Visit by S'pore PM in waiting

Politics Taiwan Politics
21

Are you testing me tymebomb? I didn’t say it was settled. I meant to imply the desalination plant put a lot more bargaining power in Singapore’s hands. The national day celebration with recycled sewage water was obvious. I didn’t want to spell everything out so clearly because these taidu advocates on this board are usually ignorant and full of baloney or making things up as they go along. ( Probably also to do with their addiction to drugs and consequence side effects as pointed out by AC) I am not even sure you are genuine. Anyone who is Singaporean would have understood my hints.

[quote][quote] I said:
The fate of Taiwan will probably be decided (soon) but not before China has decided which leader has the final say. Several feng shui experts reckon 2006 will be an ominous year. Maybe Taiwan’s fate will be decided before the next Olympics. I am sure the Taidu advocates can’t wait. [/quote]
His bitterness the Hsiadogah blurped:
I’m very sorry that your bitterness over being swallowed by the PRC has made you wish the same for the Taiwanese. Too bad you can’t muster the goodwill to support Taiwan’s right to self-determination.

And all that bollocks about the press being afraid to go after A-Bian or the DPP government? wtf are you talking about? Hello, have you seen any Taiwan TV or papers in the last 4 years? [/quote]

Oh I am not at all bitter about Hong Kong being part of China. The undeniable fact is Hong Kong will be nowhere without China.
Just because politicians get criticised in the press or Taiwan TV does not prove that there is real press freedom in Taiwan. If Taiwan had true press freedom, the number of Chinese newspapers, magazines etc in Taiwan would be greater than that found in Hong Kong. The whole political spectrum from the far left to the extreme right would be represented. Taiwan newspapers do not represent the same broad spectrum as found in Hong Kong. Ask most educated Chinese or the overseas Chinese what Chinese publications they read… 9 out of 10 will read news publications that originate from Hong Kong, like the MingPao, the chinese Economic Times, dong fang ri bao etc… The English newspapers in Taiwan are abysmal or an utter joke. They are basically party mouth pieces with advertising to keep afloat. You call that press freedom?

If I wish for the same for Taiwanese as what the average Hong Kong person enjoys or gets today, it is actually an immense kindness. According to the UN development index, Hong Kong is the second most liveable city in Asia after Japan. If you check with Canada’s Fraser Institute, they will tell you that Hong Kong has won their economically free-iest city/country award for 10 years running. We won it again by a big margin over Taiwan this year 2004. We are closely followed by Singapore. Being “economically free” by their definition has many important implication for the country or city. And Hong Kong has the liveliest stock market in Asia. The daily volume traded now can easily exceed Japan or Australia. THis is a city with only 7 million people. Most Chinese companies prefer to list in Hong Kong than in New York, or both. Taiwan is a “backwater”. Its currency is rigid and backwater. It capital account is effectively shut. I can go on and on but business probably does not interest taidu advocates. Yea Taiwan let’s have democracy and independence!

So what is taidu? Taidu is just an empty dream. Like an old man who cannot get it up but only watch. The more he watches, the more frustrated and bitter he becomes. Instead of finding pleasure in what he can do, he wants things he can never have. :frowning:

22

hi… relax dude… i not saying you are wrong…but the deslination plant is not producing any source for the island yet, from what i know, the only deslination plant is producing portable water for factory usage in the southern islands?? and the recycled water you mean is NEWATER and it amounts to pretty small quantity of the islands’ consumption and it is being pumped into reservoirs…plans are set to bulid more but we will still need to depend on the water from our neighbours even if we have NEWATER plants…and btw, were there any celebration with recycled sewage water with our national day?? maybe you can enlighten me on this point?? don’t remember seeing anything like that with the celebration… hehehe… sorry to miss your hints but they are not really that clear… ehehhe

23

I don’t know who the hell tymebomb is or whether he is really who he appears ot be but he is obviously “very interested” to see if desalination does provide any leverage to Singapore when bargaining for continued supply of water from Malaysia. What a strange diversion to the main topic of this thread. I hope not all Singaporeans get their education this way.

Anyway Singaporean tymebomb is in luck, there is actually a paper by the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies /Nanyang Technological University just on this very topic. " Singapore, Malaysia and The Water Issue: A Concern Desecuritised" Desecuritised means the threat of a water supply cut off is removed. This paper is by Joey Long Shi Ruey :Mr Joey Long is a Associate Research Fellow at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies. This paper focuses on one core issue: is Singapore

24

okie… will discussed this issue with drambuie privately… hehehe… sorry to divert from the main topics… hehehe… sorry guys…

25

[quote=“tymebomb”]okie… but maybe I miss out some of those history, but what is ‘taidu’? don’t seems to make out any meaning for me?? can someone enlightened on this?? hehehe thanks…

and my kudos for the taidu faction… :notworthy: hehehe[/quote]

ac_dropout is playing with your head, tymebomb. “Taidu” is “Taiwan duli” - Taiwanese independence.

As far as drugs go, I guess you could paraphrase Karl Marx…

“Taidu is the opiate of the Pan-Greens.”

26

ya…i realised that after what drambuie have said… sorry as 台独 just don’t register that fast in my mind as don’t get to hear it that often… hehehe…anyway thankz a lot… :bravo: :bravo:

27

As I recall, there are many many piers in Hong Kong. I suggest you find yourself a short one, and go for a long walk.

28

you wrote : First of all, chewycorns, based on your past few post, you seems like you really have a deep misunderstanding with Singapore… maybe I could help?? rest assure, I am no government agent trying to slam our internal security act on you… hehehe…
Care to elaborate on what I misunderstand about your police state. I lived and worked in your country for a few years in a quasi-government ministry. I misunderstand the internal security act? I know it allows the government to imprison you without “habeus corpus.” I know the publisher of the Straits Times is the former head of the secret police. Your PAP government has a track record of jailing people it doesn

29

[quote=“drambuie”]Lee Xian Long would never have said this:
Quote:
“We can chart our course for the benefit of 4 million Singaporeans, unlike Hong Kong where the way to the future is decided by China to advance the overall interests of not only 7 million Hong Kongers but also 1,300 million mainlanders,” he said [/quote]
You are correct. He was not the one who said that. His father did. I can’t see how you could have missed that. It made the front or second page of just about every Chinese and English daily in Hong Kong. Check the archives of any newspaper for August 22 or 23 and you’ll find it.

Are you Singaporean? If not, then how would you know if he’s for real or not?

Why should that be the acid test? I think you are a bit confused about press freedom. I prefer HK papers over Taiwan papers. As you stated in your post, a full spectrum of beliefs are represented by HK papers. I also believe the journalism is more professional (excluding the Oriental and Apple Dailies). However, that has little relationship with free speech. Taiwan papers are generally crap because just about all of them are firmly pro-independence or pro-unification. I don’t think that proves anything about press freedom. I think it proves that Taiwan is a split society. If you’d have spent any amount of time in Taiwan, you’d have realized that. The reason the “full spectrum” of political views is not well represented by Taiwan papers is because there are no organizations in the middle of the spectrum that are strong enough to back a middle-ground paper. There probably wouldn’t be a big enough readership, either, which is saddening to me. The problem isn’t lack of free speech. The problem is that society is divided.

Have you looked at the criteria that they base their rankings upon? Everything they measure is from the perspective of outside investors. Surveys like this look at things like how easy it is for a foreigner to:
get a business license
open a personal or commercial bank account
withdraw capital from the country or territory
resolve disputes in court
get the same treatment as local companies
etc…

All of these things are important and HK measures up pretty well when measured by these indicators, but they don’t necessarily make HK a very free economy. For you and me (I assume you live in HK), there are plenty of other important indicators that we should be concerned with, namely:
Does HK have a competition or anti-monopoly law? No, and you and I shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for one. The tycoons aren’t going to let it happen.
Is there too much government involvement in any sectors of the economy? Hell yes. The government has its fingers in every slice of the real estate pie.
Does the government throw money at projects or initiatives that crowd out private sector providers in the same industry? They do it with mortgages and housing construction.
Does the government throw public money at projects that make no commercial sense and that no private sector financier would ever consider viable? Cyberport? Science Park?
Does the government conduct open and competitive bidding processes for government funded projects and events?Like many things that have to do with transparency, HK beats Taiwan in this respect, but there are still plenty of exceptions. Remember Harborfest?
Hong Kong is not the freest economy in the world. It is probably the most open economy for outside businesses. That, however, does not mean that it is free in the ways that you and I can reasonably expect it to be. If you were to measure the freedom of HK’s economy according to indicators that make a difference for actual HK people, the city would still figure up as a pretty damn free place (and certainly freer than Communist Singapore :wink: ), but it would certainly not be number one.

Huh? Taiwan’s currency floats freely. Whether people want to hold it or not is a different story, but Taiwan’s monetary policy is not especially stifling. If you want to talk about rigid, then look at those HK dollars in your wallet. They’re pegged to the US$ at about 7.8:1. I personally think the peg is excellent as it takes the tools of monetary policy out of the clumsy hands of morons like Henry Tang, but HK’s currency peg is as rigid as it gets.

30

It is not in the papers. I have checked the Straits Times (Internet), SCMP and HK Standard. for Aug22/23. The Standard for this whole week since the National Day as well. No Nothing mei_you …zero.

As far as I know LeekuanYew the father did not speak on National day ( or this week) as far as the papers I read and I have checked all the son’s speech which was widely reported and found nothing similar. Therefore I assume it is a concoction. But also there was no “defense” from him/MarkN so I stand my ground until this MarkN proves otherwise. Now if MarkN knew the source he/she should have put the source as well.
:unamused:

31

[quote]drambuie wrote:
I am not even sure you are genuine. Anyone who is Singaporean would have understood my hints. [/quote]

To me Natioanl Day celebrations are a big deal in Singapore. And actually I did ask him and he did say the hints were not clear enough for him, which is still not cofirming whether he was Singaporean.

Your point? What is your point actually?
nevermind I think whatever you had in mind for this I have decided it is too meaningless to bother. First time this “breakdown” or completee collapse of interest has happened to me while trying to answer a post.
Come to think of it this is getting very silly before I even finish. :rainbow:

32

chewcorns… the internal security act actually is more of a protection of the interest of the majority… and it is not that scary… Singapore is better now as the government is slowly cutting the red tape of speaking bad of the government… In recent years, as far as i remember, the only jailed under the internal security act are JI members or people practising cult. I think the period where the act is most actively use is during the 1960-70s as due to the fact as communist are spreading into singapore and people are of a lower education level and easily influenced so that explained the need of the act… And a lot of people are jailed under this act as the fact of communism… anyway actually there is no right or wrong with this… but i actually prefer life in order rather than disorder… if you know about singapore culture. it is like a compressed can of air… once you open the can suddenly, all hell will break loose… maybe just like iraq now… but if you slowly let go, at least should things go wrong, you would still have control of the situation… i guess that is what happening now… the government is slowly giving us space…

but all this are my thinking… i m no political science student but just sharing my thoughts on the country. A lot of things we cannot say out in the public because Singapore is a small country and the people, sad to say are a bit navie and very trusting(i am a very good example, thanks, ac_dropout)…heheh…if we say anything without using our brain in the public, it will spread like wildfire across the country… In this case, the country will just fall into a turmoil… and it will not bring in foreign investment and which will spell a slow death for the nation as we don’t have any natural resources… we depend a lot on foreign investment…

and for the british part, no offence but com’on, they left without a fight during the japanese occupation even though if they have stayed, the japanese will never make it past the causeway as the japanese are running out of ammo and troops… but the british thought this is just a colony, they might as well forsake it and defend their homeland back in England… so that is how the unbeatable fortess in the East fell to the japanese… We could be friends, but the part on ruling, i think i rather that it falls onto the shoulders of Singaporeans who are interlinked with the survival of the nation…

33

How wonderful to know your views on press freedom and freedom of speech. I am sure the forumites who read and re-read your views will find them quite interesting just as they might have found my reason(s) to be interesting.

However as I re-read my original posts, I couldn’t recall anywhere where I had stated that this was the “acid test” of press freedom. I may have however misled you into thinking that the conditions I gave for press freedom to exist are the ONLY conditions necessary.

I did recall however that what I was emphasising was that the GENERAL conditions that prevail in Taiwan was not as ideal for press freedom as the conditions that exists in Hong Kong. To this extent I found that you also somewhat agree.

Wow this is like turning what I said into some kind of legal binding agreement. If there is no A and B , then there cannot be C or D, where C and D are Freedom oF Speech and Press Freedom etc… You did not mention B you idiot.

A conversation overheard at the drinks cooler:
“My, isn’t this turning into a wet dish cloth. " “Does everyone have to be a legal beagle and say things only in “black and white” and crosss every t and dot every i?” “Well apparently yes if you are talking to Jive Turkey.” " I understand He is some kind of military expert on what Taiwan needs to buy in terms of hardware and defense and all things macho”. “But he like to take everything into neat little boxes so that he can accuse you of failing to provide all the appropriate reasons.” “Oh wow what an interesting guy.” I hope I don’t meet this sort of tiresome person to often."

34

drambuie, the link for the Minister Mentor Lee’s speech is as below…straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/s … 5,00.html.. and by the way… the part about Mr Goh drinking the recycled water is not really a national day celebration as the recycled water is being pumped into the reservoir since last year… so everyone is drinking that already… and btw, Mr Goh is not retired… he stepped down from the Prime Minister post but he has become the Senior Minister… so i guess he won’t be that free to meet you in Shangri-la for tea… :slight_smile: :slight_smile:

btw, the strait times interactive will be slower than a few days as for commerical cos if it is that up-todate, the newspaper sale will drop… hehehe…so i guess it is just updated…

35

Is that so? Do you even have an online subscription with archive access to the SCMP, or are you just talking out of your ass and hoping that nobody will call you on it?

Your assumption has just been proven incorrect.

You have no ground to stand on. Read the article. Then go back and do a REAL search of the other papers and you will find similar articles in both Chinese and English.

36

[quote=“drambuie”]A conversation overheard at the drinks cooler:
“My, isn’t this turning into a wet dish cloth. " “Does everyone have to be a legal beagle and say things only in “black and white” and crosss every t and dot every i?” “Well apparently yes if you are talking to Jive Turkey.” " I understand He is some kind of military expert on what Taiwan needs to buy in terms of hardware and defense and all things macho”. “But he like to take everything into neat little boxes so that he can accuse you of failing to provide all the appropriate reasons.” “Oh wow what an interesting guy.” I hope I don’t meet this sort of tiresome person to often."[/quote]Is this the only reply you can muster when someone disagrees with your sloppy argument? :sleepy:

37

[quote]Jive Turkey wrote:Have you looked at the criteria that they base their rankings upon? Everything they measure is from the perspective of outside investors. Surveys like this look at things like how easy it is for a foreigner to:
get a business license
open a personal or commercial bank account
withdraw capital from the country or territory
resolve disputes in court
get the same treatment as local companies
etc…
All of these things are important and HK measures up pretty well when measured by these indicators, but they don’t necessarily make HK a very free economy. For you and me (I assume you live in HK), there are plenty of other important indicators that we should be concerned with, namely:
Does HK have a competition or anti-monopoly law? No, and you and I shouldn’t hold our breath waiting for one. The tycoons aren’t going to let it happen.
Is there too much government involvement in any sectors of the economy? Hell yes. The government has its fingers in every slice of the real estate pie.
Does the government throw money at projects or initiatives that crowd out private sector providers in the same industry? They do it with mortgages and housing construction.
Does the government throw public money at projects that make no commercial sense and that no private sector financier would ever consider viable? Cyberport? Science Park?
Does the government conduct open and competitive bidding processes for government funded projects and events?Like many things that have to do with transparency, HK beats Taiwan in this respect, but there are still plenty of exceptions. Remember Harborfest?
Hong Kong is not the freest economy in the world. It is probably the most open economy for outside businesses. That, however, does not mean that it is free in the ways that you and I can reasonably expect it to be. If you were to measure the freedom of HK’s economy according to indicators that make a difference for actual HK people, the city would still figure up as a pretty damn free place (and certainly freer than Communist Singapore ), but it would certainly not be number one. [/quote]

Mr Jive Turkey:
Someone asked me: “if the bitterness over being swallowed by the PRC has made me wish the same for the Taiwanese?” And my basic reply was I am not bitter. I believed I wished them well because Hong Kong is a far far more liveable city than Taipei/ Taiwan.

My reply went something like this: [quote]If I wish for the same for Taiwanese as what the average Hong Kong person enjoys or gets today, it is actually an immense kindness. According to the UN development index, Hong Kong is the second most liveable city in Asia after Japan. If you check with Canada’s Fraser Institute, they will tell you that Hong Kong has won their economically free-iest city/country award for 10 years running. We won it again by a big margin over Taiwan this year 2004.[/quote] I felt it necessarily to provide some sort of internationally acceptable benchmarks for the “quality of living” and some freedoms I found useful.
Are they the only and absolute benchmarks? Hell of course not. I never pretended they were. But these widely accepted, objective, third party and highly detailed assessments were only an indication that I , I as a hong Kong person, would not regret wishing on Taiwanese people, the same Hong Kong like eventuality.
I don’t actually want to know why you need to go on at length about the acceptability of these benchmarks from your personal point of view. It is beyond the question. Yes granted you also live in Hong Kong. But the original question was a personal question directed at me and I found the criteria of the benchmarks satisfactory. You are however free to digress and provide others at this forum your highly learned views and insights on why such international benchmarks are not “adequate” and up to your personal standard etc…

:help: :help: :help:

38

[quote]drambuie wrote:
Its currency is rigid and backwater. [/quote]

Oh yes I said Taiwan was somewhat of a “rigid” currency. I should have put inverted commas in the first place. By this I mean if you want to exchange more than a stated amount of Taiwanese dollars to the US dollar or vice versa you will either have to ask for permission or declare what you want to do with it. The correct term for this is exchange control. Also only in recent years have foreigners been allow to invest in Taiwan stock exchange for example. I think the correct term is capital account control. Since we live in HK we know that there is no exchange control and foreigners can buy and sell most things without prior declaration. So I concluded the Taiwan dollar was too “rigid” for my liking. I should have use a less technical term like frigid. Hong Kong is also not a “backwater” currency because its currency is freely exchangeable to the US dollar (which is themain reserve currency) at any amount, at any time and, at nearly all the licensed banks and by anyone. Backwater currency are only a problem if you have to regularly earn in such a currency and you need to exchange it into another currency in order to trade or be trapped in some way. Anyway I am not a currency expert. I was just trying to show that I personally would avoid holding Taiwan dollars almost all the time except when I am in Taipei. All in all the US/HK dollar is much more easier to control and hold etc… etc…

39

Sorry for the late reply- I’ve been having problems with Forumosa all day- anybody else?

[quote=“drambuie”]
Not only is MikeN’s knowledge of Singapore/Malaysia fuzzy at best, the above is a total concoction! Yes Mike when did the PM say that? How come no reaction from HK?[/quote]

Sorry for the breach of netiquette by not posting the link

asia.news.yahoo.com/040822/ap/d84k58k00.html

but a simple Google of “Lee Kuan Yew Hong Kong” would have brought up plenty of results

Well, I guess it’s better than “turtle’s egg” or “shame of ten thousand years”

The initiation of the Newater project had world-wide media coverage, especially the picture of PM Goh drinking it- I got your reference right away. I don’t quite understand how the colour of my skin would have made me more likely to miss it- greater incidence of albino blindness in Caucasians, maybe?

Even by your own source, it shows that Singapore will be about 85% self-sufficient by 2010- at a higher price, if there’s no increase in use, and, since 57% of the supply comes from rainwater, if there’s no drought- global warming, anyone?
As well, note that this is a government source (MND at that) -might be advisible to take it with a pinch of salt.

Yeah, and Bill Cosby has said some pretty harsh things about American blacks- but that doesn’t mean either of us should walk into Harlem or Watts and repeat his comments.

40

Oh, I should add that I tend to disagree with Senior Minister Lee on Hong Kong’s future- but then he’s been right more often than I have.