Philippine news

StrategyPage has a long article about China: Their influence in the NoKo economy, their big brother tactics and reeducation of the Muslim areas in the west and in Tibet...

The western press often overlooks that although they took over Tibet and the west, they also brought prosperity to these places, leading the authors to note:

 On the other hand the government has made enormous strides when it comes to reducing poverty in Xinjiang and Tibet but that tends to produce more affluent and educated separatists.

deep in the article is about the Philippines and China's stealing our islets in the West Philippine sea.

But they don't note that one reason they got away with this was that Obama pressured PNoy not to interfere with them when they started chasing off our fishermen, but to take it to court... so we went to court, and won. Ah but who will enforce the court order?

So Duterte, knowing the US will not go to war on this, and knowing we can't stop them, is getting goodies from China, while also allowing the US to help us here (something PNoy and the leftists tried to discourage in the past).

and the chess pieces are moving.

Japan has taken advantage of this and formed a growing alliance to oppose China. Japan has been establishing links with Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan and other countries threatened by Chinese aggression. While China sees Japan as a fading economic and military power, Japan still has the second largest economy in the region, as well as more powerful allies than China. The Japanese military is still a formidable forces, especially at sea. While memories of Japanese brutality throughout East Asia during World War II still survive the fear of similar treatment from China are turning Japan into a sought-after ally for most nations in the region. This alliance is often informal and it nations as distant as India. Speaking of which India is trying to build anti-China alliances with Burma and Indonesia

oh well.

One reason that I visited my son was to make sure that I would have a place to go, just in case China takes over and throws out all the foreign nationals.

Yes, I am paranoid, but since I had to leave the African countries where I was working in a hurry due to wars/revolutions, (not once, but two times) it wouldn't be the first time I faced the problem.

and for those who get hysterical about all those Mexicans sending money home from the USA, a small factoid:

May 10, 2018: The Philippines is the leader when it comes to portion of GDP coming from remittances (money earned by Filipinos overseas and sent home).

yes. When I moved here, the village near our farm had just gotten electricity and had a sign in one shop: Cellphone calls here to Saudi available.

Now, of course, everyone, even our maid and help, have cellphones: not just cellphones, but our maid has a smart phone. Duh. I guess she bought it with the money I gave her for "emergencies", but never mind: that's how things work here. Our help doesn't get paid well, but the regulars are part of the family, meaning they get perks all the time (and often this includes petty theft).

We also have many "Balkibayan" coming back to retire, including US Navy Vets from the time when they could join the Navy as a path to citizenship.

Our family and neighbors' families have relatives all over the world, especially in the Middle East, but also Hong Kong/Macau and Singapore.

But now it looks like the new place to work might be China:

Aware of that one of the “gifts” China has offered is to legalize about 200,000 Filipinos working illegally in China and allow another 300,000 legal workers in, the Philippines is eager to close this deal. China is suffering a labor shortage because of a declining birth rate (a side effect of prosperity) and is accepting more and more legal foreign workers.

Place demographic analysis here.

but after many years of pressure, the gov't might start looking the other way when the birth control/abortion eugenicists get more power.

The birth rate has already gone way down (from 6 to 2.5) over the last 30 years, despite the gov't not pushing the matter but leaving it to the private sector including the Catholic natural family planning types.

So expect the demographic collapse here to hit in the near future: I give it ten years or so.

We'll know it is coming when the papers and gov't start hitting on the scandals of the Catholic church in order to destroy it, as they did in Ireland.

But unlike Ireland (and like Brazil), what may save the country from a quick descent into the Culture of Death will not be the Pope and his PC liberation theology/green theology emphasis, but the lay run charismatic Catholic revival and the huge number of Evangelical converts here.

something to remember the next time you read about the world wide demographic collapse.

PDJames, call your office.

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update: NavalWarCollege article on China, Korea, the West Philippine sea and their long term goals to decrease American influence in east Asia.