Critical Passages and Chokepoints

The world's critical waterway chokepoints affecting trade, supplies, shipping and tourism have always been relevant for a long time now. The UK and Europe has taken strategic and stakeholder interests in Suez - while the USA even took control of the land strips beside the Panama Canal. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the Dutch, Portuguese and British fought for the Straits of Malacca. Singapore sits at the southern end of the Malacca Straits, a very important junction between the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. The Black Sea is vital to Russia, Ukraine and the surrounding landlocked states, thereby making the Bosporus Straits near Istanbul a vital opening to the Sea of Marmara. What about other significant water passages that are of value, historical concern and contemporary risk? The Sea of Japan between the southern Japanese island of Kyushu and the Korean Peninsular. The Mongols in the 13th century CE launched ships to attempt conquering the Japanese isles, but were rebuffed by typhoons in 1274 and 1281, that are now fondly referred to as the Kamikaze ( Divine Winds). The Straits of Gilbratar, narrow and small as it may be, is the only gateway between the Mediterranean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. The British still maintain a tiny colonial foothold in Gilbratar, sandwiched between Spain and Morocco. Command of a narrow but strategic waterway pays off not only in military advantages, but also historically in revenue collection, geopolitical bargaining and in trading. The Torres Strait lies between Papua New Guinea and Cape York Peninsular in northern Queensland. It forms the shortest stretch of ocean between Asia and Australia. It was a channel of cultural exchange, trade and biological influences long before British settlement and the formation of modern Australia. The Baltic Sea, particularly the Gulf of Finland and the Gulf of Bothmia, are of top security and national importance to Russia and its neighbours of Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia , Finland, Poland and Sweden. Underwater cables carrying data and communications, submarine use and a much needed relatively fair weather water passageway out of landlocked territories - all these offer benefits and stakeholder advantages. The Taiwan Straits is near the economically vibrant Bay area of southern China and her key cities of Shenzhen, Xiamen, Hong Kong and Macao. Taiwan was named as Formosa (the Beautiful Island) by the Portuguese maritime explorers. Apart from the Taiwan Indigenous ( who are related to the Polynesians), Taiwan had been populated from the 17th century onwards, by migrants ( Hakkas and Hoklos) from the southern Chinese provinces of Fujian and Guangdong, before being taken over by Japan when the island nation won the Sino-Japanese War in 1895 against Qing Dynasty China. After the Japanese Imperialists surrendered in 1945 in the closure of the Second World War in the Pacific, Taiwan was returned to a China fighting a civil war. The Nationalists in China fled to Taiwan when they lost political control of the mainland to the Communists in 1949. In the almost 80 years since, Taiwan has been governed in varying ways different from mainland China. The Johore Straits separate the island republic of Singapore from the peninsular of the Federation of Malaysia. There are two causeways, fully utilised to the core every day with goods, produce and people. The Japanese Imperial army crossed over in early 1942 from the north ( Malayan peninsular) to take over British colonial Singapore in a few weeks. The Johore Straits divides two separate nations which were once together in the same Federation, but now differ in several key features. A sizeable number of people reside on the Johore side of the Straits but work in Singapore. Halong Bay lies south of Guang Xi Province of China, which borders northern Vietnam. That area of water also has the tropical Chinese island of Hainan nearby. It has witnessed the intense bombings over Hanoi and Haiphong during the worst years of the American War in Vietnam. Halong Bay has scenic limestone outcrops dotted over water. The St. Lawrence Seaway is the economic pipeline for eastern Canada, where most of her national population resides - and also for the north eastern United States. The so called seaway is a huge system of canals, rivers and locks that facilitate shipping, supplies, people movement and societal linkages. From inland provinces and small townships, it connects them to the northern Atlantic and serves the needs of two nations. Both national capitals of the USA and Canada are geographically near this never to be under estimated feature. Between Communist Cuba and Florida ( most south easterly state of the USA) is a stretch of water that does not take long to traverse. Known as the Straits of Florida, it connects the Gulf of Mexico with the Atlantic Ocean. Refugees are familiar with its waters. Pirates roamed to plunder and seize two and three centuries ago. It can be a geopolitical beach head just north of the Caribbean, which itself has a variety of tax havens, economically challenged societies and vacation spots. California has an economic and financial vitality that exceeds many of the world's independent nations. It has a long Pacific Ocean coast, viable diverse migrant demographics and apart from Hawaii, is the setting for key military installations for the West Coast of the USA. The Bering Straits separate mainlands of both Russia and the USA ( Alaska). It is said human beings walked over landbridges that existed long ago before the sea waters of the Straits rose up. The Straits represent a geographical divide between two large nations with stark comparisons in governance, philosophy and culture. The English Channel is what keeps the European continent distinct from the British Isles. Nazi bombers, Saxon invaders, Roman Empire legions and contemporay migrants from outside Europe have all crossed this narrow geographical feature. The North Sea, stormy as it mostly is, is a buffer between Scotland, Iceland and Scandinavia. Petroleum rich, it is also a passage to Greenland and the Arctic. Occupying north western Europe, it had witnessed Viking sailing mastery of the waters. The Adriatic Sea was a strategic basin for the city state of Venice in the Renaissance. Evidence of Roman Empire settlements, architecture and heritage are accessible, for example, along the Croatian coasts. The Ottomans expanded along this part of mainland Europe, though they did not take Italy except for Sicily. The Adriatic remains significant today as a rough boundary between Catholic and Orthodox Christian Europe, or between Latin and Slav cultural regions. #yongkevthoughts

The Stars From The Universe Are Watching

 April and May 2025 can be emerging as a a transitionary time, when the stars of the Universe are looking at the choices of many groups of Homo Sapiens in their rituals and society behaviours.   Will the course of human civillisation encounter significant changes, or more things will be the same, with just different players forefront on the world stage?

Elections can be just smokescreens to seemingly give the human being on the street a sense of participation.   The powers that truly are can be putting the individuals they control as their continuing agents.

Registered voters head to the booths to mark their ballots in Canada, Singapore and Australia.   

Canada has seen the exit of long time Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose government has overseen the age of Covid epidemics, changing attitudes towards relentless immigration,  more acknowledgement of past injustices towards her Indigenous peoples, continuing pressure from the government of her nearest neighbour and rising costs of living.

Singapore has a newly minted Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, urgently handling a sweeping change of the landscape in international  trade, finance and economic exchanges as the fall out from the return to power of a controversial person as the POTUS.  That latter person has recently been most effective in creating widespread uncertainty.

The Australian Labor Government seeking re-election on 3 May has at most been under performing under Anthony Albanese, who has been reluctant to differ in several respects from its Opposition,  continue to toe the line and requirements from the USA and been ineffective and mainly bushfire reactive to the rising costs of housing, food, utilities, lack of commercial competition and social issues.

Although restricted to the Conclave, laden with traditional secrecy and religious ritual,  the selection of the next Pope at the Vatican is essentially a political process.    The successful candidate, who emerges on the balcony after white smoke is seen bellowing,  presides over 1.4 billion Catholics, mainly in Africa, South and Central America, the Phillippines, Timor-Leste and Europe.

Nations outside the USA are scrambling to reorganise supply logistics, access to critical minerals and manufacturing ingredients, payment systems, trading arrangements, over reliance on the USA and other impacts on GDP and economic growth.

Military conflict, suffering by the masses as part of socio-political aggression, the enrichment of the arnaments business and an intense propaganda media channeling remain key features of continuing disputes in the part of the world that transverses Sudan, Yemen, Gaza, the West Bank,  Ukraine and bordering parts of Russia.

Will Europe wake up to being more self reliant, more proactive and united in her affairs and strategy?   It can be a time to diversify alliances, partners and arrangements.   So can the disparate nations of South-east Asia, historically caught between the tradewinds and politics of the so called East and West.   Problems can be opportunity,   challenges can be the time to build a new future.

The sanctions, boycotts and cutoffs faced by the Chinese economy in recent years have made China even more determined and passionate to significantly improve their growing advanced technology,  reduce strategic  risks and become more self sufficient.    This is a nation that does not have enough food security,  takes on the massive macro debts of an over spending USA and now beginning to reduce the utilisation of the USD, long seen as a safe vital currency.

So will change be grabbed by the horns of the proverbial bull?    Will voters choose more of the same?   Can political leaders realise that viable preparations for a very different social, political and economic future may be too late?   Will governments continue to bask in the comfort zone of a landscape that has disappeared and not come back?  Will societies continue to be led by individuals who think less of their own nation and follow the wants of another country?   Will cabinets wait for reactive mindsets, instead of being proactive?

#yongkevthoughts

Singapore Faces the Usa Tariffs

 Singapore finds itself so vulnerable with the April 2025  Trumpian tariff moves.

Singapore is a society that even has to import basic things like food.  The nation has prospered as a hub of trading, a broker of exchange, a strategic sea, air and technology port and churner of business.

With high tariffs, kicked off by Trump as only a starter of what he really wants, in this current upset in international relations, countries are varying in approaches and reactions to current Usa government moves.  Some retaliate, others take it on the chin, many wake up from this jolt to the assumed benefits from the  use of comparative advantage, niche specialisation  and freer trade of the recent past.

The current shock felt by most economies also is the result from perhaps over relying on the Usa to continue buying from them.  The Usa has long ago given up its own capability to manufacture many things - although it still holds an advantage in making pharmaceuticals, IT related retail products, commercial aircraft, military arnaments  and agricultural produce -  items that Singapore precisely require.

Singapore's pillars of growth, until the cloud of current uncertainty clears, lie exposed if human civilisation  sinks into convulated trade wars.

If nations outside the Usa take this opportunity to increase trading links amongst themselves, Trump can find himself increasingly isolated.   The reality is that the world has generally put its risks and growth parameters overly on the Usa - and the quake has arrived.

I have to remind myself that the Usa economy also requires things from other nations - they are not self sufficent.  The Usa overspends in retail consumption and consistently is in debt, not only in government operations, but also because other national governments and non  Usa imvestors are willng to finance that debt.

What does the Usa need from.Singapore? 

Maybe more in non trading matters - a military base or partner,  a supporter of sea routes that the  Usa utilises for various reasons,  a supplier of high tech components?

#yongkevthoughts

The Churn 2025

 The way stock exchange prices fall or rise are all part of the way shares work.  Sentiment, speculation, fundamentals, demand, uncertainty, competition, chase for higher returns, timeliness, hedging, parking, liquidity and more.

Financial trading, asset values, share churning and investment stability are all vulnerable to quake like proportions of downstream and immediate impact of significant tariff impositions by a dominant player like the USA government. 

Topsy turvy  causes and events are currently shaking human made arrangements that have been in use for so many years.  At least for now, or for some time.

Whether it leads to better or worse times, opportunity or challenge, or a storm that passes by, is up to our mindset, response, reaction and migitative action we choose.

History can repeat or rhyme.  Trump is not original in his actions.   Tariffs and sanctions have been applied in spectacular fashion by the USA and other nations in the past, leading to war, awakening,  upheaval, regrowth, industrial change, the doldrums and philosophical reflection.

To me, it is what we, as individuals,  have already learnt or  do learn further intrinsically from such human made developments, that is more significant.

Human systems in society can be fragile, turbulent, structurally vulnerable or shaking in political winds.   Yet they can be embedded in longer lasting values, infrastructure, internationally agreed and implemented agreements and principles.   The growth of human civilisation demonstrated the tensions between opppsite ends of the spectrum, change management or mismanagement and the destruction of the old to make way for the new.

At times human beings have to take steps backwards in order to go forward.  What used to work can be chucked ruthlessly away by events of Nature, political ego, silo thinking religious or cultural imperatives and more.  What did not work can be taken up again in a tornado of other priorities.  What works can be adopted once more by a new dynasty.

The masses continue to be swept up in the aftermath of decisions, wise or otherwise, made by individuals and their cohorts in power   - whether financial, technological, political or more.  In a population of eight billion, most of the denizens of Earth are like the proverbial ants that some can look upon with disdain  or without care.

In the meantime, the eagle still soars.  The moon continues to exert its gravity on the tides.  Human beings in their masses still lose some of their reality in this contemporary world based more on instant gratification, excessive waste and false diversions.   Human nature is essentially self centred - but the finesse and  cultivation by some societies of community priority over self can help to reverse this selfish characteristic.

News media reacts.  They do not really help us respond or think effectively on a holistic basis.  Their business is to churn, excite, incite and divide.  The presence of movement, or creating differences, is their rationale to make money out of events.

And so is making money out of investment in tangible assets, non tangible instruments of trade and finance, putting a bet on short or long term pricing of tradeable options, cashing on the lack of supply,  sentimentally driving up demand and liquidating at the right time.

Investments, trading, media reporting and  economic growth all need activity.  Why do finance websites, business reporting and 

investment screens obsessively display continuous trends and changes?   Revenue is mostly earned on the acquisition and disposal of the variety of investments, hedged, physical, derivative or intangible.  

Both news and finance thrive on events that spark off sentiment waves.

Nature does not sit still  either.  Our planet does move,  babies do grow,  seasons change.  

In human society, assets run down past their useful life,  man made currencies without the backing of gold vary in value and perception of worth and societies can collapse, as opposed to the unrealistic presumption that growth happens eternally.

Bullies know when their territory is being reduced, when their competitiveness has declined and they cannot practically get back to their days of misplaced glory.  The human pysche is built for change, adaptation and improvement.   Being the top dog a half century ago does not ensure being still king of the hill in 50 years in the future.  Down trodden economies of even 20 years ago, with renewed effort, intelligence and reorganisation can blossom for the future.

They embed themselves with longer lasting vibrancy, strength and meaningful management, direction and effort.  They do not resort to short term aggressive measures -  they build up their capability, markets and trade.

#yongkevthoughts