I think nobody has explained about that more accurately than Obama. The US doesn’t want China to become prosperous because it feels that all the good things in life is deserving only for the US and its lapdogs.

Obama once told an Australian journalist:

if over a billion Chinese citizens have the same living patterns as Australians and Americans do right now then all of us are in for a very miserable time,

That’ was a painful and revealing honesty. In short, in the mind of the west, the world can continue with a billion of Chinese dead but the world can’t have the US and the west to miss even a good meal.

At least in the US, the perception is that Air Force folk are soft. They don’t train nearly as hard and as rough or put up with anything like as much BS as I experienced in Army basic training. And their creature comforts are the best offered by any of the services. As in flat out luxurious compared to the Army, and I assume, Marines.

For the most part, though, dumping on them is just good natured fun.

And to be fair, it doesn’t make sense to put airmen through the kind of training intended to prepare them for the kinds of things people in the Army and Marines need to prepare for. The toughness of basic and AIT (and whatever Marines call their basic and AIT) has a purpose. Yeah, a lot of it is mindless machismo, but much of it is intended to prepare folk in those branches for rough and tough stuff they might actually have to do and deal with in case of war.

Even in case of war, though, it’s highly unlikely that airmen will have to stay in foxholes for weeks, or hike twenty miles with full rucksacks. So why waste time making them do that in training, instead of train them for the technical stuff they’ll actually need to know in order to be useful?

(Airmen don’t and won’t have to deal with this, so why waste time training them for it? Writers Cafe)

And as to luxurious creature comforts and what seems like coddling, welp… the reality is that a lot of airmen do highly technical stuff that’s in high demand in the civilian world. E.g.; I was a TOW gunner – not a whole lot of demand for that in the job market. So the Army could get away with throwing away the kid gloves when treating 11H and similar MOSes. Air Force computer techs or airplane mechanics and the like, though – if they don’t like how they’re treated, they have better options than do their brethren in the other branches. They simply won’t reenlist when their 4 years or whatever are up, fairly confident that with the skills they learned in service, they can land a civilian job that pays a lot more than Uncle Sam does.

So for purposes of retention, the Air Force has more of an incentive to treat its members nice than the other branches do. They’re literally more valuable in the job market and are easier to lose. Accordingly, the Air Force tries to be as nice to them as possible, in order to increase the likelihood of their sticking around.

Ranch Round Steak

Yield: 8 servings

Ingredients

• 1 (3 pound) round steak
• 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons dry mustard
• 1 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1/8 teaspoon pepper
• 1/4 cup shortening
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce

Instructions

1. Cut steak into serving size pieces; trim away excess fat and pound to tenderize.
2. Combine flour, dry mustard, salt and pepper; use to coat meat. Reserve remaining flour mixture.
3. In skillet, brown meat, half at a time, on both sides in hot shortening. Push meat to one side; stir in reserved flour mixture.
4. Combine water and Worcestershire sauce; stir into skillet mixture. Cook and stir until thickened and bubbly, reduce heat. Cover and simmer for about 1 hour or until meat is tender.
5. Remove meat to platter.
6. Skim excess fat from gravy. Drizzle gravy over meat and serve.

I was 17, about to turn 18 the next month. I knew I needed to start building credit, but given my only income was about 12 hours/week at $8/hour, not many places were keen on giving me a credit card much less without a co-signer (and I did not want a co-signer since it was my credit so my problem).

I finally found a credit card through Bank of America (my current bank too) that had about a $300 limit. Cool, I finally have a credit card!

As I was grabbing my paperwork and about to leave, the teller says,

“Hold on! I forgot to tell you one thing about this card!”

“Yes?” I answered hesitantly. I had already gone through the wringer looking for a card that I can qualify for, and the last thing I needed was another caveat.

“Your card has a cash-back feature as a promotion!” the teller beamed. “That means if you spend $1.95, we will round up the purchase to $2. $1.95 will go to the purchase, and $0.05 will go into your savings.”

“Okay,” I think, “it’s a way to get people to save more money. But how is this a promotion?”

“And,” the teller continued, “Bank of America will match those funds transferred to your savings account 100% for the the first three months of owning the card!”

Whoops, wrong thing to say to a very ambitious 17-year-old.

I immediately began scheming of ways to exploit this. Heck, I figured all I had to do was change my buying habits. The issue was, what do I purchase that I can really exploit this?

Then it hit me: I can buy gas.

Instead of filling up I would put $1.01 into my tank multiple times. Then Bank of America would match the $0.99 cents transferred to my savings account. Sure, it was tedious, but doing this for an hour I would make way more than when I worked at my actual job.

In the end I wasn’t as disciplined with this method as I would have liked. Frankly I felt very suspicious standing at the gas pump for half an hour.

I wound up making around $150 using this “exploit” (I use quotations because if a 17-year-old can outsmart Bank of America, it had to be designed with this sort of use in mind.).

The funniest moment was when I told the teller at the bank what I had done at the end of the three months. Her face looked something like this:

The biggest category banned by the Chinese government is not politics, but porn, violence, adultery, gambling, and drug-use. Most PG13 movies and games would be judged as “too much breast” or “too violent” by the Chinese standard. Without the ban China would be the biggest market in the world for Japanese or Korean porn.

This is considered to have too much skin and the TV series was taken off air for three days to crop off the cleavage.

Viewers complain after censors remove cleavage from Chinese TV show

If the government doesn’t do anything, some other people in China will complain about the government not doing enough to ban it.

The Chinese government is one giant parental control.

On the other hand, China has less rules/laws/social norms than most other places. There are fewer things you can’t imagine than things that actually occur in China. For example, take funeral. On the one hand, you have people hiring strippers to strip in funeral processions in order to attract a big crowd, like, let’s give the dead a big send-off. No More Funeral Strippers, Chinese Government Announces. On the other side of the spectrum, you have people blasting national anthem for funerals of some random people. China Bans National Anthem at Weddings, Funerals Why would people do this sort of stuff is just beyond me!

Yes, Rome continued to be inhabited after it’s final “fall” in 476 C.E.

However, Rome depended on its massive Empire to provide it with food and wealth, with that gone, the city was unsustainable. Once home to a million people, within a century the population had fallen to about 10% of that. For the most part, there simply weren’t enough people to maintain the grandeur of the city. Within two centuries, most people who lived in Rome had no idea what the buildings used to be used for (like the Coliseum)

Rome’s also in an area that gets earthquakes, and between the fall of Rome and modern times there were a few quite substantial ones. No-one is going to bother repairing structures that collapse. In fact, by the 19th century, most of the city’s old marble was being ground up for cement.

A good modern parallel is Detroit, Michigan. Yes, about 600,000 people still live there, but the city used to hold over 1.8 million people. Buildings got abandoned. Some were torn down. Some are still there. Some of the old buildings have been restored to their former glory. But there are still a lot of places in the city that are crumbling and abandoned.

Initially, Elvis believed, as many did, that the Vietnam War was an honorable war between good and evil. But, as the years dragged on and the Vietnam casualties were shown every night on TV it became clear to Elvis, and millions, that Americans were being lied to. That the mentality of “we captured this piece of land = victory in war” was unattainable.

The Vietnam War divided America. On one side was the let’s support our troops and win this war and on the other side was we should get out of this war…now.

Hence, Elvis wanted us out of Vietnam as it was unwinnable

Elvis’ infamous flight to Washington DC, in December of 1970which was completely out of character for Elvis as he went alone and on the spur of the moment without anyone knowing other than Sonny West (Red West’s cousin) and Jerry Schilling, where Elvis met with President Richard Nixon and there are photographs of them together at the White House.

On the plane ride to Washington DC Elvis was talking to them, known then as stewardesses who were enthralled by Elvis a young man in uniform stood up to ask for water. With Elvis having honorably served in the US Army from March 1958 to March 1960 he was taken aback by the tortuous look on the man’s face with his head down barely making eye contact.

Elvis asked him his name. Asked him about where he was headed after landing and the man replied he was going to propose to his girlfriend of 2 years. Elvis was careful not to bring up anything about the war and concentrated on the young man who is fighting for his country. Elvis gave the young man an autograph, a ring off his hand, and asked Sonny West how much money they had on them. Sonny West, in Red Wests and. or Joe Esposito’s absence, handled bringing money and replied “Five thousand dollars” OR five hundred dollars depending on the source. Elvis said to hand it over to him. Elvis immediately went back to the young man and said “I wish I could give you more but perhaps this will benefit you and your loved ones”. Elvis then had Jerry write down the phone numbers at Graceland and in California and told the man if he ever needed anything to please let Elvis know. The soldier was speechless and Elvis told him to take care and may God bless you and keep you safe.

Elvis then put on his sunglasses not because of the sun but to hide his tears from everyone. Elvis was deeply moved by the soldier as it represented thousands of young men who went off to war and either never came back or came back being spit upon called war criminals and had mental and physical harm/nightmares.

Elvis knew that the last war America fought, the Korean War should have taught America that either you overwhelm the enemy with bombs and/or troops OR don’t go to war. What Elvis saw of Vietnam when he met Richard Nixon was a quagmire. A never-ending war. Elvis asked President Nixon about the Vietnam War and if the troops had everything they needed. President Nixon said yes. Even Nixon would be lied to by General William Westmoreland and America would learn of Westmoreland’s lies, at a later date, and be horrified. Also, Elvis knew that the rich and powerful were able to keep their children out of the war and/or those young men in college were able to stay out of the war and adversely affected the poor, middle class, and without political connections were sent to war. It was wrong then and it is wrong now.

Elvis loved America but he came to hold the opinion that the war should end and our troops to come home. less than 3 years after meeting President Nixon the President ordered all troops home. Elvis’ heart went out to those who died, were disabled, and their family/loved ones.

Take care

This is Larry Fink.

He’s a guy most people have never heard of, and that’s entirely on purpose. While he may not be super well-known, he’s the CEO & Founder of what may be a company that quite literally owns the world: BlackRock.

BlackRock is a lot more powerful than people know. They control and own:

• Most US Banks (such as Bank of America and Chase Bank).
• Major oil companies (like Exxon and Chevron).
• All of the major pharmaceutical companies in the world (such as Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson).
• Most of the mainstream media (such as CNN, Fox News, and MSNBC).
• The supervision of nearly 10% of all stocks traded worldwide.

They quite literally hold a slice of every pie in the world. In fact, they have a whopping $10 trillion in assets — nearly half America’s total GDP.

BlackRock is so influential that the US and Chinese Governments even relied on the company to escape recessions.

Being the Founder & CEO of such a mega-conglomerate, Fink is now quite powerful as well. He currently sits on both the Council on Foreign Relations and the World Economic Forum.

In the words of Henry Kissinger, “Whoever controls the money controls the world”. No other company in history has had as much influence as BlackRock.

The fact that BlackRock is a major shareholder in dozens of major companies (Twitter, Amazon, Google, and Facebook, just to name a few) is very important because it means that for any of these companies to decide on company policy, they must now also consult with BlackRock before doing so.

BlackRock’s influence over 90% of the mainstream media might also be why you’ve probably never heard of them (and why most people haven’t).

Controlling media is a very important step in BlackRock continuing to extend its control over the world, because if everyone knew the consequences of them holding nearly $10 trillion in assets, questions would start to be raised.

Such an unchecked amount of power (especially under the wing of Fink being the sole company owner) means that the guy has unparalleled amounts of power over the world that we may yet to truly understand.

Theodore loved Liz and her daughter Molly with all his heart, but the relationship was compromised in the darker corners of life. They had lived different lives before they met, and even when they lived partly together, there always was Liz’s feeling that Theodore still had some hidden life apart.

Sometimes he would be distant and absent, and the stark contrast with his usual very passionate and loving ways couldn’t be bigger. As if there was a second Theodore inside. And then he would disappear for a couple of days, and when he resurfaced (he always did), he was exhausted and depressed, taking long naps in which he wanted to escape the cruel world.

The weird thing was that Liz had started noticing that whenever Theodore disappeared for a couple of days, one or two women would disappear as well somewhere in the US, and in hindsight always in the exact same state where Theodore happened to be (for no good reason). But she never asked him the questions, because she knew what the answers were (and that he never would tell).

One time, she found a bag filled with women’s clothes in her apartment, and on another occasion, she found plaster of Paris in his desk drawer that he claimed he had taken when he was working in a medical supply house.

But when two young women disappeared at Lake Sammamish, Liz kept thinking about the cast the guy was wearing who was thought to have abducted and killed both women — “what a perfect weapon it would make for clubbing someone on the head.”

And needless to say, Theodore was nowhere around Liz’s place when the Lake Sammamish disappearings happened.

After his final arrest in Florida (in 1978), Theodore confessed to Liz over the phone that he was “controlled by a force he couldn’t contain.” In the days prior to the arrest, he had killed three women and disabled three further women for the rest of their lives:

“The force would just consume me. Like one night, I was walking by the campus and I followed this sorority girl. I didn’t want to follow her. I didn’t do anything but follow her and that’s how it was. I’d be out late at night and follow people like that … I’d try not to, but I’d do it anyway.”

The last murder victim was Kimberley Leach, and she had been tortured, abused and killed, and left in an abandoned pig farrowing shed. At the age of 14.

In his final days before being executed, Theodore Bundy finally admitted to having killed at least 30 women, committed acts of necrophilia with many of the corpses whom he hid on distant sites (until putrefaction made a halt to that), collected some of their body parts to further engage with in his (or Liz’s) apartment, and much much more.

But he still loved Liz Kloepfer and her daughter Molly till the very end.

Those are the people that scare me the most: the very monsters who are human beings at the same time, perfectly able to hide under their human nature —

And entirely invisible to the rest of us.

The Chinese 4-nanometer chiplet technology breakthrough in 2023

As TSMC has suffered setbacks in the research and development of advanced processes, the global chip industry has realized that the research and development of advanced chip processes is becoming increasingly difficult, and this path is becoming increasingly difficult to advance. Therefore, chip companies have been exploring new technical directions to improve chip performance, and chiplet technology is one of them. In this regard, Chinese chips have made significant progress.

Among the Chinese chip companies, JCET Group 长电科技 is one of the top three packaging and testing companies in the world and also the most technologically powerful chip packaging and testing company in China. It recently announced that it has successfully developed 4-nanometer chiplet technology with a packaging area of ​​up to 1500mm2 and achieved system-level packaging, ranking first in the world.

With the help of the advanced packaging technology, China can use mature processes to produce chips with leading performance. By packaging chips with different processes together, it can achieve 4-nanometer performance, thereby successfully circumventing the current limitations of EUV lithography machines on China’s development of advanced processes.

The Chinese breakthrough in chiplet technology has also been recognized by American chip companies. Recently, news indicated that another domestic packaging and testing company, Tongfu Microelectronics 通富微电, has successfully mass-produced 5-nanometer chiplet technology, with obvious technological advantages. Because its technology is advanced enough, even the American chip giant AMD has recognized its technological advantages and has therefore given 80% of its chip orders to Tongfu Microelectronics, and the contract period is as long as several years.

American chip companies with such advanced technology have all entrusted chip packaging to Tongfu Microelectronics, which shows that Chinese chip companies are already sufficiently advanced in chiplet technology.

The breakthrough in chiplet technology has undoubtedly opened a door for Chinese chips. The world’s leading chiplet technology will help the Chinese chip industry to solve the obstacles of chip technology and develop advanced chips. The performance-leading chips announced earlier by many chip companies such as Loongson are inseparable from domestic chiplet technology. Processors and memory chips produced with domestic 14nm technology are packaged together to reduce the communication time between various chips, which can achieve the purpose of improving performance.

Of course, China’s chip performance improvement is not limited to chiplet technology. China is also promoting the development of quantum chip and photonic chip technology. The Chinese Academy of Sciences has released 3-nanometer photonic transistor technology. Such advanced technology will be able to bypass the limitations of EUV lithography machines, but it will take time for photonic chips to be commercialized, and chiplet chip technology is a more realistic technology at present.

The fact that China has made breakthroughs in many chip technologies shows that many of the US tactics are gradually becoming ineffective. With the joint efforts of Chinese chips, China will soon be able to break the shackles of EUV lithography machines and may even gain a technological lead in the chip industry in the next few years, completely breaking the US monopoly on chip technology.

Chinese chips are beginning to burst out with unlimited potential. The Chinese are constantly creating their own chip technology system. After establishing an independent technology system, Chinese chips will surely be invincible.

China’s Diplomacy, Geopolitics & Defense

Godfree Roberts

Diplomacy

Leaders from 54 African countries with 30% of the world’s population attended FOCAC. Xi: “We have together built roads, railways, schools, hospitals, industrial parks, and special economic zones. These projects have changed the lives and destiny of many people”. He committed another $50 billion to continue the work and canceled all tariffs for 33 African countries. The effect will be increased exports from Africa to China.

The greatest demographic fact of our century is Africa’s exponential growth. UN forecasts say its population will grow from 811 million in 2000 to 4.3 billion in 2100, a vastly significant megatrend.

American voters want U.S. China policy to be “smart, firm, strong, and diplomatic.” Only 13% want an aggressive approach and 5% want a confrontational one. 73% say the U.S. should hold high-level diplomatic talks with China.

The UN General Assembly adopted two Chinese resolutins: The first is that July 6 will be “World Rural Development Day” (America has always been hostile to development in foreign countries and China is seeking to have development recognized as a human right). The second, the “United Nations Games” resolution, calls for convening the UN Games annually and invites relevant stakeholders to make voluntary contributions to a trust fund dedicated to the Games (a shot across the bow of the corrupt, US-controlled IOC).

Geopolitics

The United States is losing ground in important parts of Asia. “For these poor but growing countries, the American mortgage crisis was a staggering affair: why give poor people high-interest mortgages when they know they won’t be able to pay them back? Morality at zero. The irresponsibility of the United States was soon joined by that of Europe, so slow to react. In truth, it was China’s massive stimulus policy that pulled the world out of recession. The emergence of the BRICs rebounds from this double Western irresponsibility.”

By letting Jews plant bombs in electronic consumer devices, the West has undermined its own and Taiwan’s tech products and boosted China’s. Saudi Arabia and the UAE have switched to Huawei phones and telecoms, with the rest of MENA

expected to follow suit. After Crown Prince Salman revealed that the Royal Family uses custom Huawei phones, Huawei became flooded with orders.

The 2018 and 2019 ZTE and the Huawei incidents forced a reckoning across Chinese industry and government: the flick of a pen from halfway around the world could, at least temporarily, cripple two technological crown jewels. Beijing set up a national technology security system to better protect its high-tech firms.” The government’s main science funding body launched an emergency project to study and solve the  “chokepoint problem.” And state media published a list of 35 chokepoint technologies on which China urgently needed to reduce its foreign dependence.

300 German companies in China criticize the slow visa process for Chinese employees. In a letter to German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, “ the qualification of Chinese employees in Germany and joint project development are crucial to the success of German companies. We are concerned that there are still difficulties in providing Chinese employees of German companies with visas for Germany in a timely manner”.

BRICS lays the foundation for decoupling from US agriculture with the development of a post-American international economic system. This includes a grain exchange, new logistic centers, transportation infrastructure, development banks, insurance systems, native technologies and digital platforms, de-dollarisation, and the abandonment of the SWIFT transaction system. The US weaponisation of trade will continue to encourage the rest of the world to reduce their dependence on the US and find more reliable economic partners.

The CIA was attempting to set up hundreds of paramilitary officers in North Korea. What struck him as a spectacular secret was a CIA cover organization called the SEA Supply Company. In a few years, this group would be training police forces in Thailand, but in the immediate term Smith discovered that SEA Supply was involved in planning an invasion of China through the CIA Station in Taiwan with the help of the Nationalist Chinese (Kuomintang or KMT), stationed in Burma. General Stilwell’s deputy, Desmond FitzGerald, ran the operation, which had the goal of invading China from Burma through Yunnan province.

The last CIA-sponsored invasion of China occurred in August 1952, when 2,100 KMT troops led by General Li Mi were turned back by the Chinese army after penetrating 60 miles inland. Then Li Mi gave up on his goal of taking over China and focused on controlling the opium trade with his 12,000 troops located in Burma. “Li Mi’s troops would not give up their Burmese poppy fields,” Smith wrote, “because of the problems that it could lead to in this still explosive part of the world.”

In July 2024, a Chinese tourist was murdered in Osaka. In February 2024, a Chinese student was murdered in Japan’s Hamana lake. In August 2024, a Chinese student was stabbed to death by a Japanese.

​​Defense

Egypt operates 220 F-16s with no beyond visual range air-to-surface weapons whatsoever, and Washington offered Cairo the upgraded F-16V, but the cost was too high. The U.S. sold 66 F-16Vs to Taiwan for $8 billion, or $121 million per jet. By contrast, Pakistan signed a $1.4 billion deal with China in 2009 to buy 36 J-10Bs at $39 million each. The J-10C offers superior combat capabilities to the enhanced F-16V at a comparable cost. The J-10C can carry the PL-15 300 km range missile.

USN fanboys become furious when I point out that silly FONOPs in the South China Sea are under constant surveillance and can be hit by hypersonic missiles from multiple directions. FONOPs symbolism works for people ignorant about modern weapon systems, satellite coverage, etc. In other words, how a 21st century naval war (which no one has ever seen) might be fought. PRC remote sensing capability is now very advanced, and they have developed a 10B parameter transformer specifically for processing remote sensing data: Having a 300 remote sensing sat constellation like Jilin-1 that can see object move w/ 0.5m precision & able to revisit location every 5 minutes. How much data has been collected from silly FONOPs that was then used to train the remote sensing transformer?

China just released Kongtian Lingmou 3.0, the world’s first 10 billion parameter space-air remote sensing interpretation model. It can process massive datasets and complete space-air tasks, like fine classification and tracking small moving targets. Pair that with the 10 billion model and tracking ships 6000 nm away wouldn’t be much of an issue. And  that’s just their civilian constellation. TP Huang

China’s VT-4 main battle tank has successfully completed assessments in Algeria, The VT-4 boasts very high levels of mobility, with its 1,300 hp diesel engine ensuring a high power-weight ratio. The tank benefits from torsion bar suspension, an integrated hydraulic transmission system, and automatic gear transmission for steering and acceleration. It uses an autoloader allowing its weight to be reduced considerably and its crew cut from four to just three. The tank uses a 125mm main gun, while Japanese and South Korean tanks use 120mm guns. The tank uses composite armor and FY-4 explosive reactive armor for protection, equivalent to 700mm of protection.

A more detailed look at China’s mysterious stealth frigate, a technology demonstrator for the next generation of warships. China produces more destroyers than the next several producers combined, and has in some years launched ten destroyers in a single year. Only six countries in the world field more than ten destroyers in their entire fleets, with the U.S. Navy fielding 75, Japan 36, and South Korea 13.

The first Yulan-class landing helicopter assault (LHA) ship, the Type 076, will be the world’s largest amphibious assault ship, 260 m. x 52 m, or 13,500 m2—the area of three U.S. football fields, considerably larger than the U.S. America-class LHA and Japanese Izumo-class. Its electric catapult will launch fixed-wing aircraft, unique among LHAs, and an aircraft elevator on each side for lifting aircraft from the internal hangar to the flight deck. The 076 may launch fixed-wing aircraft, or at least fixed-wing combat UAVs, putting the Type 076 in a class of its own. It features a floodable well deck on its stern, for launching amphibious vehicles for “ship-to-shore” operations.

Egypt placed its first order for Chinese  J-10C fourth generation fighters, following its admission to BRICS. The J-10C is far more capable than any fighter in the Israeli fleet other than its two squadrons of F-35s, with large scale acquisitions potentially forcing Israel to expand F-35 orders and to invest in more capable air to air missiles for its aircraft.

Two huge container ships for the first time passed each other just 750 nautical miles from the North Pole, en route to connecting Chinese ports to Russia’s Saint Petersburg. Flying Fish 1, the first-ever Panamax container ship to venture into the Arctic, is traveling from Saint Petersburg in the Baltic Sea to Qingdao in northeastern China. Carrying close to 5,000 containers across a length of 294 meters it sets a new record for largest box ship to travel across Russia’s Northern Sea Route.

Chinese scientists use Starlink satellite signals to detect stealth targets during a radar experiment in the South China Sea. The detection method relies on forward scatter, where an object like a plane or drone disrupts electromagnetic waves from a satellite, causing small signal disturbances, which are captured and analyzed to determine the object’s location. This technique does not require the radar to emit signals, making it harder for adversaries to detect or jam.

What are the most common misconceptions Westerners have about daily life in China?

Many of them are mentally fixed. As such they saw something in the past and think nothing has changed.

It doesn’t look like that anymore. There’s been significant progress. Some think of 1960s, 1950s is similar to modern day China. In the UK I remember some retirees they were talking as if Chiang Kai Shek or Mao was still alive. They’ve been dead 40+ years.

It’s like these videos of American schools in the 1980s-1990s. It doesn’t look like that anymore. The children got heavier and wider.

Barring visiting themselves they often don’t see it and have no reason to change their point of view. Add in the absolute lies told by western media and the paid comments by the western world (UK has 77th brigade) and censors western media to block out alternative views.

A realistic picture can only be found by going there and looking yourself.

So what’s the problem?

You ever read Orwell’s 1984? Prisoners are paraded around before their ‘disposal’. Winston surmises that if the average prole managed to talk to the prisoners they’d realise they were far more alike than they were told.

So what’s the problem? People can go there and go see for themselves!

The western world has travel advisories against China.

This means people can’t get travel insurance.

My dad keep a house in the UK. Before he had cancer travel insurance from the UK to HK/CHN (he sometimes flies in via Guangzhou airport or Shenzhen) travel insurance was insignificant as a cost. He could get travel insurance full medical evacuation type for £20 per trip or £110 a year.

He got cancer. He’s much better now. His travel insurance single trip is £300 and refused quote for a year. This is to Europe.

The travel advisories and alerts to China mean that you simply can’t get travel insurance to China at all. So the only people who go are the adventurous younger ones who travel without insurance.

I mean the USA does not look like this everywhere. I know this as do many people know this,

But guess what? The USA is denying many visas to Chinese people, so guess what? Chinese people can’t see that the USA doesn’t look like the above.

Why does The Art of War say to never put your enemy in a corner?

It will dodectuple the enemy’s resolve and will to fight.

This should be self-evident to any officer. Always leave a surrounded enemy an escape route. The reason is that a drowning man will grab even a straw – a surrounded enemy will grab it, and a retreat will quickly turn into a rout. The enemy can be slain at will along that road while he routs.

But what happens if you cut that way to safety off? You effectively put him in the Terrain of Death. The enemy will now know his only chance is to fight – and he will fight with a terrible resolve. This is effectively the inverse of burning the bridges behind – the enemy is now fully committed and will fight to the last man.

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This is exactly why the British Army did not close the Falaise pocket in Normandy 1944, but left deliberately a gap out. The surrounded Germans routed through it, and by doing so, the Royal Air Force bombed and strafed them at will. The Germans left behind all their vehicles and heavy equipment, and their morale was crushed.

Now suppose what would have happened if the British had closed the gap – and the route to safety? Yes, the Germans would have fought like cornered rats, with all the desperation of a besieged enemy, and caused immense losses to the Allies. Resolving the battle would have taken weeks, perhaps months, and given Germans time for a counterattack.

What is an incident that changed your life?

When we saw tears in my Dad’s eyes :- I still remember the incident, when my dad came home with tears in his eyes. At that time we (my elder brother and I) were in class 9, we asked dad, what happened? He said “I want to see you both as successful people, just focus on your studies.”

Later we came to know due to some family issue, my uncle hit my dad.

We were not good students at that point of time. In class 9, my brother scored 40/100 in Mathematics, while I scored 48/100. Next year in 10th U.P board exams, my brother scored 88/100 and I got 78/100 in mathematics. We both passed with first division.

After that, we never looked back.

12 years later –

Today I am working as a Senior Software Engineer in a leading Telecom company in Berlin, Germany and my elder brother is working as production manager in Shenzhen, China.

Yes, happy ending. 🙂

Edit 1 : Someone asked, how are my parents now & how are we taking care of them?

My parents are pretty good & we are taking care of them very well, soon they will be visiting me. Before moving to Germany, I worked in Malaysia with a leading American MNC. When I had to move to Germany, I called my Mom and Dad to Malaysia, I took them to Singapore and Cambodia too. This was the first time they traveled by plane. 🙂

My daughter helped me meet my affair at our house, but then the worst case scenario happened

Oh, these stories of mistakes and how they evolve are interesting and depressing at the same time.

https://youtu.be/ymhko4vtjzk