, adopt the Costa Rican model of eco-tourism, here https://joeam.com/2016/07/14/do-not-go-gentle-into-that-good-night/ . With a similar philosophy, you can still profit from a balanced approach in farming, either for fish or for rubber, while still producing more and scaling up production. Rubber trees can be easily intercropped and they look beautiful, so Airbnb friendly. In the Philippine Sea, open ocean fish farming can be done with the help of Chinese funding and engineering. The ability to make big things fast can avert over fishing and illegal fishing, and may even provide a solution for world hunger. The natural rubber industry is fraught with danger mostly because others trade it as commodities and futures. Why not work with China to have manufacturing of rubber products be done in the Philippines? And using the Costa Rican model to ensure balance, since profitability does not mean turning the Philippines into Mordor.
In Ethics, it’s pretty obvious that the nations in the SCO now will not be too keen on Ethics. Might makes Right vs. Right makes Might will be foreign to many of them, but if they want to compete with the West, they’ll have to catch up quickly. I’ve written about Filipino lawyers here https://joeam.com/2015/05/21/a-filipino-aclu-and-lawyering-in-the-philippines/ . In addition to lawyers, especially the finance, taxation law, and international law types, they’ll need economists, but not of the neolib variety but for de-growth economics. They’ll need anthropologists and philosophers to not only make the SCO aware of the variety of ethical traditions they come from but to create a new consensus, a new congruence not based on the Anglosphere first or the Hajnal line reality of Western ethics, in spite of its purported Judeo-Christian values. Since money and currency will be the defining feature of the SCO, its culture if you will, this narrative the SCO will need lawyers, economists, anthropologists and philosophers, to codify this new shared narrative. The beauty with social science and the humanities is that all you really need are books and Google, and good teachers. So have China fund more programs to teach these new story tellers.
Lastly in Aesthetics, Filipinos already have a leg up on everyone when it comes to art and entertainment. The machinery for K-Pop is really simple. They scour for talent, mostly Koreans, in Asia and around the world, place said talents in some sort of bootcamp where they are molded, then like a factory toss out the defects, and out comes the best and most talented. Form them into groups, then rinse and repeat. But musically, Filipinos have a wider scope. They play in cruise ships as well as clubs all over the world. They can adjust really well and play by ear. With enough funding, maybe following the same factory process of K-Pop, the Philippines can also be the main source of entertainment for the SCO. In music and in movies, although Bollywood is very popular, the Philippines can probably also do movies that will play to a larger audience. But the most promising potential in art and entertainment is in education, and the metaverse with game design and playable media, which is already reality in Cebu City. The Philippines can provide the SCO and the rest of the world with rich content. With SCO funding and partnerships, Filipino schools and start-ups can hone this creativity and produce not only new content, but potentially new designs and technologies.
Whether or not PBBM, or by 2028 Inday Sara herself, will eventually join the SCO and leave the West, is unimportant right now. The most important is to seize all opportunities coming from the East and the West right now. Between the WB-IMF, NATO, the EU, the Euro and US dollar, even UN’s UNCLOS, every institution that came out of WWII or out of America, will soon likely be replaced by the SCO. They are on shaky ground. Once the infrastructure for CBDC is in place to accommodate all of the SCO members, the US dollar will either fall out of favor completely or will follow suit designing a post-fiat monetary system. The West will constrict and contract before it can be ascendant again, if ever it will be. Maybe the West will catch up and evolve a better system. But the East via the SCO looks like they’ve found a replacement to the old global financial structure. And that eventuality is worth joining the SCO.
That’s why PBBM should now join the SCO.
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Photo from Reddit: Pax Sinica – A China Dominated Asia
The Society of Honor by Joe America 
https://hir.harvard.edu/digital-dynasties-how-chinas-cryptocurrency-could-unseat-the-dollar/
“Again, China is at the fore, leading the way from cash to cryptocurrency with a new central bank digital currency (CBDC), the e-CNY, commonly known as the digital yuan. Although the US dollar remains the world’s dominant fiat currency, an analysis of the geopolitics surrounding the battle for currency hegemony reveals that China’s digital yuan will pose a serious challenge to the dollar status quo as the 21st century unfolds.”
Saudi Arabia and Iran want in; Turkey and Israel, Qatar and the UAE,
I think they want to join cuz of CBDC that’s coming up and also sick and tired of how the US can just arbitrarily sanctions people and nations at will, karl. plus with all this inflation, and issues never fixed since 2009, the Western financial system is looking rather shaky.
CBDC looks like the most prominent contender, no matter what Micha says, LOL! 😉
IMF publication on CBDC
https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/fandd/issues/2022/09/Picture-this-The-ascent-of-CBDCs
“With no local heroes *but local animals and plants on paper notes, the new CBDC will be invisible.”
That’s a typo, karl, no images is my point, that favors one country or another. CBDC if China does it right, should be like Bitcoin, open to all for all.
Whoa, what?
Just for starters…
Belarus hasn’t “decided to be with the east”. Belarus has a dictator that is owned by Russia. When the Belarussian people have a choice – and sooner or later they will – they will choose the west, and Russia will have a problem that dwarfs their Ukraine issue.
What exactly is this gas that is supposed to liberate Europe from Russian dependence?
The Bretton Woods system ceased to exist in 1971.
Why exactly would the Philippines be the belle of the SCO ball? What’s here that’s so special?
Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey don’t have a great record at countering Islamic extremism, and their advice is likely to be way outside constitutional limits.
What “new monetary system” are you talking about, and what capacity does the Philippines, an economic cripple, have to drive anything forward?
If you think the US owns the WB/IMF, think again. If you think the US, the WB/IMF, and Wall Street are going to shower the Philippines with largesse to bring them back into the fold, you’re dreaming. Nobody cares. You can’t play one against the other when you’re the ugly duckling.
Bottom line: no international agreement or alliance is going to solve the problems of the Philippines. Those problems are entirely internal and nobody but Filipinos can solve them. Until that happens, no international alliance is going to care much about the Philippines because the country will be more of a liability than an asset.
First things first.
“If you think the US owns the WB/IMF, think again.”
Yeah it “owns” it, like it owns the UN, roger.
read:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Bank#Leadership
“The Bretton Woods system ceased to exist in 1971.”
the fiat system, though connected with the WB/IMF et al, is not the same as the WB/IMF. in that gold standard ending did not also end WB/IMF. though the Jekyll island model of int’l financial structure is obviously showing cracks , reparable or not is debatable.
“Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, and Turkey don’t have a great record at countering Islamic extremism, and their advice is likely to be way outside constitutional limits.”
that’s this point here:
“If you think the US, the WB/IMF, and Wall Street are going to shower the Philippines with largesse to bring them back into the fold, you’re dreaming. Nobody cares.”
This is the type of thinking that doesn’t seize obvious opportunities, and more importantly misunderstands Xi ‘s thinking of his strategic competition with the West. and the West’s need to counter Xi’s moves.
“Why exactly would the Philippines be the belle of the SCO ball? What’s here that’s so special? when you’re the ugly duckling.”
This may be true, but does not negate the Philippines ‘ prime position in China’s eastern flank vis a vis Taiwan. and why the US will shower largesse.
As for Belarus, its not obvious now maybe, but when Turkey does an about face , turn, to the EAST, it will soon be obvious where lines are drawn, roger. or dare I say Captain America? 😉
“What exactly is this gas that is supposed to liberate Europe from Russian dependence?”
Captain Amerca has spoken. He outranks you Corporal.
Joining a regional alliance is not an elixir to optimize your country’s well-being anymore than drinking some exotic herbal tea is going to optimize overall health notwithstanding your bad health habits. If that were the case, members of Shanghai Five would have already at this time attained some sort of optimized economic equilibrium on par with a first world status.
Apart from the faulty premises and/or assumptions in the opening paragraph, there’s a repulsive tone characterized by hubristic certitude in this article – a reflection, most likely, of the author’s known carelessness in vetting most of his advocacies like Bitcoin and CBDC.
Meanwhile, reality on the ground is that Marcos Junior seems to be going full bore on PPP, neoliberalism, and free market orthodoxy; so good luck convincing him sailing his boat towards China-Russia axis.
The Shanghai Five turned into the SCO, Micha. The Shanghai Five were saved from Islamic terrorism, narco from Afghanistan, separatism, etc. Now enjoying the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from China. Soon they’ll have CBDC separate from US dollar fiat system.
And to Putin’s chagrin, and especially now becuz of his ill thought out adventure in Ukraine, Central Asia, the ‘Stan countries, are now closer to China than ever before. So you’re wrong Central Asia is coming up. though not first world, but better than when they were under the USSR. And for sure much better with Xi than with Putin.
You see the SCO, is where the push and pull of Putin and Xi’s worldview can be seen. Putin wants the SCO to be more like NATO, and
Xi’s all like FUCK THAT I’m not bailing your war mongering ass ! so Xi’s big strategy is more on the economic side, like the EU (not NATO) and WB/IMF combined that’s Xi’s vision. the beauty this year is that Xi has been proven correct, BRI works slow and steady building and connecting nations, while going to war doesn’t (at least not now).
As for BBM going full tilt on neolib and free market, that ‘s not mutually exclusive from joining the SCO, just as Turkey can be part of SCO and NATO. neolib and free market is still the engine of China, Xi just thinks it should be more controlled by the state (which is your cup of tea by the way , Micha).
So BBM can still join the SCO, he’ll just be playing the East vs. the West now. 😉 which is the point.
Micha, here’s more good reading…
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Well, as you know, in the Chinese political system, things are relatively immovable and…
Well, that comes through in your book really clearly.
Yeah. When I write about this what I describe as 10 concentric circles of Chinese interest, starting from maintaining the power of the party and the leader within the party through to China’s ideas for the reshaping of the global rules-based order. These things, if you read their ideological documents are pretty well entrenched within the system, at least under Xi Jinping. If Xi Jinping was to leave tomorrow, or go tomorrow, or be removed tomorrow, then a number of things would change. But you’re right, the critical variable here is how the United States responds and is there a mechanism between the two countries which can reduce the possibility of accidental crisis, conflict and war?
Because it seems to me that the sort of elephant in the book really, is China’s autocracy or authoritarianism, which is, I mean, Scott Morrison recently talked about the arc of autocracy, talking about Russia and China. And in a way, it seems to me, you’re kind of, you probably don’t like to hear this, but it seems to me you’re kind of agreeing with it, that China’s autocracy needs to be accepted and dealt with.
Well, I don’t propose to engage in Mr Morrison’s pursuit of poetry and rhetoric. I’ll leave that to him. But what I am arguing is that we need a very clear-minded rational analysis of China’s worldview, where it plans to go in the next 15 years, where it plans to go in the next 30 years. And secondly, driving that at the centre is an authoritarian political system anchored in a Marxist-Leninist party, which takes ideology seriously. Mind you, that’s always been my view of the Chinese system, but with Xi Jinping, the trajectory has been turbocharged. That, I think, is the difference, which is why we are now at this pretty frayed state of the US/China relationship.
One of the things I found really interesting in the book is the way that you described how the turbocharging, as you now just put it, began in 2013/14 with the Belt and Road Initiative, the 5G plans, what you call the new IP, around the same time. Can you talk about what happened over those two or three years at that time, and why it happened in particular?
https://www.eurekareport.com.au/investment-news/avoidable-war-navigating-living-dangerously-with-china/151136
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The circle that is most relevant to the Philippines is this one, IMHO, Micha:
https://sinocism.com/p/understanding-chinas-rise-under-xi-jinping-by-the-honourable-kevin-rudd
The Economy and Environmental Sustainability
The third in this series of concentric circles is the economy, together with its strategic counterfoil, environmental sustainability. I’ve already referred at some length to the current dilemmas in Chinese economic policy. Parallel dilemmas also confront the leadership over the litany of stories which permeate its own media on water, land and air pollution, and the inadequacy of food quality standards.The tragedy of China’s rapid economic development over the first 35 years was the relegation of the environment. Indeed, the systematic treatment of the environment as simply an “economic externality” to the Chinese development process led to wholesale environmental destruction. China is now paying the price.
Of course, these are not just domestic concerns for the Chinese people themselves. The quantum of China’s greenhouse gas emissions is of fundamental relevance to the future of global climate security and therefore of the planet itself. Indeed, if China fails to deliver on its future commitments on GHG reductions, as America and my own country Australia are now failing to do, by the time you students of the academy are taking your grandchildren to school during the last quarter of this century, the climate will represent the single greatest security threat to us all. But within the framework of China’s current and emerging worldview, both a strong economy and clean environment represent core determinants of the Party’s future political legitimacy.
These existential questions, therefore, of clean water, useable land, uncontaminated fish stocks, clean air to breathe as well as continued jobs growth, increased living standards, and all within the constraints of an ageing population, represent the daunting, day-to-day challenges of China’s Communist Party leadership.
On topic
SCO has ambitions to counter West
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/opinion/article/3193520/sco-has-ambitions-counter-west-needs-overcome-its-limitations
“Born in 2001 as an aggregation point for China, Russia, and former Central Asian Soviet states, the SCO has now become a prominent platform to counter Western influence in Asia and the Middle East, promoting Beijing’s vision for a multipolar world order.
However, the Russian invasion of Ukraine and Moscow’s “unlimited friendship” with Beijing created ripples within the SCO, with the former Soviet states in particular fussing over Russia’s territorial ambitions and apparent Chinese support for this. ”
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karl, the more I watch videos on Xi JinPing, the more I really like the guy. he’s very calculating, am thinking he’s simply giving Putin a lot of rope to hang himself with.
China becomes stronger in Central Asia, plus with the SCO gets to invite others due to America’s over reach with their financial warfare strategy on Russia & Russians, eg. sanctions and personal wealth, etc.
Or Xi has his hands on Putin’s throat.
Imee: Don’t make us choose between US and China
https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2022/10/03/2213836/imee-dont-make-us-choose-between-us-china
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But per Juan and Steve Rogers: PH ain’t matter or not part of the scheme of things.
I disagree with Captain America and Juan (ps where did he say this?), karl.
Its not really what the Philippines can bring to the table (although i’ve provided 3 possible strengths), but the spot geopolitically that the Philippines is standing on that makes her beautiful and not an ugly duckling as steverrogers would have it.
Regarding belle of the ball status, here’s good reading of the possible windfall, karl:
https://www.as-coa.org/articles/explainer-b3w-vs-bri-latin-america
“In June 2021, G7 partners announced the Build Back Better World Initiative, or B3W, which will provide an alternative for countries worldwide to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, known as the BRI, for infrastructure development. Latin America is the first region on the B3W’s radar. To that end, in September, U.S. officials completed a listening tour to Colombia, Ecuador, and Panama, with visits on deck to other regions before the initiative’s formal launch—expected to come in 2022.
The B3W is young in development, but, as the name reflects, it can be viewed as an international extension of the White House’s domestic Build Back Better project while providing an opposing option to Beijing’s global infrastructure goals. In 2000, Washington was the principal trade partner for every country in South America except for Paraguay. But, two decades later, China displaced it for the top spot in all South American countries except Ecuador and Suriname and is close on the United States’ heels in Colombia.
The rise of China’s economic influence in the region dates back before the BRI, with loan awards amounting to over $137 billion since 2005 from some of its top lenders—China Development Bank and the Export-Import Bank of China. (Despite this expansion, in 2020 neither bank provided new loans, but merger and acquisition deals from Beijing still increased, particularly in electricity infrastructure.) This dynamic shift is also marked by China’s recent application to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, the trade pact that replaced the Trans-Pacific Partnership that the United States abandoned under the Trump administration.
Washington and allies say the B3W would offer a transparent alternative with anticorruption safeguards that differ from procedures laid out under the BRI, though details of B3W’s next steps are scant. But, with a U.S. delegation laying the groundwork for the program with this fall’s Latin America tour, AS/COA Online compares B3W aspirations to those of the BRI.”
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IMHO, something similar and more specific for the Philippines is in store. cha-ching!!!
In one post in the last one BBM- Russia
dont make us choose between estados unidos and china! imee is having a chin wag again but offers no solution. maybe she does not know what sovereignty is? there was leverage though, but she did not see it and heightened the problem instead: beggars cannot be choosers.
no wonder joint oil exploration between our country and china never materialise, china has us in the backburner.
kaya, vp sara is learning to speak mandarin and imee should too at manuyo to fast track the ground breaking joint oil exploration, again.
dont make us choose, already china has chosen for us and exploited us to the hilt. there are now so many illegal chinese in our shores, spreading stds, and working pogos without paying further taxes.
supreme court recently said pogo cannot be made to pay further tax under bayanihan2 dahil pogo’s income was earned outside philippines soil kuno, therefore not under our jurisdiction. porbida! the term pogo for phillipines offshore gaming . . . that alone is reason to slug pogo with further taxes for using the brand name, philippines.
if indeed pogo is not under our country’s jurisdiction, pogo should change its name to cogo as in chinese offshore gaming, o international offshore gaming, ‘wag lang philippines!
California’s is set to vote on whether it prefers gambling be monopolized by Indian reservations or if it’ll open gambling up to online gambling.
So Indian tribes are pleading with Californians to keep gambling in indian casinos, while online gambling ads are using indians with no casino to plead to voters that online gaming will help out the indians with no casinos. both argument are crap.
Online gaming of course is the future, no overheads and people can gamble without inhaling smoke. Just figure out how to tax the online companies and people who win.
Sort of related.
One more.
“Comparing and Contrasting the SCO Development Bank with the NDB and the AIIB
Above, I analyzed why the SCO member countries so far have failed to establish an SCO development bank. This section compares the plan for an SCO development bank with the more successful NDB and the AIIB initiatives.
In the wake of the post-Cold War era, the aftermath of 9/11, the 2008 GFC, and the emergence of the G20, BRICS have emerged as a challenge to the international status quo (Cooper 2016). India pitched the initial idea for a BRICS bank in 2012 (see also Hooijmaaijers 2021). India’s domestic need for infrastructure investment and a lack of funding drove this move. By contrast, China has the largest foreign currency reserves in the world and industrial overcapacity. The NDB negotiation process was challenging. Financing dynamics were an essential factor in the NDB process. The Chinese side was not pleased with the idea of equal voting shares because they believed this would make the bank inefficient, while India was adamant about establishing a BRICS bank according to the principle of equality (see Cooper and Farooq 2016; Roberts, Armijo, and Katada 2017). The Sino-Indian relationship has been described as “rivals always, partners sometimes” (Godement 2009), which can be applied to the NDB situation: New Delhi did not want to be dominated by Beijing. Around the time of the ongoing NDB negotiations, in April 2013, China sent “an unusual number of military patrols” into Ladakh, a remote high-altitude desert at India’s northern tip (New York Times 2013). This led to the most severe argument between both parties in twenty-five years. The military standoff in Ladakh is another illustration of the frictions that characterize BRICS. BRICS parties have a dearth of mutual trust.
This lack of trust is also apparent in intra-BRICS security cleavages, with China’s rising military and diplomatic power being a security threat to India’s regional aspirations (Cooper and Farooq 2015). This mistrust and mutual threat perception contributed to an atmosphere in which Indian politicians could not accept a new BRICS bank with China in the lead. Eventually, in 2014, an agreement on establishing the NDB was reached by the BRICS countries, with equal voting shares for its founding members, its headquarters being in Shanghai, and the first NDB president being an Indian national. Allegedly, these negotiations also involved links between BRICS and the SCO. Against the backdrop of India’s aspirations for SCO membership, but with a lack of support from the Chinese side, an Indian commentator suggested that “while it has not been openly declared, it is likely that India’s inclusion in the expanded SCO is a trade-off for its stance vis-a-vis the NDB” (Mahapatra 2014). In 2017, India and Pakistan were each granted full membership.”
https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?p=AONE&u=googlescholar&id=GALE%7CA672222148&v=2.1&it=r&sid=googleScholar&asid=df390d6d
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According to the above article, karl…
Too much in-fighting in BRICS to get anything done financially speaking three way tug o war, China-Russia-India, same same with the SCO banks China-Russia, but unilateral banks like AIIB with China as driver and pilot has better prospects.
But I think CBDC is just a tech issue, once proven to be secure and reliable, after China sets it up and helps everyone else sets it up, its just a matter of buying into it. then using it.
So it all goes back to China’s CBDC system. banking issues will be ironed out I feel when CBDC is online, karl.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_Infrastructure_Investment_Bank
Thanks
I have to admit, steverogers42 and Micha’s views are more grounded, realistic and clear as day in terms of understanding the geopolitical reality of RP joining the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). I share their observation about the inadequate qualification of the Philippines to join an organization that, I think, is out of its sphere with regard to geographic, economic and political affiliation.
I also noticed the over concentration on the focus on economic opportunities the Philippines will gain once it becomes a member of SCO. While it’s true that, aside from political and security, there is the economic components in the organization but I don’t think it would be that easy to apply and be a member of the organization if we’re just after upliftment of economic situation through membership. It would be a shallow reason and might present us in a negative manner like an economic opportunists.
We’re jumping the gun every time we speak about membership because there are other levels of engagement (observer status, dialogue partner, etc.) with the organization that may pose as a hurdle or stepping stone before one can be a member. That and our being an island separated from the border regions that comprises the organization.
And this leads me to inquire as to whether there is really a clamor to apply for SCO membership and, if it true, where is it coming from? As I see it, it is not up to PBBM to apply or not, it is if we have credentials or qualification to be accepted in the organization.
“but I don’t think it would be that easy to apply and be a member of the organization if we’re just after upliftment of economic situation through membership.”
Juan, make no mistake I LCPL_X am single handedly creating said clamor.
As for credentials and qualifications, you’re correct, you have to go step by step and I surmise the process takes 5 to 10 years. partner, then observer then membership, but interest needs to be expressed first, then SCO folks will accommodate said interest.
But unlike all the interested countries, to include partners and observers even members right now, the Philippines is a solid US ally, and its in China’s eastern flank,
a flank Xi himself wants to develop. In the end, Taiwan will return to China, that’s why most microchip companies expertise are being moved and/or duplicated in the US now. cuz in the end, the US interest in Taiwan is in mere production of said chips. The US might go to war now over these chips, but if China waits, the US will do an about face with Taiwan once all its interests are off island.
Because the Philippines is such a great catch,
Xi himself will role out the red carpet, Juan. you , steverogers and Micha are downgrading the Philippines , when in truth the Philippines is a strategic gem a prize to be had.
https://joeam.com/2022/09/25/should-the-philippines-deal-with-russia/#comment-473294 The start of it came from this, upon reading up, decided to frame said idea using the SCO. and voila! PBBM should join the SCO, Juan.
“Juan, make no mistake I LCPL_X am single handedly creating said clamor.” – LCpl
– – – – – –
While I disagree with every premise presented in your piece I respect you for coming up with a novel idea that, I would say, sadly, is not in step with the time, yet. It is an interesting topic, however, without having solid foundation, that is, official intent of interest to engage or connect with the organization in whatever capacity is, I think, premature at this time.
Any offering of argument or counter-argument or even discuss the possibility of it happening will only be an exercise in futility.
I’ll digress.
Juan, you’re usually consistently good in dissecting every premise, yet youre reticent now?
No foundation needed really, only for PBBM to air out that he’s interested, then the SCO will I’m sure be in touch with him to guide him thru the process of joining (again because Xi will see this as a big win, which it is).
As soon as PBBM makes public his interest in joining the SCO, the Build Back Better World Initiative, or B3W, will converge in the Philippines.
Just mere publicizing of said interest, Juan. cha-ching! it s like winning the lottery.
Oh, and here’s the process for joining the SCO , Juan. its so easy, I myself am thinking of joining it!!!
On a scale of 1 to provocative as hell, this one is up there. The single highest global keeper of laws and order is the UN, and all the rest are tribes. The Philippine arbitration win is a key ruling in this global order, and the suggestion to just throw it away begs the question of how order will be maintained in a global condition of tribes waging battle against one another, with the Philippines taking on the role of molotov cocktail among the more well-armed of these. I think the Philippines is and should be fully committed to the UN, and Marcos is aligned with that. Now if the SCO develops as a regional economic organization better than the ambitionless ASEAN, then join without seeking to toss out UN authorities.
I’m pretty sure in 10 years or less ASEAN will be subsumed by the SCO, Joe. Now whether or not it will replace the UN, I’m sure not yet, that’s 20 to 30 years down the line if at all it does oust the UN, which i’m thinking is likely. The UN ,
IMHO is already a joke, take Russia and Ukraine, then 20 years earlier with US and Iraq, only difference is the US was anointed in its war, while Russia didn’t get the votes. but war unfolded nonetheless.
UNCLOS rulings will be UNCLOS rulings without teeth, and why Greece (pushed I’m sure by US and NATO) will go to war with Turkey, Greece is encroaching militarizing its islands right off the coast of Turkey. if you look at the map, Greece does look to have an unfair swathe of the sea.
If that erupts, it will be obvious that UN/UNCLOS has no merit. Again.
But the Philippines already knows that. And the Philippines knows that the South China Sea wasn’t lost by them, it was the US and UN (if you wannat throw them into the mix) that decided other things were more important, like Iraq and Af-Pak. thus was lost.
Taiwan, Xi wants Taiwan.
but US only wants Taiwan for what it makes, doesn’t have a MDT, its not even technically sovereign. thus the “strategic ambiguity” whatever the fuck that means. Our interests are in materiel only, not its people nor its culture, nor are we somehow bound by history together.
I’m sure Taiwanese like HK’ers will be welcomed anywhere in the West, there’s already a big Taiwanese population here. So Xi can have the husk of Taiwan. all the good stuff by 10 years will have left for US mainland, Joe.
That’s why its such a great opportunity, Joe, these 10 years can be milked. But if the Philippines joins after much of Taiwan has already bailed jumped ship, then its strategic purpose the Philippines will have diminished along with Taiwan, because I do agree with steverogers that the Philippines is an ugly duckling, the trick is to convince Xi that she’s a beautiful swan,
and that’s time dependent, Joe, Taiwan has to be the Titanic as its leaving Liverpool, not after its hit the iceberg. too late then.
here’s a really good talk on China and US (he’ll probably laugh at this article, but this article would not have been written w/out having watched a bunch of his videos all day last Saturday!) and this is the best of these videos:
FWIW The speaker is asking why is Europe not saying no to US if they sense that something is wrong.
I think thi s is the main reason the EU and NATO dragged its feet all winter last when it said Russia was gonna attack Ukraine, karl.
the boy who cried wolf after 9/11 , during the Arab Spring and on and on…
But US was correct, no doubt it was also because it was in Ukraine post 2014, but that’s a cause and effect problem, Europe has been dubious of American foreign policy ever since W.,
and rightly so,
but in the end, the US controls the UN and it controls NATO, as well as the money that props up all other moneys like the Euro, so it can’t just willy nilly stop the US, karl.
On the flipside, is why the SCO in only 20 years has grown so big, I mean Saudi Arabia wanting to join, and Israel too? these are US allies, yet lost of confidence have driven them to seek other pastures, karl.
So I think theres been explicit and implicit protestations of US foreign policies coming home to roost. W. then Obama, Hillary, then Trump, now Biden theyve all been elephants in china shop, and China now has reaped profits of all their
stomping around.
You are up to something here bit of course we can only forecast events that may or may not happen like a thunderstorm. Here we dare the government to declare no classes due to inclement weather so there will be sunshine the following day.
Kissinger to China: Recalibrate after going all in for Russia.
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3194737/xi-jinping-may-recalibrate-after-miscalculation-siding-russia-henry
Did China made a mistake in siding with Russia? Will they recalibrate as Kissinger suggests?
How, declare support for Ukraine and Nato?
I’m sure Xi is constantly recalibrating, karl. on one hand, he ‘s better off with a diminished Putin; on the other hand too diminished then you have dissolution and chaos up in Russia. then the whole issue with how the West treats Russia. but less power of the West over China is also preferred by Xi.
theres less and less foreign investors in the 10 years since Xi’s been in office. part of that is by design, Xi wants the gov’t to be in control, otherwise the banks and billioniares armed with foreign money are in control like the US, so its a constant balancing act, so far Xi seems to be good at.
but then again that’s what we thought about Putin, but just like Khaleesi on second look Putin’s always been a fumbling butcher. whereas Xi is more an economics warfare kinda guy. which means he’s looking to 2032, then 2042, by then before 2049 (a century of communist China) Taiwan is sucked back
into China mainland. So the timeline for Taiwan is 20-30 years give or take. the US has been given the eviction notice, 20-30 years, then the US also has to recalibrate, go to war over Taiwan, go the Navy vs. Navy route , with rockets missiles and ships, or simply follow Xi into the economic warfare route, BRI vs. B3W ,
I would much prefer China and US go the BRI vs. B3W route, karl. like a food fight but with money. and all the 3rd world benefits for it. constructive not destructive. How does the Philippines get some of that money, by inserting itself into the geopolitical geoeconomic drama, and right smack in the middle , karl!
which is THE POINT OF THIS ARTICLE.
But Kissinger, he’s not Ambassador of the Universe, so I have to school him some, here: given France’s Le Pen and Italy’s far right win, you have to also realize that if Ukraine wins, well lots of foreign fighters are actually of the far right, son’s of Odin, we kill for Odin types. either you have another unit, maybe Israeli hunt these types down before Ukraine wins,
or the battle hardened sons of Odin (White supremacists) will wreck havoc over the EU after Ukraine, karl, and i gotta feeling all this Greek vs. Turkey stuff is just that like the 300 movie all over again, karl. So the EU also needs to recalibrate, like i’ve said over here in the US we’re looking at 60% White, w/ an ever growing mixed category. the Latin category is so expansive now, they’re putting Latin as well as black Latin/Hispanics just to focus more,
of course that’s an ethnic as well as linguistic categorization, which is weird. my point, the US can be like this because the notion of American is just “immigrant”. Whereas to be French, or English or German or Italian is rather specific. So Europe will convulse,
which means Xi will have more to celebrate, they calibrate, Xi calibrates and then celebrates, karl.
all this just helps China’s cause. Xi just needs to roll out CBDC. only problem is people in general are still conceptualizing CBDC as just digital dollar or digital ruble, or digital peso or pound, or whatever, if they start to adopt the understanding of CBDC as Bitcoin, something that’s bigger than our narrower understanding of money, then China’s CBDC system will
expand. there’s banking, like doing away with banking, and economic implications that have never come up and need to be navigated thru, its a whole new system.
But I digress, the Philippines right now, just by simply stating interest of joining the SCO, will see the BRI vs. B3W competition come to them. You look at all the above factors i’ve listed just a little taste of that food fight, money being thrown around to win the Philippines over, think of all the programs Filipinos can avail, but just ensure all that free money doesn’t return to Las Vegas in casinos and real estate and parties.
Because lets be real Filipino taxpayer money isn’t really whats being stolen its foreign money as loans and grants freebies meant for Filipinos that politicians steal and invest in the US actually they’re hiding it there. journalists, and regular people and employees have to take ownership and whistleblow and lodge formal or anonymous complaints. keep an eye on social media like Napoles, if kids are driving around and living large in the US, hey maybe lodge investigation.
Stop blaming Marcos Sr. for stealing your money, you gave it to them by not paying attention!
BRI vs. B3W, that’s the point here, karl. that’s your money , GET IT!!!
Get it, karl!!!
jeffrey sachs sounds like an anti-imperialist anti Us here.
Everyone should be , karl.
i know i’ve written about Filipino lawyers, if they just got an injection of Fil-Am lawyers into Philippine society, and jameboy (Juan now) accused me of colonialism or something. Well I still think your greatest resource for the Philippines isn’t in balikbayan boxes or remittances, its the people actually sending those things. or their kids.
If DEPED or the OVP can set up a program to invite Fil-Ams, British Filipinos, German Filipinos, Australian Filipinos, those educated and born there, hell even Israeli Filipinos theres a bunch of them now, get them to return to the Philippines they’ll shake things up for sure, if you hit critical mass, those Westernized kids will shake up your country.
think about it, karl, all that RED-TAGGING issue, get foreign born foreign educated Filipinos to complain and talk about how things are going over there, if Badoy redtaggs them hell she’ll have the Australian gov’t, the US gov’t, the EU to worry. because if they’re holding dual citizenship, that’s the perfect storm, they can talk shit about mediocrity there but be protected by the West.
If you have Filipino lawyers there, schooled in Oposa doctrine, your very own, karl, you’ll have environmental protection as priority, inline with Xi’s 10 concentric circles of how he wants to propel China further. Fil-Am lawyers, then Fil-AM economists schooled in degrowth economics again in line with Xi’s 10 concentric circles on economy & the environment, then throw in Fil-AMssss or
from EU or ANZAC or Canada, Vancouver BC schools have great forestry programs , karl, they’re realizing mushrooms are the internet of the forest, and how variety makes for better stronger forests,
plenty of social sciences and humanities majoring Fil-Ams here that are just working in Starbucks, because theres a surplus of social sciences and humanities over here, part of the failure of higher education here, but over there especially the SCO countries, social sciences and humanities majors experts will be less, especially ones schooled in the West, who speak English, German, etc. fluent. with said dual passports.
If you send these kids home, give them dual citizenship status, let them have their way there, they’ll contribute to the Philippines, and if PBBM says we’re gonna join the SCO, he’ll have an army of Fil-Ams (from EU, from CANADA, from Israel, Australia, NZ, Germany, etc. etc. ) to be unleashed into China. you don’t send maids to China, karl, your secret weapon well its Fil-AMs. which you have lots of, just get them back
to the Philippines.
Oh, I forgot about the art majors, karl.
Cebu City is already your arts and creatives capital, but you insert Fil-Am artists (from Canada, AUSTRALIA, NZ, EU, Israel, etc. etc. ) they’ll shake things up, with experience from Hollywood, Pixar, the tv and movies even theatres, If you encourage them to set up shop there, make Cebu City an official creatives hub, i’m sure you can do this under the OVP, you’ll have Western entertainment that will poke fun, criticize in satire, or parody. you look at broadway and the Cirque de Soleil acrobatic plays in Vegas, karl, lots of Filipinos.
architecture, so many ugly buildings in the Phillippines with fucking electric wires all around. lots of Fil-Ams into architecture too, just doing menial tasks but set them loose over there, and with SCO set them loose in SCO and you have what no other countries in SCO will have, foreign born foreign educated Filipinos. so many of them, just needing to be utilized fully, karl. US has money and nukes, China has Chinese, money and nukes, but only the Philippines has Fil-Ams, karl and tons and tons of them too.
Art Majors?
https://joeam.com/2020/09/30/philippine-industrialization/
“Forget our forgettable ways of doing things! We are here to explore what can be done if we follow the Licensed manufacturing route.
Insert Art into STEM to make it STEAM to lure aspiring Liberal Arts majors.
Inject Production and Industrial engineering to all STEAM courses.
Have Naval architecture and Marine engineering in all major Universities.
We could benchmark from our fellow developing nations who made it big in their own way, like 20 African startups which used Japanese Venture Capital investments to help them with their success, and Romania where its internet speeds are the envy of rich nations.
To add Filipino value-added in terms of knowledge we could have TESDA and the Universities partner with foreign MNCs to provide continuous training for all workers, but concentrate on training the trainers.
For raw materials, we follow Ghana’s lead in recycling and repurposing Electronic waste; all we need to do is have mining experts to do the landfill mining. Those that are not electronic waste can be taken by power plant operators and have a wte plant near their power plant. If co-firingwould not work, then co-location. Another use for wastes are co-processing for cement plants.”
agreed,
Art is to design as
Science is to engineering.
What will you engineer without the design?
Exactly, karl.
The two are complimentary.
Lateral thinking is your thing LCX.
lat·er·al think·ing
[lateral thinking]
NOUN
the solving of problems by an indirect and creative approach, typically through viewing the problem in a new and unusual light. Contrasted with vertical thinking.
That’s what I’ve been trying to tell, Micha, karl!!!
but actually its this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T-shaped_skills
To implement this Fil-AMs come back home to Philippines program, you can do this right now,
for example, UC and Cal State system has a study abroad program, I ‘m sure Fil-Ams attending UCLA, UC Berkeley, even the privates like USC and Stanford, or catholic schools like Seattle University, San Francisco , University of San Diego , Filipinos lots of them in catholic university.
I’m sure Fil Ams attending those schools are now there in UP, or Ateneo or La Salle etc etc.
Why not talk to them now, give them a good offer, once you graduate from UC Berkeley, USC, Univ. of San Diego, live and work in the Philippines, give them dual citizenship, then introduce them to industry leaders now while there, “This Fil-Am is foreign born foreign educated and wants to live and work here, these are his/her qualifications… ” boom inserted into society,
then maybe OVP or PBBM himself can reach out to Fil-Ams already professionals, or working in Starbucks becuz a Fil-Am with a sociology or anthropology or philosophy is just another one in the pile dime a dozen, probably now contemplating nursing school, karl, LOL! get them recruited into and back to the Philippines.
And once you have BRI vs. B3W, even more will go over there to establish reestablish roots!!! see how that works? T skillz, karl. all about the vertical and the horizontal, which was what I was also skilled at in Mango Ave. karl. 😉
The only problem is most Fil-Ams will try to get into the entertainment industry there, especially if they’re half, karl. I think because their moms are former bargirls or maids, and that’s what they tell their kids from the time they’re born , so immediately dissuade them from said industry. unless they want to venture into the entreprenuerial route, but stir them clear off the studio system there, karl. tell the dudes they’ll get butt fucked and girls orgied to death.
Nothing productive in the studios system there, have them go straight to Cebu City , karl, less butt fucking and orgies. Preserve dignity.
“Why not talk to them now, give them a good offer, once you graduate from UC Berkeley, USC, Univ. of San Diego, live and work in the Philippines…”
– – – – – –
You mean, take away jobs from the locals and give them to foreigners?
They’re all Filipinos technically, Juan!
If Filipinos (from EU, America, Canada, Aus/NZ, Israel, etc. etc.) can create a new economy then the sea rises thus all others’ boats rise with it. But your greatest natural resource is your people, specifically the ones born and educated in the West.
the Chinese did something similar, invited them back, and remember even with Western educated and birthed Chinese, its still the Filipinos that can scale up on this because Filipinos are already well entrenched in the West, though not the most successful demographic here,
which means return to the Philippines would be an option.
The Chinese send so many to the West to get educated because this is the secret recipe, Western education opens minds up. innovative and creativity, not copy and paste,
so IF you ‘re on board with PBBM joining the SCO, Juan, then we can negotiate and say ensure returning Fil-Ams go straight to SCO nations and/or straight to China, then instead of this being a DEPED/OVP program then make it
a DFA program, Fil-Am lawyers, economists, social sciences, even hard sciences, philosophy , humanities and arts. Like a Filipino PEACE CORPS, but straight to China, to showcase the Philippines’ natural resource and what they can offer to SCO.
Fil-Ams. and tons of them!!!
https://www.e-flux.com/notes/470005/open-letter-to-noam-chomsky-and-other-like-minded-intellectuals-on-the-russia-ukraine-war
===
Open letter to Noam Chomsky and like minded intellectuals from Ukranian intellectuals.
I’m a big fan of Noam Chomsky, karl. I’m steeped in Ron Paul and Bernie, and Noam Chomsky youtube videos.
But I think old Noam is wrong when it comes to Ukraine (and so is Micha), Putin is squarely at fault. But when you go to Taiwan and China, sovereignty wise, China IMHO is in the right. Taiwan is theirs, like HK but no lease.
So at some point Taiwan needs to return, and America shouldn’t keep it from returning. But America can help it blossom on other lands, and this is where the CHIPS Act comes in, and more competition in the field of micro and nano electronics, the Taiwanese can jump ship
contribute more into this field, and the ones that cannot jump ship will just be like HK’ers and Macao’ers, just adjust. Welcome to China, should’ve been in the microelectronics manufacturing field.
here:
https://blogs.berkeley.edu/2022/08/09/chips-act-includes-new-support-for-workforce-training-providing-opportunities-beyond-rd-for-higher-education/
” The CHIPS programs are expected to create many tens of thousands of new jobs in semiconductor manufacturing and R&D over the next few years, mostly highly skilled engineer and technician roles. To fill these jobs, the number of graduates produced by the entire U.S. higher education system for this industry must more than double, an extraordinary increase in a short period of time. To meet this tremendous workforce development need, I have publicly advocated for the establishment of a national network for microelectronics education, first in an op-ed last December and subsequently at a hearing held by the House Research and Technology Subcommittee this February.
In parallel I have co-led a nationwide effort – the American Semiconductor Academy (ASA) initiative – to develop a vision for the national network, one that is inclusive and collaborative. In collaboration with industry representatives, and facilitated by a partnership with SEMI (a global industry association representing the electronics manufacturing and design supply chain),
the ASA planning team produced a white paper that will be made public this week. As a direct result of these efforts, the new bill includes an appropriation of $200 million for the CHIPS for America Workforce and Education Fund. Through this fund, the National Science Foundation (NSF) is authorized to create a National Network for Microelectronics Education to promote growth of the semiconductor workforce.
While $200 million is a great start, much more is needed to strengthen and broaden pathways to careers in the U.S. microelectronics industry with the speed and scale necessary to meet the industry’s growing workforce development needs. For example, earlier this year, Intel announced a $100 million investment over the next 10 years to support research collaborations with universities, community colleges and technical educators across the country.
Berkeley Engineering will no doubt play a prominent role in the national network as well as in other CHIPS programs; details will emerge in the months and year ahead. Meanwhile, our nation’s investment in higher education is something we can celebrate today. We welcome all stakeholders to join us!”
and YouTube ASML, karl:
If Taiwan is treated like Ukraine, then all that expertise will go to waste. America (and Taiwan) are better served if they get absorbed into the West and contribute in the above effort.
No war, this I’m with Noam, Ron Paul and Bernie, karl. NO WAR!!! no more war. But Ukraine, yeah lets kill lots of Russians, then eventually maybe Putin. cut his balls off and have him choke on them.
Yes Taiwan will not be attacked because they produce 95 percent of advanced chips
https://theconversation.com/taiwan-dominates-the-worlds-supply-of-computer-chips-no-wonder-the-us-is-worried-188242
“For this reason, the US has been trying to attract Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Corporation TSMC to the US to increase domestic chip production capacity. In 2021, with the support of the Biden administration, the company bought a site in Arizona on which to build a US foundry. This is scheduled to be completed in 2024.
The US Congress has just passed the Chips and Science Act, which provides US$52 billion (£43 billion) in subsidies to support semiconductor manufacturing in the US. But companies will only receive Chips Act funding if they agree not to manufacture advanced semiconductors for Chinese companies.
This means that TSMC and others may well have to choose between doing business in China and in the US because the cost of manufacturing in the US is deemed to be too high without government subsidies.”
Companies gotta choose, karl, go with China or go to the US.
Either way, there should be no need for war, allow some time and just wait as companies, experts and workers , choose China or the West, then have China get Taiwan back. easy peazy.
But I do agree with Noam Chomsky that the US as patterned post WWII and even prior with US’ s Philippine expansion and the banana wars in the Central Americas,
its the US that creates these instances of conflict, like Ukraine just leave them alone, but Hillary’s pro-democracy stance which backfired in the Arab Spring was the doctrine in play, and
in the Arab Spring Hillary chose the crowd and the crowd didn’t choose the US, Ukraine though did, but did we have to meddle that far away, we need to look within, and this is where I agree with Ron Paul and Bernie, just leave them alone.
Though since Putin invaded we have to finish what he started lest this be a habit. on and on to Europe…
Taiwan, its China’s. We’ll just secure our interest, which is microchips simple, and leave when that’s secured. No war. China doesn’t want war, so the US should not invite war.
We gotta get past democracy, and human rights and rule of law, stop all this idealist mumbo jumbo, be practical be a realist. all about interests, if our interests are so shallow, eg. microchips, move microchips to the WEST!
https://insidehpc.com/2022/07/report-us-pressures-netherlands-on-exports-of-asml-chip-equipment-to-china/
Report: US Pressures Netherlands on Exports of ASML Chip Equipment to China
That is why investors are leaving. The higher taxes lobbyists outweigh the lower taxes ones. If Money grew on trees we could subsidize all sectors, but even MMT requires us to have zero foreign debt which is impossible. For MMT to work, we must default like Argentina or be sanctioned ala Russia,Nokor,Iran.
Chips Act a chipped ambition
https://www.eastasiaforum.org/2022/10/02/onshoring-semiconductors-is-a-chipped-ambition/
Watch this LCX
Medhurst opines that it was a mistake to atack Russia…..wait what?
Yeah, that makes sense Biden went to Venezuela and Saudi Arabia and Iran to make a deal with them to help out the EU, but why wasn’t the EU begging, instead it was Biden. I mean Germany thought it wise to be dependent on Putin, so let them eat their cake!
As to Putin still floating, he’s being floated by Xi.
w/out Xi he ‘d be gone. So that’s the SCO, and the new financial structure that they’re making that’s chugging along I think. But I’m not seeing anything in Google on CBDC, so it looks like their floating the ruble, the same way US dollar gets floated, thru magic.
But the Xi and Putin relationship have for sure shifted and Central Asia now looks to Xi. sanctions don’t work, look at North Korea, they’re so sanctioned yet they’re still lobbing rockets over Japan. karl, could you imagine if you were on a yacht or your bangka just minding
your own business in the Pacific and booooooom!!! a fucking missile takes you out. I’d be pissed!
O yes. https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/how-the-us-can-curb-the-north-korean-nuclear-threat/
It a difficult problem with nukes and missiles for sure,
like a toddler throwing a tantrum, and you give him whatevr he wants right away to stop said tantrum. bad method.
What is a CBDC?
https://hedera.com/learning/tokens/what-is-a-central-bank-digital-currency-cbdc
Wiki of SCO
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation
Once SCO membership is settled then our next concern is how we behave in outer space.
https://ourguyingeneva.wordpress.com/2022/09/29/defining-the-norms-of-responsible-behavior-in-outer-space/
from the article: “during this month’s session, the Philippines and Germany presented a joint paper that defines risks and threats in outer space and lists current dual-use capabilities that could compound threat perceptions. It then provides a comprehensive list of examples of irresponsible behaviors that could threaten outer space security, including debris-creating and satellite-threatening kinetic actions, uncoordinated rendezvous and proximity operations, and the use of cyber and electronic jamming or spoofing, among others. The joint paper encourages a discussion on threat perception in a manner that focuses not on capabilities, which are in themselves value-neutral, but on how these capabilities are used. The initiative was well-received not only because of the substance it contains but also the credibility of its authors. The Philippines and Germany come from two different U.N. constituencies — the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Western Europe and Others Group (WEOG), respectively — but they are known bridge-builders with a long history of solid commitment to the rules-based international order.”
@ karl,
The philosophy in space exploration, thus any treaties borned fromthis, should be more akin got the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Land_Rush_of_1889 or to Johnny Appleseed
“Starting in 1792, the Ohio Company of Associates made a deal with potential settlers: anyone willing to form a permanent homestead on the wilderness beyond Ohio’s first permanent settlement would be granted 100 acres of land. To prove their homesteads to be permanent, settlers were required to plant 50 apple trees and 20 peach trees in three years, since an average apple tree took roughly ten years to bear fruit.
It was into this apple-laden world that John “Johnny Appleseed” Chapman was born, on September 26, 1774, in Leominster, Massachusetts. Much of his early years have been lost to history, but in the early 1800s, Chapman reappears, this time on the western edge of Pennsylvania, near the country’s rapidly expanding Western frontier. At the turn of the 19th century, speculators and private companies were buying up huge swathes of land in the Northwest Territory, waiting for settlers to arrive.
Ever the savvy businessman, Chapman realized that if he could do the difficult work of planting these orchards, he could turn them around for profit to incoming frontiersmen. Wandering from Pennsylvania to Illinois, Chapman would advance just ahead of settlers, cultivating orchards that he would sell them when they arrived, and then head to more undeveloped land. Like the caricature that has survived to modern day, Chapman really did tote a bag full of apple seeds. As a member of the Swedenborgian Church, whose belief system explicitly forbade grafting (which they believed caused plants to suffer), Chapman planted all of his orchards from seed, meaning his apples were, for the most part, unfit for eating.”
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/real-johnny-appleseed-brought-applesand-booze-american-frontier-180953263/
Essentially, space exploration is a free for all and should be open to anyone both individuals, corporations and nations alike. competition will be steep , money will be an asset, but better than money is imagination, if you keep the Sooners and Johnny Appleseed models of claiming land,
except subtract the speculators, so just pure claim and straight ownership, then that should be fair,
so just agree upon the process of claiming, do you have to hit an asteroid with something by you, or do you have to actually physically a person land on it to claim it. say for Mars, a person lands, and 100 acres around will be his, then have an Earth based department that keeps tabs on said claims. if they land together, then its divvied up equally by them, if they are a group then
have rules as to how thats going to divvied up.
It will encourage farther exploration, because individuals and governments and companies will want to go farther. a true space race. But if the UN and thus only nations set up the rules, then companies and individuals will be assed out, taking away all drive for competition.
for example the Artemis rocket is still grounded, NASA sucks, but SpaceX just keeps lobbing rockets in space, that sort of competition is going to propel more inventions and more places explored, karl.
Of course this is all assuming no aliens to exploit, or that theres no aliens that will annihilate us. just purely real estate and the process of claiming , karl.
Wars with aliens, either they’ll be superior or we’ll be superior, will need another set of rules. there should be a stipulation, if theres life forms that can say Hello! thru speech telepathecally or some sort of alien sign language, whatever, karl, then no claims are possible just move on— that’s lesson learnt from Earth’s colonialism.
Have you seen the Expanse series, karl. they tackle very similar problems, with gravity as the central theme, eg. what if you have people generations that were born in the asteroids or moon s of Saturn and Jupiter, they’ll look different and will have different needs. if you have a cut in space, well your blood won’t coagulate. then theres space blindness also due to zero gravity.
Will check it out. So far your recs are top notch.
this is what I’m really excited about, karl.
Ok
Karl, if you are referring, among others, to the SciFi item — The Expanse series — you are right: it seems interesting. I have access to the 6-season series (with 62 episodes so far) on Prime Video. But I don’t want to spend that much time.
You are familiar of course with Wikipedia’s website on plots of books and films. The link,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Expanse_episodes
gives a sketch of all the episodes in the film. I will probably scan some of those to flavor “The Expanse.”
Lance also posted the SciFi book, “The Three-Body Problem.” Again for flavor, the plot is described in the link,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Three-Body_Problem_(novel)#Plot
Lance: thanks for posting those two SciFi items.
Aside from wiki NH, I consult IMDB and TV,com. Maybe I will register with goodreads
Paging, NH…
NH,
I stand by my hypothesis, but how do you account factor in for age and health preconditions in a county based study? and assuming theres no voting records available to researchers in this county based poll, only if said county leans blue or leans red, where s the delta established?
(my very first twitter fight, NH, i have to win!) 😉
Lance, will you describe here the hypothesis you made on Twitter — not clear to me what the hypothesis was. In any case, being a google expert, you must have come across this link,
https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-death-rates-higher-republicans-democrats-why-rcna50883
which describes the nuances of the variables or factors.
from the working paper:
subtitle of the NBC article:
“Lower vaccination rates among Republicans could explain the partisan gap, but some researchers say mask use and social distancing were bigger factors.”
My hypothesis, post vaccinations, at the end of the day age and health were still the main factor determining deaths (just so happen GOP is full of age and unhealthy folks). at the individual level. If county by county how do you factor in the above conditions eg. vaccination yes or no, mask or no mask, social distancing or no, IF the study itself was county based?
The same point was that during the pandemic, post-vaccine, the black and brown demographics was severely affected, assuming black and browns mostly vote for Democrat, so this demographic would be affected by age, but most significant is the health , eg. preexisting conditions, genetic or lifestyle induced, like alcohol, fried foods, fast food, drugs, etc. etc.
Understood, thanks. Your observation — GOP is full of age and unhealthy folks — is a factor that may explain a substantial part of the gap.
Question — was the gap comparable, pre-coronavirus-pandemic?
I’m thinking most who died preventable deaths, eg. diet, exercise and surroundings like where you live could’ve prevented, it would still have been the same or similar pre-COVID.
more GOP tend to be old and sick already. plus diet, exercise and neighborhood.
Like gays and sodomy, and AIDs and monkeypox, the determining factoring being sodomy you tend to scrape and draw blood, cuz anus doesn’t naturally create lubrication, NH.
there’s an underlining commonality. that explains better than GOP and Republican.
Offtopic but discussed above and in previous blogs.
Grains- Find alternatives to Russia and Ukraine. Why not The Philippines?
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1268720/philippines-agricultural-exports-by-commodity/
OIl and gas
Venezuela, Iran and Algeria seem to be the dark horses.
Ostracized no more(Iran and Venezuela)
https://www.tehrantimes.com/news/477324/Iran-helps-Venezuela-reach-record-oil-exports
Algeria’s increased gas supply to France.
https://sputniknews.com/20220828/algeria-ready-to-increase-gas-supplies-to-france-reports-suggest-1100085753.html
https://www.rappler.com/newsbreak/data-documents/analysis-marcos-jr-activities-itinerary-first-100-days/
why not philippines? pbbm did everything except maybe, the most important, lol! so busy promoting himself, here, there and everywhere, seen and be seen. meetings galore, I hope he’s not complaining, meetings are part of the job.
and if he knows how to prioritize, he’ll attend meeting that matters most, the rest can wait and others can be rescheduled, or delegate them to inday sara or to the executive secretary, and ask them to report to him the minutes of the meeting and the resolutions.
Sssh kb. I know you are active on twitter maybe you are one of them arguing with Joe. Hehehe
Twitter is a hard place to argue, but today’s was probably the best I’ve ever had. Little name-calling, everyone sincere. Mainly we come from different places, them fed up with another corrupt, inutile president, me just looking at his work and decisions unshaded by his family’s history. I’ve developed “protocols” in evaluating presidents. They are allowed a personality, are allowed to have fun, are given the benefit of the doubt because they have better information and the burden of accountability, and have the right to make mistakes. That forces me to the next layer of discovery, trying to figure out why they do what they do.
Very good Joe.
https://news.abs-cbn.com/news/10/08/22/malaking-tagumpay-marcos-rosy-on-first-100-days
pbbm rated himself a huge success! maybe after seeing how the winner of the formula grand prix in singapore went up the podium, bottle of champagne on one hand, pretty girl on the other, lol!
so, after 100days in office, had pbbm successfully bought cheap fertilizer from russia as previously said he would, as well as oil and grain as said he would too? deposit already paid in advance like the deposit paid in advance for the helicopters russia failed to deliver, with our country now asking for the helicopter deposit be paid back in full after our country canceled the deal?
no update yet? no firm commitment made? that must be the face of success, malaking tagumpay, time to party!
Party party number one priority. Meanwhile Sandro swear in new party members (nacionalista party like Cong Arjo Atayde)
Nice article Lance, great for the Filipino ego.
Your vision of a world that is Philippines-centric is enticing. Unfortunately, Micha, Steve and Juan injecte some doses of reality here.
I think the easiest way for the betterment of Filipinos is for PBBM to simply ask his major campaign donor Robles to pre-advice more LOTTO betters the winning numbers for the next jackpot draw. Why restrict it to 433 people.
Joke aside, SCO is a regional thingy and PH is nowhere near Eurasia. Personally, I think PH could do better and achieve better results with more bi-lateral FTAs.
Contrary to what you said, Asean is an important grouping that’s managed to attract substantial direct FDIs. PH needs to work harder to get a better share of the FDI that’s coming in. Singapore gains a lot of the FDIs and they came for the bigger Asean market.
Although China + HK are important trade partners of PH, the US, Japan, Sorkor, EU plus Singapore together form the bulk of PH trade both import and export. The Stans and Russia and ME countries aren’t significant.
“PH needs to work harder to get a better share of the FDI that’s coming in.”
Thanks, chemp.
This is what I’m wondering, what s the process of getting more foreign investment is it just transparency and competency, and is the above idea of pitting SCO/BRI vs. G7/B3M realistic?
say for fish farming in Philippine sea, or expanding rubber tree and rubber industry in Philippines, can you have Filipinos (I don’t know what Filipino authority would handle said funds) receive from BRI then another separate Filipino project receive from B3M?
or expanding arts and creatives industry, really geared for business like K-pop, but via DepED taking from B3M, then smaller enterprises in Cebu City maybe a bunch of gaming playable media start ups, taking from BRI they’d angle said project towards teaching
English and Western mores to Chinese, so they don’t have to go all the way to America. this is how Fil-Ams would be useful if the Philippines does a national drive to return all foreign born foreign educated Filipinos back to the Philippines. To really value this resource, chemp.
As to regional being the SCO, I don’t think it has to be west facing, I’m sure if Burma or say Cambodia, maybe eventually Malaysia will join, Philippines can too, chemp. SCO can expand westward just as validly as it can expand east.
But the question is will there be money from both side coming due to said decision to join, and can the Philippines dip in the two pots concurrently? i don’t think the SCO can dictate, Hey you can only dip into the BRI pot, no B3W for you.
chemp,
the other thing also worth mentioning is Xi Jinping’s doubling down on Marxism, he thinks Russia down ward spiral is because they wavered on Marxism. he’s a true believer.
____________________________________
“How a Western ideology like Marxism can take roots and grow in an Eastern country and make the second largest economy even more prosperous than the Western country where it originated? There must be scientific and magical answers,” This is how 18-year-old Wang Yijin interprets her ambitions in studying Marxism. Wang made national headlines in July for grabbing an offer of Marxism studies at China’s prestigious Peking University (PKU) after giving up an offer of full scholarship from Hong Kong University.
Wang is a typical Chinese youngster propelled by a strong interest in Marxism studies in recent years, inspired with confidence in this ideology that has made China the second largest economy thanks to its strong economic vitality while the West is stuck in frequent economic crises.
Many of them are deeply aware of how Western ideologies advocating liberalism have lost their charm and hegemony after failing to deal with the pandemic and economic recovery.
Analysts say that the new generations of Chinese youths have been inspired to find alternatives to Western development in a more rational, scientific and practical way, especially after feeling frustrated under capitalism.
Marxism grabs the hearts of youths
The enthusiasm of China’s younger generations to explore Marxism has increased markedly in recent years, noted Wang Chuanli, professor at the School of Marxism of Tsinghua University, adding that getting admitted on a doctoral program in Marxist theory at Tsinghua is growingly competitive, as “the number of applicants has kept rising in the latest couple of years.”
Furthermore, Tsinghua started enrolling undergraduate students majoring in Marxist theory this year in a response to the interests among young applicants, Wang added.
Similarly, PKU, China’s first institution to open Marxist studies in 1992, launched a popular program in 2008 called “Dazhao Class” to commemorate one of the founding figures of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Li Dazhao. With the program is aimed at cultivating more talents in the area of Marxist theoretical research, Wang Yijin became the first admitted undergraduate student for this class extended to the Bachelor level in 2021.
The major has enrolled 20 undergraduate students this year, with programs covering subjects like Chinese Marxism, Marxist Development History, and Introduction to Marxist Basic Theory.
Wang told the Global Times that she hopes to understand why creative Marxism can make China a more powerful country and draw a clearer path for China’s future with innovative practices in next decades. ”
https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202108/1230909.shtml
=================================
So, instead of red-tagging them, PBBM should be sending Filipino Marxists to China as ambassadors and liaisons.
If you study Marxism (which I’ve only YouTube’d and Google’d) you get the feeling that it was meant for America and the UK, not Russia and China with all sorts of dumb peasants, but now China is so much more sophisticated things bursting at the seems,
i gotta feeling Marx’s fictional economy will be totally marginalized, with CBDC and UBI , things does seem to be looking up. conversely Chinese looking into American freedoms as a good treat too.
so good on Xi for doubling down.
==================================
“Classical economists developed the labour theory of value to isolate economic rent, which they defined as the excess of market price and income over the socially necessary cost of production (value ultimately reducible to the cost of labour). A free market was one free of such ‘unearned’ income – a market in which prices reflected actual necessary costs of production or, in the case of public services and basic infrastructure, would be subsidized in order to make economies more competitive. Most reformers accordingly urged – and expected – land, monopolies and banking privileges to be nationalized, or at least to have their free-lunch income taxed away.
In keeping with his materialist view of history, Marx expected banking to be subordinated to the needs of industrial capitalism. Equity investment – followed by public ownership of the means of production under socialism – seemed likely to replace the interest-extracting ‘usury capital’ inherited from antiquity and feudal times: debts mounting up at compound interest in excess of the means to pay, culminating in crises marked by bank runs and property foreclosures.
But as matters have turned out, the rentier interests mounted a counter-Enlightenment to undermine the reforms that promised to liberate society from special privilege. Instead of promoting capital investment in an alliance with industry and government, financial planners have sponsored a travesty of free markets. Realizing that income not taxed is free to be capitalized, bought and sold on credit, and paid out as interest, bankers have formed an alliance between finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) to free land rent and monopoly rent (as well as debt-leveraged ‘capital’ gains) from taxation.
The result is that today’s economy is burdened with property and financial claims that Marx and other critics deemed ‘fictitious’ – a proliferation of financial overhead in the form of interest and dividends, fees and commissions, exorbitant management salaries, bonuses and stock options, and ‘capital’ gains (mainly debt-leveraged land-price gains). And to cap matters, new financial modes of exploiting labour have been innovated, headed by pension-fund capitalism and privatization of Social Security. As economic planning has passed from government to the financial sector, the alternative to public price regulation and progressive taxation is debt peonage.”
from: “From Marx to Goldman Sachs: The Fictions of Fictitious Capital, and the Financialization of Industry”
by Michael Hudson
‘Wavered’ is not the exact word to describe what happened in Russia as much as a highly centralized inflexible Stalin oriented gov’t and bureaucracy succumbed to the glasnost and perestroika reforms of Gorbachev. Soon after the dissolution of USSR, Mckinsey and Co. and other Wall Street guys descended to Moscow and persuaded the always inebriated Yeltsin to implement free market neoliberal reforms. Russia was to become western capitalists’ new playground.
Exactly, Micha. And that’s why Xi Jinping has doubled down. and all the “corruption” stuff and now with Evergrande and all the Jack Ma’s tempered, am sure all the Wall street folks like Buffet and whatnots will do about face,
how that will pay off I don’t know. in the long term.
But at least lines are now delineated.
I still do think that both BRI and B3W double dipping is quite possible for the Philippines and the point of the blog, and PBBM will ensure Sandro’s reign if he joins the SCO now.
There is still no substitute for sound management of your internal affairs. Looking for salvation from outside is a fragile if not vain hope.
You can have both, Micha.
work on internal, like MMT and UBI,
but also get money from abroad, from BRI and B3W.
leverage externals.
the two are not mutually exclusive.
Where’d you get the idea that BRI and B3W is going to “give” us money?
its there for the taking, Micha.
just have to put your foot in the door, and get an in, the point of this article is to do just that. cha-ching!
You’re still working on growth centered dying capitalist orthodoxy model. FDI is resource and wealth intensive extraction of targeted countries.
And I thought you’ve became a convert to Marx’s dialectics.
My focus is in that 5 to 10 years process of membership to the SCO, Micha.
And hedging the two ideologies. Xi maybe a hardcore Marxist , but China can still be defeated.
But in that 5 to 10 years interim, you have opportunity, Micha, to dip into BRI as well as B3W.
that there, Micha, is the point of the blog. this isn’t a pro-Marxist, anti-capitalist blog, its a blog about opportunity from both sides. and positioning yourself to take from both sides.
BRI and B3W whatever are not giving money away entities. It’s still called foreign indebtedness and, as some countries have found out, a debt trap.
It’ll even out, Micha, if you take from BRI and from B3W, then in 20 years or so, one system fails and the other survives automatic loan forgiveness, we’ll know when Taiwan goes back to China, then ideally you’d have made the right investments, thus ROI on said debts will cancel out.
So it behooves all Filipinos to ensure PBBM doesn’t run to Hawaii with all this money again, forever losing it.
But funds are needed yesterday. to get projects going, because as of now money do not grow on trees, Micha.
like using 2 or more credit cards to balance out debts, Micha. thus ideally if played right, its 62% this month, will theoretically go down, by accessing both BRI and B3W.
But that’s more chempo’s field now, Micha. i dare not swim in those depths.
Some ridiculous assumptions there, if not flat out carelessness, in suggesting how to handle the affairs of our republic.
Also, incoherence on the nature of money.
And I thought you’ve understood MMT already.
There’s no MMT in the Philippines, Micha!!!
This is all within the parameters of what PBBM can work with.
I’d say you’re just rambling and confused, for the most part.
How is it outside PBBM’s parameters, Micha?
Montenegro is the first debt trap victim, many will follow from africa and Asia.
https://www.archyde.com/montenegro-is-trapped-in-chinas-belt-and-road-debt-trap-asking-the-eu-to-return-33-8-billion-yuan-is-rejected-international-%e6%96%b0%e5%a4%b4%e5%a3%b3-newtalk/#:~:text=Montenegro%2C%20a%20Balkan%20country%20that%20is%20expected%20to,country%20could%20no%20longer%20afford%20any%20new%20debt.
The link doesn’t work, karl.
PhD in Google remember do your phding.
And thanks I will just wait for your source.
Link doesn’t work, so Googled an NPR article of it i’m sure same think, karl:
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010832606/road-deal-with-china-is-blamed-for-catapulting-montenegro-into-historic-debt
“Montenegro’s government says the first section put it in so much debt that it can no longer afford to build the rest of the highway. “I think we will pay not maybe this generation, but future generations,” says Soc, the former justice minister. “But I don’t think this is a problem from China. It is our bad decision.”
He’s not the only one blaming the country’s previous government for catapulting the country into historic debt with this project, which was signed in 2014 with the China Road and Bridge Corporation, and funded by the Export-Import Bank of China. “We are now [a] victim of the extremely bad decision of the former government,” said an exasperated Montenegrin Deputy Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic to Euronews this spring in an effort to appeal to the EU to come to Montenegro’s rescue; the country aims to be an EU member one day.”
____________________________
Lesson here: stop blaming China for every single thing, karl.
Again with your own gate keeper thing. What if they got sales talked to a bad decision?
Buyer beware, karl. Due diligence. No buyers remorse is key here.
Touché
People who say buyers beware had a bad experience with the product or hate at first sight.
Same as one shouldn’t blame the World Bank all the time.
Marcos Sr. could have put the money to better use than buying so much real estate in the States. One might think real estate means isteytseyd.
Re the article and discussion which I have read, food for thought essentially even as I wouldn’t literally see it as feasible, but definitely a stimulus for lateral thinking which is rare in the Philippine setting.
Thanks, Ireneo.
If we can blame WB/IMF we should be able to say the same re Chinese debt traps, they both do the same thing, but most 3rd world countries are corrupt, so the money’s there to be utilized, but politicians just want to run away to the USA with it.
Filipinos have to have more whistleblower protection laws and more ways to do complaints, this is the first step. filipinos have to demand more from their gov’t and encourage more whistleblowers and they themselves have to lodge more complaints.
Maybe not so much being more litigious because that’s not free, but more whistleblowing and more complainants, well thats all free. Just requires doing.
Me too I know it is hard and maybe not feasible but that is no reason to be stifled in giving suggestions. We need lateral thinking, T shaped skills etc.
MLQ3 on Marcos Jr.’s foreign policy:
https://www.asiasentinel.com/p/marcos-dodges-first-100-days-switches-course?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=23934&post_id=77390396&isFreemail=false&utm_medium=email
..despite President Biden once having been part of the observer group that declared Ferdinand Senior’s 1986 snap election fraudulent, Washington ensured that the status-conscious Marcoses would be gratified by a delegation mbued with higher status to attend his inaugural compared to that of his immediate predecessors. And so the husband of the vice-president was dispatched, which, together with other high-status guests such as the governor-general of Australia (the only other nation besides the United States which has a Visiting Forces Agreement with the Philippines), showed the West was prepared to court Marcos as assiduously as the Chinese, who’d sent their own Vice-President.
It’s here, in his foreign policy activity, that one can glean the Junior Marcos’s approach to his job and possibly, his own metrics for success. He was raised in an era when his father (and mother, who took to carting him around on official visits) aspired to more than mere bit parts on the world stage; the revival of this ambition was evident in both the Inaugural and State of the Nation addresses of Marcos, delivered roughly a month apart. Both proposed a more prominent role in international affairs for the Philippines. His new pivot back to America, however, belies Marcos’s rhetoric towards China. A “more balanced” approach to the two countries may reassure Washington but leave Beijing cold. It also represents a potential bone of contention within his own coalition: in contrast to the headlines surrounding his trip to America, his vice-president, Sara Duterte (who obtained an even higher percentage of votes, and who is a living reminder that without the Duterte charisma, his own election wouldn’t have been the sure thing it became: indeed even before he assumed office, they had a run-in when she demanded the defense portfolio, though she ended up easily fobbed off with an appointment to head the department of education) engaged in her own foreign policy flexing by recording a congratulatory message to the Chinese government in Mandarin.
All of this at least suggests Marcos believes he can balance dealing with the two nations with greater dexterity than his predecessor. He also spent October 6 dribbling out foreign policy tidbits: he has continued proposing Russia as a source of cheaper oil (even as Russia has joined OPEC in signaling curbing production); and a yet-to-be-detailed “new approach” to Myanmar within ASEAN..
OT but still about soft power, though of the Byzantine kind:
Reminds me somehow of the “tribute” practices of ancient China.
As for international law the precedents are different..
..one can point to the Peace of Westphalia, 1648 and sovereignty as a concept.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concert_of_Europe was post-Napoleonic
One could say it was a predecessor of today’s G7 and G20 groups.
League of Nations as Woodrow Wilson’s idea, the short-lived post-WW1 proto-UN.
The UN Office in Geneva or UNOG sits in the old offices of the League of Nations.
‐‐——
Even ancient Mesopotamia had certain norms and conventions between city-states..
..which the Assyrians were known to break and the Persians “magnanimously” restored.
Thus Cyrus gave many cities back their Gods, once held hostage by the Assyrians.
The Babylonian captivity of the Israelites ended and allegedly helped rebuild the Temple.
Soft power and hard power and their interplay is an ancient thing as we can see.
Instead of Gods we now have human rights, international law etc. as held beliefs.
Forget Nietzsche, if your God is dead, just worship mine, said a German 80s bumper sticker.
Byzantium and ancient China show how persist even decaying empires can be over time.
Constantinople had the Basileos Autokrator under Christos Pantokrator, China had “li” or ritual.
‐——–
In the end it’s all complicated.. and one can get lost in examples like Macchiavelli did.
Byzantine soft power also came from its wealth and its impenetrable triple walls.
Chinese soft power also from being the world’s richest country until around 1750.
I think the Philippines can leverage ASEAN towards a bit of soft power.
But it isn’t one of the richest anymore in SEA as it was in Magsaysay’s time.
Indonesia has huge soft power as G20 member plus a strong military, but back to the video..
Xi treated Dutz more like the Byzantines treated Otto’s ambassador than like the Abbasids..
Re China and POGOs by MLQ3:
Also relevant:
Ireneo,
thanks.
We have something very similar in the ballots come November here too, about online (POGO) and local Indian gaming (PAGCOR).
I’ll be voting for online gambling because online has less over head and better for communities and the environment in the long run. you wanna gamble, do it online just like Wall Street. you should see the waste generated by casinos from buffets and water consumption etc. etc.
But to relate it to the blog,
I say if China CCP wants to stop its citizens from gambling, and the Philippines can help stop Chinese people from gambling, why not do it? fuck those poor Chinese in the Philippines, the Philippines should position itself for luxury tourist destination,
clean Chinese, with more money. thats who you should be inviting to the Philippines.
Clean Chinese with Money, not these poor provincial fucks. Fuck them. So illegalize POGO and PACGOR while you’re at in, and invite, Marriott and Hilton instead. or Filipino owned hotels and resorts.
Take care of the environment because no one wants to visit and vacation and spend money in a place that looks like Mordor. with shit in the water, yuck.
This is also quite interesting, as I didn’t expect Sen. Tulfo to go against a Dutz project, but his brother Sec. Tulfo also surprised a number of people recently..
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02vinzXJqdtdUi5B1KWW7ry7iEhz584snQQ9J6gmtGyPLkTDuNg9176BsDBVnBsT83l&id=100064660960700
LOL!
methink, beijing is not frustrated enough about the antics chinese gambling addicts in pogos, thumping their noses at china’s no gambling policy and shaming china’s reputation.
what can manila really offer beijing? had the shoe been on the other foot, manila should be asking what can beijing really offer manila? for a start, chinese ambassador ought to speak better english so he can be better understood, lol! no more lost in transmission moment, the blacklisting and then no blacklisting.
those chinese tourists arriving in our shores, many are fake tourists and ended up working in pogos, nearly 40K of them have their visas revoked. as well, our foreign sec romualdez ought to ask chinese ambassador to repatriate distressed chinese so they will not become the burden of our govt. we repatriate distressed filipinos overseas, china could do the same to its distressed citizens mainly victims of crime committed by fellow chinese, the gambling addicts to be re-educated on their return to the mainland to wean them off gambling.
Manalo is the foreign sec Romialdez is the ambassador to US.
thanks, got my wire crossed. maybe, foreign sec manalo can understand the chinese ambassador better than zuribi can.
still, manalo ought to tell the chinese ambassador for chinese airport border security to show due diligence in monitoring chinese tourists coming to our shores. some have dubious travel documents, coming as tourists but dont have enough money for tourism purposes, staying for two weeks but book hotel only for two days! and their cell phones show pogo contacts details, rates of pay, hours of work, etc.
methink, if chinese border security do their part well, there would be less fake chinese tourists arriving in our shores, going under the radar and taking advantage of our good nature.
our country needs real chinese tourists and sightseers, not more overstaying illegals, not paying their dues.
Online gambling heller they can do that in their mainland home town but the gamblers are escaping the cat and mouse game and the Casino game in the crime free Macau . Btw I do not believe that sa lutong macau pa lang: crime na yun hehehe.
Or they can assign the TRIAD to join the Yakuza in taking over Okada. If TRIAD is a state sanctioned syndicate.
“v Offshore gambling
Offshore gambling involving sectors such as online casinos and multiplayer online gaming is not permitted in Macau.”
subsequently, there is no law stopping people in macau from gambling online on foreign gambling sites. any problems encountered is borne by the gambler though.
TY KB
@LCX: UN is NOT irrelevant especially IF it enforces MORE sanctions against Russia for annexing 15 percent of Ukraine. IF there is no teeth then nobody or no Alliance is worth our time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Russo-Ukrainian_War
At the end of the day, karl, its not really UN that sanctions but the US, with nods from the Anglosphere, then from Western Europe, then EU. from there its which ever 3rd world countries that wanna support.
Its the US that has teeth, either by itself or thru votes. but you’re correct, vote buying (eg. alliance) is how the US legitimizes these sanctions, eg. see its not only us but everyone else who think its right.
Tyranny of the majority as right makes might, karl. that’s why the US disproportionately funds the UN.
Tyranny of the minority is more annoying.
karl,
I’m sure this is what President Biden is now thinking, “Tyranny of the minority is more annoying”. cuz Saudi Arabia and OPEC aren’t following the US’s lead, even with much enticement.
Which also has to do I’m sure with it joining the SCO, karl, since the prince wants to build build build in Saudi Arabia, and seeing the SCO prosecut ion of Islamic fundamentalism and Islamic terrorism, which is better track record than Americans,
plus money seems to be a non issue for Putin, so that’s a better enticement, god forbid the US sanctions them next, so
looks now OPEC and the SCO are going against UN (actually American, Anglosphere, Western Europe and the rest of EU) directives, and forging their own path w/out American directions.
So again this is where PBBM is at,
at the cusp of two alliances, one old and tired neutered; the other new, and full of potential with many hungry actors (good and bad). So Sec. Diokno’s next visit should be to Shanghai, karl. and rinse repeat his presentation he just did in DC.
And take advantage of this situation.
We will see. I think Sandro is reading socmed if he sees this article one day he will say he thought about it 35 years ago like Sotto claiming he thought of Sim card registration 35 years ago even before sim cards were invented.
Well if Sandro’s reading this article, I would just dumb it down further and say,
Sauron is Xi, Saruman is Putin.
The Elves are the Anglosphere and Western Europe; the rest of the EU are the Dwarves.
Then mankind is either pro-Mordor or pro-Elves (and what they represent).
In joining the SCO , Sandro should think of the Philippines as Tom Bombadil, i know i know , not covered in the movies, hopefully he’ll be in the Rings of Power, karl, but he is probably the most interesting character in all of Tolkien’s lore.
If the Philippines and technocrats can study Tom Bombadil, karl, and that particular stance and point of view vis a vis Mordor and Elves, then Sandro will have understood a crucial point of geopolitics and what the Philippines can offer the world.
That is my vision for the Philippines, if PBBM needs one, please steal it, there is no intellectual property on this, karl. I want PBBM to steal this idea.
“Tom Bombadil is said to be able to control and bend his surroundings to his own will. This includes influence over both the forest itself as well as those who live within it. Tom stayed within his domain and had limited interactions with the outside world, so much so that he actually became a folktale in the legends of Men, Elves, and Dwarves. Each race gave Tom Bombadil a different name, but the name given by the Elves—Iarwain Ben-adar, which meant Oldest and Fatherless in Elven—says a lot. After all, the Elves were considered some of the wisest and fairest of all beings in Middle Earth, so they must have known of Tom’s importance and old age.
Many Lord of the Rings fans also say Tom Bombadil is actually the most powerful character in all of Middle Earth, due to his apparent immortality, ability to completely resist the Ring, power over his domain, and knowledge that comes from living since the beginning of time. Some even refer to him as the God of all of Tolkien’s writings, and say he resembles the God of the Christian religion. Tom did interact with some creatures outside the forest, like Farmer Maggot—a character that wasn’t seen in The Fellowship of the Ring movie, but was heard off-screen after Merry and Pippin had stolen from his crops.”
https://www.polygon.com/lord-of-the-rings/2021/1/20/22239302/who-is-tom-bombadil-poem-hobbit-lotr-books-movies
“Many readers of the Lord of the Rings consider Tom’s presence in the first book to be an unnecessary intrusion into the narrative, which could be omitted without loss. Tolkien was aware of their feelings, and in part their judgment was correct. As Tolkien wrote in a letter in 1954, “. . . many have found him an odd and indeed discordant ingredient. In historical fact I put him in because I had already invented him. . . and wanted an ‘adventure’ on the way. But I kept him in, and as he was, because he represents certain things otherwise left out” (Ibid., p. 192). Judging by these remarks, critical readers are correct about the arbitrariness of Tom’s introduction into the story; however, as Tolkien continues, he deliberately (nonarbitrary) kept Tom in to fulfill a particular role, to provide an additional dimension.
In a letter written to the original proofreader of the trilogy in 1954, Tolkien reveals a little about what Tom’s literary role or function might be. Early in the letter he writes that “even in a mythological Age there must be some enigmas, as there always are. Tom Bombadil is one (intentionally)” (Ibid., p. 174). Later he adds that “Tom is not an important person – to the narrative. I suppose he has some importance as a ‘comment’.” He then goes on to explain that each side in the War of the Ring is struggling for power and control. Tom in contrast, though very powerful, has renounced power in a kind of “vow of poverty,” “a natural pacifist view.” In this sense, Tolkien says, Tom’s presence reveals that there are people and things in the world for whom the war is largely irrelevant or at least unimportant, and who cannot be easily disturbed or interfered with in terms of it (Ibid., pp. 178-79). Although Tom would fall if the Dark Lord wins (“Nothing would be left for him in the world of Sauron,” Ibid.), he would probably be “the Last as he was the First” (Rings, 1:279).
In trying to grasp what Tolkien has in mind here it is very important, I believe, to distinguish between an enigma and an anomaly, for Tolkien’s interest in Tom involves the former while reader dissatisfaction treats Tom more in terms of the latter. An anomaly is something discordant, unrelated, out of place. It is in this sense that someone might claim that Tom could be left out. An enigma, on the other hand, is a mystery, a puzzle, something which seems to be discordant, unrelated, out of place, but isn’t. This distinction becomes pivotal in the discussion of Tom Bombadil when one considers that on three occasions in the story the question of Tom’s identity or nature is pointedly brought up, twice by Frodo in Tom’s house and later at the Council of Elrond. If there is no answer to the question, then Tom is anomalous. If there is, then he is, as Tolkien claimed, enigmatic.”
here’s JRR Tolkien on Tom Bombadil, karl:
if Sandro can discern the wisdom of Tom Bombadil, he’ll make a great president already.
Since India is a member of the SCO , this is tangentially related news.
The rest of the anglosphere UK, Canada, Australia/NZ don’t have this issue at all. lots of Sikhs in their ranks both military police and in public office and they all prominently show their turbans and showcase their identity.
The only difference I can see with America is that we did not have a Queen Victoria that was able to give way to Sikhs wearing turbans, i don’t really know if Queen Victoria has anything to do with it, maybe just the fact that Sikhs were just automatically subsumed into the British military thus British and commonwealth society as a whole, that turbans never became an isssue really.
But me personally, i think this is a first Amendment issue for us here, of separation between church and state. The gov’t isn’t suppose to choose or prefer a religion over another, while also not infringe upon any citizens to express said religion.
So the military being the gov’t thus military uniforms being the symbol of said gov’t who espouse the 1st Amendment among other ideals, no alterations of uniforms based on any religion should be yielded to individuals wishing to alter their uniforms to fit their religious creed and fashion.
But I concede, practical wise these turbans don’t really add or subtract, just that acquiescing to the wearing of it is preferring and favoring one religion, so either favor all or none at all, cuz if you favor all, then the military will look like a hodge podge of styles. which would look entertaining and whimsical, i’m sure.
but will be going against the 1st Amendment.