3am Today

Throughout time, there has always been some kind of unrest. Whether you are looking through the Bible or whether you are looking out of your window, you are assured to see some kind of unrest. You could even state in a didactic form that the two people arguing at the bus stop across the street is construed as unrest.

For simplicity sake, the word unrest simply means discontent from a person or a group of people or from a personal perspective. It also has the meaning of “a state of dissatisfaction, turmoil, disturbance, and agitation in a group of people, typically involving public demonstrations or disorder.”

We also need to keep in mind that “a group of people” can mean anything from a wedding ceremony, birthday party, block party or it can mean a “congress.” A congress is “the act or action of coming together and meeting or a formal meeting of delegates for discussion and usually action on a question.” You could even say that the meeting of executives at the company where you work could be called a congress. Last, but not least. A group of people can also mean the government of a country.

Within the last eight years, there has been a lot of unrest in the Southeast Asian region and most notably within the last two years, the tensions have escalated into riots on the streets of Hong Kong, Taiwan and other countries as well. Neighbors snitching or calling the police on otherwise peaceful neighbors. Simply stated, our current society is being played-out in George Orwell’s book “1984.” Orwell wrote: “The children were systematically turned against their parents and taught to spy on them and report their deviations. The children know their parents better than others and thus can report on even subtle differences in their behavior.”

This same kind of behavior is being administered by most governments as we speak. Think Japan, with dozens of cameras on every street corner watching you. With the advancement of the internet as a data transmission line, like much of that of an high voltage electrical transmission line that you’ve seen many times before, enormous volumes of data can be transmitted around the globe in a matter of mere microseconds. For comparison, it took about 800 microseconds – depending on where on this planet you are – for this page that you are reading to load into your browser.

A lot of this unrest within governments dates far back in time, those times I’ve written about before. Why the rise of tensions now can only be attributed to a glut of power, to be the “king of the hill,” while still fulfilling the children’s tale of “The kings new clothes.”

In Southeast Asia, one of the major power grab players is China with their relentless blood thirst for domination of the region. For the most part, China has lay in a state of dormancy. The sleeping dragon quietly working on more dominant control over it’s people, increasing its scientific capabilities, manufacturing and of course, reviewing old war footage of the days gone by in the back room of Xi’s Zhongnanhai, adjacent to the Forbidden City. Without a doubt, as the men sit in silence watching the screen, the red faced, boiling blood pressure of all in attendance is off the chart.

At the end of that night’s viewing, Xi is sure to proudly stand in front of the audience with a smirking smile, stating to the men that they are still the worlds suppler of cheap junk, no matter the cost of Chinese lives or the pollution that is the by-product of such a feat. The men, all nodding while their blood pressure and pulse subside, regain consciousness long enough to smile in agreement, once again reassured that they are are still ruling the world.

It particular, Xi confides with the men that he will soon have Hong Kong, Taiwan, the perceived loss of the Indian boarder, Laos, Vietnam, The Philippines and possibly by the grace of the holy, be able to capture Japan. The men shocked, still stand up, rise to the occasion in great cheer for how could they be denied such a wonderful achievement.

Then came President Trump from the United States, throwing monkey wrench after monkey wrench into the works, ensuing a dismal vision not shared by all.

Xi, now in a state of panic, calls the men to the table to discuss the plans needed to accelerate the grand achievement that only mere months ago was without a doubt the best vision of domination that one could have on their daily commute to the office.

Xi explains to the men that we must take Hong Kong and we must do it fast before the British find out what our vision is, for if they are given time, they could through throw a large monkey wrench into the works.

Hong Kong, after being released from British rule, was given back to China with the understanding that they freely maintain a self governance without interference of the governing rule of China. Hong Kong, in the years since became an enormous thriving hub of software and financial industries that the rest of the world would not only pay close attention to, but also became envious of. Sadly, they also became complacent, forgetting that just on the other side of the river, lay a draconian dragon thirsty for Hong Kong blood.

It would not be long after the plans were discussed and set, that the dragon would emerge into the offices of the Hong Kong government to show it’s true face, rearing it’s ugly head, it quickly lay claim to what it believed was rightly theirs. The dragon was also there to show the people, much like it is in China, that they were there to ensure the people of Hong Kong did what the dragon wanted and to ensure that you do not dare speak against the draconian regime in any form of fashion.

Next on Xi’s list was Taiwan. Xi knew this was going to be a bit more of a problem and not so much in the beginning or of fear of the United States, but in the fear of the repercussions that would be reported in the media as Taiwan sits on a pot of gold that the rest of the world would be willing to fight for. Well manufactured integrated circuits at a low cost.

Tsai Ing-wen, president of Taiwan, not a dumb woman by any measure, also knows full well of the pot of gold that she sits on.

Tsai studied law and international trade, and later became a law professor at Soochow University School of Law and National Chengchi University after earning an LLB from National Taiwan University, an LLM from Cornell Law School.

She later studied law at London School of Economics and Political Science and was awarded Ph.D. in law from University of London.

In 1993, as an independent – without party affiliation – she was appointed to a series of governmental positions, including trade negotiator for WTO affairs, by the then-ruling Kuomintang (KMT) and was one of the chief drafters of the special state-to-state relations doctrine of then President Lee Teng-hui.

President Tsai also had/has more than enough vision to know what China is up to and was out of bed making phone calls much earlier than President Xi, hence, stronger trade deals were set into motion with other countries to serve as notice to China that she fully intends to protect her people from a communist rule, leading to the derogation of her countrymen, and a derogation of economy.

Last, but most certainly not least, The Philippines. Smirking Xi knew full well that their president in an effort to appease his people would denounce the United States in a scathing speech, proclaiming “down with the United States!”

To further his appeasement, he would announce that he is tearing up the Visiting Forces Agreement. A move to show his people that he will not tolerate the United State’s military. This, as you might know, stems from the incident of a US military man who murdered a Philippine transvestite, leading to world media attention, all the while, instructing his police force to murder innocent people “suspected” of being even remotely involved with any kind of drug possession, use or intent to distribute.

Xi took great pleasure is seeing these events transpire. So much so, that he invited the Philippines president over for dinner, a round of drinks and tour of the back room where all of the rest of the smirking, smiles faces lay in wait for his arrival.

In what the President of the Philippines would with glee announce to his people days later would turn into a complete disaster only months later after failing to secure the remaining parts of a large loan or the accomplishments of the so proudly proclaimed infrastructure projects. This again would leave the president in shame as he now had to face his people in failure. For Xi, it was a complete success.

On November 11, the president would again announce to his people that he is delaying ripping up the Visiting Forces Agreement in hopes that it would send a signal to China. Unfortunately, it holds little-to-no merit as the United States by this time had all but given up on trying to figure out what the good President was going to do next and if for how long would the next batch of words remain stable. This leaves The Philippines and its people in a very precarious state of being, a sort of limbo, where its people are wondering what to do next and how to do what they need to, to survive.