When LKY passed away I blogged that after he is gone other countries will test us and Israel did us a favor by being the first to do so in a friendly way. Others like China are different.
Today I read about our PM working visit to India. What to do? We can only hope to diversify. It would have been better if we could do this more quickly but I think we are already driving diversification as quickly as we could.
From time to time our foreign investments would suffer losses not for business but geopolitical reasons. This is something we have to bear in mind and cope well.
Peh Shing Huei wrote a very accessible article which everyone ought to read. Thus far what my late dad had warned about China is so much more spot on compared to folks like Wang Gungwu. LKY had also warned us some years ago a rising China might chose to turn assertive before it is ready. This is a foolish thing to do but rarely do leaders put their long term national interests ahead of their personal desires. Xi Jinping is first and foremost a leader with the mentality of a great Chinese emperor. He will model himself for achieving greatness like those in history. Most likely he would go for a third term and isn't he been busy creating support for that to be possible?
I think our leaders placed great hopes in the TPP but that is unlikely to be ratified by the US Congress is this de-globalizing climate of what is left of Obama's time in office.
Meanwhile we need to be clear and firm with China so that they would not be hopeful that if they make things economically difficult to us we will cave in to their wishes. Look at how they hurting Taiwan at the moment. They could punish our many investments in China or more likely dry up the visitors of their citizens here.
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