culture – Symphony

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, April 5, 2021

SymphonyApril 4, 2021

China looks worse and worse in the public eye. H&M closures have drawn more Western attention. Chinese ads showing a purportedly happy Xinjiang backfired among Facebook staff. The Philippines are evermore concerned about a swelling number of Chinese militia boats parked in their backyard.

But, things aren’t looking so wonderful for Taiwan either. Pineapples sold to Singapore weren’t properly handled, so the cores rotted. That’s Taiwan’s culture—to not care, thinking problems won’t get bigger. A truck slid down a small cliff on the east side of Taiwan, colliding with a train, killing at least 50 people. The transportation bureau never put guard rails on a dirt road on a cliff above a train track. That’s Taiwan’s culture—to not care, thinking problems won’t get bigger.

Now, Taiwan is working with European partners to develop its own submarines, not only America. That report combats the notion that Taiwan hasn’t been wonderfully annexed by China only on account of the United States. But, are the Taiwanese all that different from China? Lack of care with pineapple exports and railroad safety might say otherwise. The Taiwanese an important choice to make—whether they want to be different from China or not. That is a decision only the Taiwanese people can make. And, they haven’t made that choice yet, even after seventy years of exile.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, March 29, 2021

SymphonyMarch 29, 2021

China’s adversaries face a tightly closing decision. America needs to decide whether it can keep playing the role of the world-cop with only its B-game, or if it is ready to bust out its A-game not seen since FDR. More than ever, warnings of “rising China” smatter the presses. Will this result in Americans getting serious about the need to be serious—because they read about it? Or, is this intended to prepare the American public for some event that thrusts the West into an embarrassing scuffle with China?—embarrassing for China now, embarrassing for the West six years later.

Taiwan has its own choices. Many things inside Taiwan still reflect the thinking of Mainland China. While Taiwan’s government claims to seek democracy and a society where all people are respected with equal rights, their Confucian culture still succumbs to autocratic domineering, whether in the workplace, the classroom, or from government. If in their hearts, the Taiwanese want to retain the old ways of the Chinese, there is no American military big enough to help them against any adversary, even the smallest adversary. But, the factor of Taiwanese culture doesn’t seem to make its way into the military reports.

In Cadence

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, October 5, 2020

SymphonyOctober 5, 2020October 5, 2020

The world is entering a realization phase: China doesn’t care what the world thinks or how the world responds. Beijing has become that annoying kid at school who has no friends, and his solution is to be more annoying. The sad part is how the West allowed us to get here. Coupon-clipping consumers buying cheap products are just as much to blame as governments who believed giving money to the Confucian Communists who control China wouldn’t feed their narcissist outlook.

But, China has been warned. And, we each hold the greater responsibility for our choices and actions.

While China makes its choices, Taiwan deals with its own demons of the past. China is not the only society in the Far East self-chained by Confucianism. Taiwan’s Confucian culture empowered them to adopt xenophobic laws, keeping foreigners limited and weak and unable to contribute to the Taiwan economy. Confucianism also indoctrinates students to hate questions in the classroom and at home, while touting parroted answers as “wisdom”. That runs contrary to innovation and the inquiring mind needed to invent new technology. As a result, Taiwan is much weaker than it could have been without Confucianism, making it appetizingly vulnerable to predatorial China. Taiwan now faces a choice of whether to correct its self-imposed, Confucian-born limits of the past.

In some sense, the China-Taiwan conflict is an internal matter, but not purely. China plans to retake Taiwan with Western money and American dollars, after all. The world cannot sit by and watch two self-crippled societies cannibalize each other. The world won’t sit by and watch, not any longer. And, that is something the Confucian Communists of China don’t understand because, at this point anyway, they are not so capable.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, January 20, 2020

SymphonyJanuary 20, 2020January 20, 2020

Current events are forcing everyone into a deep state of soul-searching. Some Iranians were angry after Trump’s drone strike, mourning the death of a leader they somehow admired. They didn’t blame Americans, except that they did. Once the Iranian government admitted to shooting down the passenger jet from Ukraine, Iranians en masse took to the streets, protesting the current government.

As Symphony explained last week, some leaders have yet to “grow up” more than others. Those with more growing up to go tend to invite resentment from those they lead. Iran was no exception. Authoritarianism led to the mistake with the passenger jet, but it also allowed certain leaders to rise in the first place, one whom was killed by a drone strike approved by President Trump.

In America, the doomed impeachment articles from the House were so evidently unpopular that their true purpose went on parade: a parade. Yes, it was only ever for show. So, when House Democrats were forced to give the Republican Senate what they did not want, they continued the show for their supporters’ own entertainment.

But, the show isn’t done yet. Irritation and aggravation will only rise higher and higher as the nation sees what’s really going on. That could be said for both Iranians and Americans.

In Encore

Encore of Revival: America, January 13, 2020

SymphonyJanuary 13, 2020January 13, 2020

The Iranian government’s alibi—or “explanation”, rather—of how it shot down a passenger jet from Ukraine is entirely believable. Barring some grandiose conspiracy, there would be no imaginable motive for any government—friend or foe, even a terrorist sponsor like Iran—to use government assets to kill civilians.

The Iranian military’s story is believable to any Westerner who has spend more than three years in a first-world or second-world country. Sadly, poorer parts of America have similar cultures, poorer White communities as well as minorities. Any autocratic, bossy, domineering culture can easily make severe miscalculations. They do it in Sunday morning congregations all the time.

According to CNN, according to Iran, their government was on high alert, then misidentified a plane from Ukraine as it turned toward a Revolutionary Guard base. In sum, that led to a snap judgment, what Iran calls “human error”. The Iranian government wants to put systems in place to avoid such miscalculations in the future. In the West, we call that “growing up”—learning how to not make rush judgements.

While Iran’s story is believable to any Western expat with experience in a developing country, most Americans don’t know the degree to which immature people run many governments of the world. Part of being a first-world nation means that people in the government need to be mature.

Iran learning from its mistake could be the most significant turning point where Iran’s government learns the “confident humility” needed to govern with maturity. If that happens, Sec. Mike Pompeo’s goal of Iran behaving “like a normal country” will come true. Iran claimed that their military was on high alert in the first place because of tensions surrounding the strike in Iraq. In short, killing Qassem Soleimani helped Iran.

Now, the task is for Americans to understand other people enough to understand why being immature cost the lives of 176 people. Whether at home, the office, or in government, immaturity is the source of much injustice—a lesson which Americans will learn, eventually.

In Tempo

Cadence of Conflict: Asia, January 6, 2020

The EditorJanuary 6, 2020January 6, 2020

The West has been at odds with the Far East for centuries. It began before the Opium Wars, laws and treaties were made and broken, but the issues remain the same old same old. Chinese stare down their noses at the rest of the world, regardless of the imbalance it causes for their end of the teeter-totter we all stand on. They believe China getting richer and expanding its borders is fair for them, and whatever may or may not be unfair for the rest of the world doesn’t matter because justice is only a matter of importance in whether Chinese receive justice. Everyone else can either become Chinese or die—which would do their miserable existence a favor. That is the ancient worldview driving the Far East to do what it has always done—what it continues to do today.

But, one thing is different now: Not all Chinese speakers go along with Chinese supremacism. Previously, dissidents who had been crushed by Chinese supremacism were either Uncle Toms in their own rite or too scared to object, but not anymore. Hong Kong is standing up to old generation arrogance, so is Taiwan. People within Hong Kong and Taiwan are standing up to that arrogance even within their cultures, families, social circles, and societies at large. That old supremacism is collapsing at the hands of free-thinking, self-motivated, self-initiated Chinese-speakers themselves, Cantonese speakers of the same historic culture notwithstanding the least. The “Revolution of Our Times” is much deeper that Hong Kong political identity; it’s cultural, regional, and even global. Consider Chinatowns and Chinese churches across America—which won’t be any kind of exception.

Soon, Trump will have something to hang over everyone’s head—Democrats and Chinese Communists alike. It’s a power stronger than any missile. Next week, China is sending a delegation to sign the infamously famous “Phase 1”. Woohoo!