Thursday, January 22, 2015

Johor land reclaimation: Geopolitically significant

Found an article about Johor's plans to reclaim the sea for some development. Forest City is a very long term project lasting 30 years but Princess Cove and Sungai Tebrau are new to me.

The Singapore authorities simply by avoiding any welcome noises is telling us the government is quite unhappy. In fact these developments had caught us by surprise. We do not see  what the Johoreans are doing to be friendly.

There are larger issues at stake here which are geopolitical. Our neighbors will never give up trying to supplant us. The hard truth for us is that peace and cooperation in reality is just another form of war that is much preferable to shooting at each other. Just adapting from Clausewitz and Sun Zi OK. Unfortunately the man in the street is unable to grasp this.

I don't understand the near by proposed oil and gas hub next to Forest City. It is a stupid idea. Who would want to pay up for resort living and see the ugly oil tanks when they open their windows or sit at their balconies?

Anyway I wouldn't be surprised if these projects flopped. All these are small problems when I ponder over our weakening leadership.

2 comments:

  1. It seems good luck to those singaporeans who scramble for Iskander. They should realise Malaysia (or for that matter, any other country) is not like Singapore. They can replicate a thousand Iskanders and the "investor" can sit on his or her property for a long long time.

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  2. a friend of mine just forwarded me this reference from Dr Wealth website : http://drwealth.com/2014/12/26/iskandar-malaysia-going-one-way-down/?utm_medium=DISPLAY&utm_source=OUTBRAIN&utm_campaign=JAN2015&utm_content=ARTICLE34_ECY
    Iskandar Malaysia is Only Going One Way – Down

    How many would have remembered this golden wisdom from our former Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew who once said in his book One Man’s View of the World: “Let’s wait and see how Iskandar develops. This is an economic field of cooperation in which, you must remember, we are putting investments on Malaysian soil. And at the stroke of a pen, they can take it over.”




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