Tag Archives: southeast asia

toilet rats, and a Singaporean perspective on Asia at the end of 2025

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The two things in my title are only loosely related, and here’s how. The Guardian has a gleeful article about toilet rats in the (US) state of Washington. Indeed, this does seem like a pretty good indicator of US decline. Nonetheless, I have one personal experience with a toilet rat, and it was in Singapore. Older-style public restrooms (confusingly for American tourists, called “toilets” as they are throughout most of the world) sometimes have squat toilets flush with the floor rather than western toilets that you sit on. This is a traditional Asian style of toilet, only the modern squat toilet is collected to a modern sewer system rather than just a hole in the ground. Anyway, I was in the restroom/bathroom/toilet when a rat came out of a little hole in the floor, either not noticing or not caring that I was there. I stamped my foot just to let the rat know that I was by far the larger and dominant mammal in the room, and the rat reacted by diving directly into the toilet and down the drain. And it was gone. So I assume it just swam for a bit until it got somewhere with air, and returned to whatever it was doing after I left. Anyway, the advice in Washington State is if you see a rat in your toilet you are supposed to flush the toilet or close the toilet lid. I would not do either of these things because rats are FAST, they are afraid of people, and they have sharp teeth. I think I would calmly close the bathroom door and just peak in after an hour or two to see if it chose to go back where it came from. And I might keep the toilet lid closed after that.

I have been in actual sewers in the United States, and I have seen rats. Sewer rats are plentiful. They don’t want anything to do with us humans, they just scurry away if they see us coming. I have never seen or heard of one coming into a person’s house through the plumbing. So the article seems a bit alarmist to me. Mice are another story. I just wiped some suspected mouse poop off my kitchen counter this morning, which is gross and a disease risk. Anyway…

The connection between Singapore and rats is that Singapore, which has a reputation as possibly the world’s most sparkling clean very dense city, is not perfect. There is trash and there are rats, like any other city. Singapore, and its experts, have a certain self-endowed swagger. Now Singapore really is pretty clean, and its experts really are pretty smart, which brings me to my point that Singapore is pretty good but not perfect. So anyway, here is what a Singaporean expert, George Yeo, with a lot of credentials says is going on in Asia at the end of 2025. It is one person’s opinion but also a uniquely Asian perspective and different from what we hear from the US government/media/nonprofit “blob”. The article is from Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post by way of Yahoo, so also keep in mind the possibility of censorship and/or self-censorship (as you also certainly should with the US blob).

  • If it ever becomes clear that the US will not continue to support Taiwan, China will take over Taiwan. Taiwan will not fight a war it will obviously lose leading to its own destruction and loss of a generation of its young people. Right now the US and China are sort of avoiding talking about this and trying to actively suppress others (like politicians in Taiwan and Japan) from talking about it, and this is essentially a continuation of the long-term status quo.
  • When we hear about large weapons sales from the US to Taiwan, there is an unspoken arrangement that these weapons are considered defensive and do not cross a certain line. The US is seen to be supporting Taiwan, China is seen to be outraged, and both sides get their propaganda win without serious escalation. Again, it’s the long-term status quo.
  • Another reason weapons will not cross a certain line is that the US will not provide weapons where it has a technological lead. “Knowing that many Taiwanese are blue, the US cannot be sure that advanced technology supplied to Taiwan will not quickly leak into China. The military technology supplied to Taiwan is technology the US can afford to lose to China.” [Wikipedia: “The Pan-Blue Coalition, Pan-Blue force, or Pan-Blue group is a political coalition in the Republic of China (Taiwan) consisting of the Kuomintang (KMT), the People First Party (PFP), the New Party (CNP), the Non-Partisan Solidarity Union (NPSU), and the Young China Party (YCP). The name comes from the party color of the Kuomintang. Regarding the political status of Taiwan, the coalition primarily maintains that the Republic of China instead of the People’s Republic of China is the legitimate government of China. It also favors a Chinese and Taiwanese dual identity over an exclusive Taiwanese identity and backs greater friendly exchange with mainland China, as opposed to the Pan-Green Coalition which opposes Chinese identity in Taiwan.” This also, if I am not mistaken, is the status quo position going back many decades.]
  • “There is growing realisation that the road to independence is a dead end…If the young people of Taiwan build their hopes on an illusion – as the young people in Hong Kong once did – it will only lead to tragedy…Taiwan can enjoy more autonomy by negotiating now rather than waiting another 10 years.”
  • Taiwan has economic and industrial strengths that China would like to maintain and benefit from after a hypothetical reunification [which to me, would seem to discourage any full-out military onslaught on a major urban and industrial city]. This is similar to the situation with Hong Kong, where there is some degree of autonomy and the situation is short of full integration [but in my words – obviously much more limited in terms of political freedom than it was in the past].
  • “How can they ever forget that it was Japan’s aggression which separated Taiwan from the mainland in the first place?” [Interestingly, Taiwanese I know tend to have relatively warm feelings towards Japan. I had to refresh on the history again thanks to Wikipedia – Taiwan was occupied/colonized/ruled by Japan from 1895 to 1945. So it was not invaded and dominated in the 1930s and 40s like much of the rest of China and Southeast Asia, and people there were not mistreated as badly.]
  • On “rare earths” we may hear about the US and its allies developing other sources of rare earths, but there are certain “heavy rare earths” which only China produces, and which are critical to industries around the world. Yeo says China could have played this card at any time in the past, and did so only reluctantly as a bargaining chip in response to the recent round of trade disruptions initiated by the Orange Baboon-Ass God [my words, although he does go into a tangent about the Monkey King which is a Chinese/Buddhist legendary epic. Maybe this is actually a very subtle swipe at his dipshit highness.] Yeo sees this situation as a form of mutually assured destruction where it would be irrational for either side to escalate further.
  • The reality of the US government debt is that if there is a severe contraction or reduction in the growth rate, it would at some point have to print money to service its debt. Central banks around the world are buying gold and diversifying away from the US dollar because of this risk.
  • “He [His Orange-Ass Highness] recognises that the US cannot dominate the world the way it used to in the past. The US hasn’t got the financial power or the manufacturing capability. So it has to retreat some and consolidate around its own core and concentrate on healing itself.” The US knows it is overextended globally, and this is what the bluster over exerting itself in the Western Hemisphere is about. It won’t be able to continue exerting itself globally by sheer power and force, so it is retreating particularly from Asia while still trying to look tough. [Maybe, but aren’t there still the 800+ military bases around the world? And why would we antagonize allies if we are in a position of weakness? I am just saying this is irrational, but I admit that ideology can Trump rationality.]
  • He doesn’t see disputes between China and Vietnam or China and the Philippines in the South China Sea “boiling over”.

I have no opinion on the politics of Indonesia…

I am familiar with some facts though. Hundreds of thousands of Indonesian civilians were massacred by its military and paramilitary thugs in the 1960s, and again in East Timor in the 1970s. In the 1990s, street thugs attacked citizens of Chinese ancestry and some families chose to flee the country.

Here is what The Intercept has to say about Indonesia’s (presumptive?) new president:

The heir of a wealthy banking family, Prabowo holds hundreds of thousands of acres of plantation, mining, and industrial properties. He was the son-in-law of the late dictator Gen. Suharto, who, with U.S. support, ruled Indonesia for 32 years…

Prabowo, as Suharto’s son-in-law, was a senior commander of the massacres in occupied East Timor. In one, at Kraras in 1983 on the mountain of Bibileo, “several hundred” civilians were murdered, according to a United Nations-backed inquiry. Prabowo also personally tortured captives; one told me of Prabowo breaking his teeth…

In 1998, with Suharto hobbled by the arms cutoff and facing growing demonstrations, Prabowo abducted 24 democratic activists, 13 of whom he “disappeared.” He also engendered a campaign of murder, arson, and rape, mainly against ethnic Chinese residents.

The Intercept

Compare and contrast with what the BBC had to say:

Where the president is famously soft-spoken and conciliatory, Mr Prabowo has a reputation for ill-tempered outbursts and abrasive opinions. He takes pride in the long career he had as an officer in the Indonesian special forces, despite allegations of serious human rights abuses made against both him and the unit in the past.

BBC

No further comment, except to say the rich and powerful run the world, and maybe in Southeast Asia they don’t go to such great pains to hide it.

The Sierra Madre

This is a weird story. In the South China Sea, there is a Philippines ship that ran aground on a shoal in 1999. Sailors from that country have occupied the ship ever since, and are regularly resupplied while being bombarded by the Chinese navy using things other than guns, like water cannons and lasers.

That month, the Sierra Madre ran aground at Second Thomas Shoal, a small reef in what was then disputed territory, about 120 miles off the coast of Palawan island. A second ship did the same at another shoal later that year. Beijing suspected that Manila was using the beached ships to create outposts.

Philippine officials initially played coy, saying that they meant to repair the Sierra Madre but were having trouble finding the materials, while the other ship was eventually towed away. Yet, more than two decades later, the Sierra Madre remains grounded, a rusted dieselpunk monolith interrupting an otherwise pristine swath of tropical waters. A small group of sailors crews it; they pick their way through its slightly listing steel skeleton as they monitor the area for incursions. Their rotations generally last two months but can stretch up to five. Carlos referred to these tours as a “test of sanity…”

Beijing blatantly ignores this ruling. When the Philippines delivers supplies for the sailors on board the Sierra Madre via small boats escorted by coast-guard ships, Chinese ships attempt to block them. In early August, the Chinese coast guard used water cannons to prevent Philippine boats from reaching the outpost. A second attempt later that month was successful, as was one in September, when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft flew overhead.

Atlantic

The U.S., of course, feels the need to get involved in all this. Not by being a voice of reason, but by ramping up tensions and threats of violence.

just start your y-axis at zero

Seriously, just do that and it will work out most of the time. The only exception in my mind is if you are comparing the range or spread of two data sets and neither one is close to zero.

Snopes

I’ve been to Indonesia, and people there are normal human beings who are in fact somewhat shorter than Europeans on average. But their heads were typically around my shoulder height, not my knees. Some political violence has occurred there in the not-so-distant past, but I found the culture warm and hospitable. Like almost any country not at war, the biggest risk to your physical safety is probably being in a car accident or hit by a car. The next biggest if you are there for any length of time might be air pollution and second hand smoke. Once an Indonesian woman yelled at me to not sit next to her on a ferry. The ferry was crowded and there was nowhere else to sit, but I was eventually able to solve the problem by swapping seats with another woman (my gender being what made her uncomfortable apparently.) Other times I had groups of female Indonesian tourists stop me on the street and ask to take vacation pictures with me to show their friends back home. This was when I was quite a bit younger than I am now.

MH370

It’s sad to read about what (probably, most likely) happened to MH370, the Malaysian airliner that went missing in 2014. Don’t read on if you don’t want to know. Okay…what really probably happened according to The Atlantic is that the pilot, who had a history of mental illness, locked his co-pilot out of the cockpit, intentionally depressurized the plane and climbed to 40,000 feet, which would have caused everyone onboard to lose consciousness and die painlessly in their sleep, repressurized and reheated the plane, then flew for thousands of miles towards Antarctica before diving into the ocean. Disturbing, hard to explain, but there it is.

I learned a few things from this article. First, 40,000 feet is about as high as commercial airliners can go. Second, the oxygen masks provided to passengers are meant to last only about 15 minutes, long enough for the pilots to perform an emergency descent to below 13,000 feet, where there is enough air and it is warm enough for people to breathe without them. Meanwhile, the pilots have pressurized air tanks and masks that can last for hours, if needed. Finally, crazy pilots do occasionally crash planes on purpose, so you can add that to your list of things to worry about if you are looking for something new.

In 1997, a captain working for a Singaporean airline called SilkAir is believed to have disabled the black boxes of a Boeing 737 and to have plunged the airplane at supersonic speeds into a river.* In 1999, EgyptAir Flight 990 was deliberately crashed into the sea by its co-pilot off the coast of Long Island, resulting in the loss of everyone on board. In 2013, just months before MH370 disappeared, the captain of LAM Mozambique Airlines Flight 470 flew his Embraer E190 twin jet from cruising altitude into the ground, killing all 27 passengers and all six crew members. The most recent case is the Germanwings Airbus that was deliberately crashed into the French Alps on March 24, 2015, also causing the loss of everyone on board. Its co-pilot, Andreas Lubitz, had waited for the pilot to use the bathroom and then locked him out. Lubitz had a record of depression and—as investigations later discovered—had made a study of MH370’s disappearance, one year earlier.

Atlantic

That’s about five intentional crashes in 20 years, or one every four years on average, if I am doing the math right.

August 2019 in Review

My work-life balance situation continues to not favor a lot of blog posts. Or is it work-life-family balance? Or is family part of life? Yes, I guess so. Anyway, what there is not a lot of time for is personal leisure activities like reading, writing, and thinking. Not that I don’t enjoy reading Green Eggs and Ham for the 50th time. I do. Anyway, here are a few highlights of the slim pickings that constituted this blog in August 2019. Most frightening and/or depressing story:
  • Drought is a significant factor causing migration from Central America to the United States. Drought in the Mekong basin may put the food supply for a billion people in tropical Asia at risk. One thing that can cause drought is deliberately lying to the public for 50 years while materially changing the atmosphere in a way that enriches a wealthy few at everyone else’s expense. Burning what is left of the Amazon can’t help. 
Most hopeful story:
  • I explored an idea for automatic fiscal stabilizers as part of a bold infrastructure investment plan. I’m not all that hopeful but a person can dream.
Most interesting story, that was not particularly frightening or hopeful, or perhaps was a mixture of both:

the Mekong

Similar to the situation in India, the Mekong depends on a mix of snow/glacial melt from the Himalayas, and on seasonal monsoon rains. Both are becoming less reliable, and countries in the headwaters, including China and Laos, are going on massive dam-building binges. (Disclaimer: This website looks like a reputable source of journalism, but I am not familiar with it.)

The crisis began when critical monsoon rains, which usually start in late May in the Mekong region, failed to arrive. Dry conditions, driven by the El Niño weather phenomenon and exacerbated by climate change, persisted well into July. At that time, observers say, the situation was made worse by hydropower dam operators upstream, in China and Laos,withholding water for their own purposes...

Originating in the Tibetan highlands, the Mekong River flows through six Asian countries, including China, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, and Vietnam, before emptying into the South China Sea. The river basin is home to the largest inland fishery in the world and more than 60 million people depend on it for their livelihoods.

facts about the Vietnam War

A series on warontherocks.com recounts the facts and figures on U.S. firepower during the Vietnam War.

During the Vietnam War the United States dropped approximately twice as many tons of bombs in Southeast Asia as the Allied forces combined used against both Germany and Japan in World War II. Between 1964 and 1973, U.S. aircraft expended over seven million tons of bombs in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, compared to 3.4 million tons dropped by the United States and its allies in all of World War II. There were restrictions on some targets, particularly in areas of North Vietnam that were close to China and where U.S. leaders were concerned that American airstrikes might provoke a Chinese response. But those do not change the fact that the American air campaign in the Vietnam war was the heaviest in the history of war, by a very large margin…

For most of the period of U.S. involvement, the Americans and their South Vietnamese allies used air and ground munitions at a rate several hundred times higher than the Communist side. Pentagon records for 1969, for example, show that U.S. forces expended nearly 130,000 tons of ammunition a month. About three-fifths of that was delivered by air and the rest in ground fire. By comparison, the highest Communist firepower expenditure of the war, not reached until 1972, was about 1,000 tons a month.

Indonesia

The Intercept has an article on what is going on in Indonesia.

On the surface, the massive street protests surrounding the April 19 gubernatorial election have arisen from opposition to Jakarta’s ethnic Chinese incumbent governor, Basuki Tjahaja Purnama, known as Ahok. As a result of pressure from the well-funded, well-organized demonstrations that have drawn hundreds of thousands — perhaps millions — to Jakarta’s streets, Gov. Ahok is currently standing trial for religious blasphemy because of an offhand comment about a verse in the Quran. On Thursday, the day after he hears the results of the very close governor’s election, he is due back in court for his blasphemy trial.

Yet in repeated, detailed conversations with me, key protest figures and officials who track them have dismissed the movement against Ahok and the charges against him as a mere pretext for a larger objective: sidelining the country’s president, Jokowi, and helping the army avoid consequences for its mass killings of civilians — such as the 1965 massacres that were endorsed by the U.S. government, which armed and backed the Indonesian military.

Serving as the main face and public voice of the generals’ political thrust has been a group of what Indonesians call preman — officially sponsored street thugs — in this case, the Islamic Defenders Front, or FPI (Front Pembela Islam). Originally established by the security forces — the aparat — in 1998 as an Islamist front group to assault dissidents, the FPI has been implicated in violent extortion, especially of bars and sex clubs, as well as murders and attacks on mosques and churches. During the mass protests against the governor, FPI leader Habib Rizieq Shihab has openly called for Ahok to be “hanged” and “butchered.”

Indonesia is easily the largest and most important country that most Americans know little or nothing about. I don’t claim to know a lot about it, but I have been there, lived not too far away from there and interacted with people from there. My personal interactions with Indonesians have been very positive. More than once intrepid female Indonesian tourists have stopped me on the street and asked to take photos with me. This inevitably leads to small talk, which always seems to involve asking my martial status and how many children I have in the first minute. On the flip side, I remember an Indonesian woman asking me once to please not sit next to her on a ferry. I tried not to be offended but it was the last seat available. Eventually I managed to change seats with another female passenger, and that solved the problem. So in my personal experiences I have found Indonesian people very personable, peaceful, friendly and tolerant. Which makes the country’s history of ethnic and religious strife a bit hard to reconcile in my head. I have also known Indonesians of Chinese descent who left the country during the ethnic strife in the 90s, but they won’t talk about it much. And I’m aware of the awful things that happened in the 60s, possibly with U.S. government involvement, although I didn’t learn anything about it in school. It is sad if that sort of thing is happening again.

palm oil and peat

Mongabay explains why draining peatlands to grow oil palms is not a great idea.

Peat is a type of soil composed of partially decayed organic material such as vegetation that accumulates over time in a water-saturated environment lacking in oxygen. Peatlands are characterized by a thick layer of peat, often several meters deep that can take thousands of years to form.

Peat swamp forests act as massive carbon sinks, and when they are drained, carbon that has been slowly captured over the centuries it takes the peat to form is suddenly released into the atmosphere. A group of scientists recently uncovered the world’s largest tropical peatland in the Congo basin, thought to store the equivalent of three years’ worth of the world’s total fossil fuel emissions. The draining of peatlands can also lead to widespread subsidence, or sinking, as the organic matter rapidly decompresses and decomposes, ultimately rendering land unsuitable for agricultural or community development, according to NGO Wetlands International.

Across Southeast Asia, peat swamp forests have been cleared, drained, and burned away, often replaced by monocrop plantations or construction projects. Malaysia and Indonesia’s vast peatlands have been significantly reduced by large-scale draining and drying, leading to huge forest and peat fires across the region – such as the 2015 haze crisis that scientists say may have led to the premature deaths of 100,000 people. The event subsequently led Indonesia’s President Joko Widodo to ban the clearance and conversion of peat swamps.