2018 may be geopolitically stressful

Indonesia and Vietnam ( in various degrees) are ahead of the Philippines, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.

Precisely, these are the major reasons there is the urgent need to fast- track the regional unification. It will be best for the Southeast Asian region, with its 650 million youngerpopulation ( and still counting), predicted to be the fastest growing group of sovereign states in the next two decades.

It is the best peace broker in this North Korean- American verbal war. During the 31st Asean Summit in Manila late last year, Presi step to be the concerned mediator and offered his services. This year’s Aseansummit host,Singapore, is expected to continue the group’s initiative to maintain Southeast Asia as a region of peace, amity and friendship.

North Korea distrusts Japan and the US because Japan had occupied Korea for 70 years before the last world war. It took Manchuria from China for its natural resources and lost it after Japan lost the last war as member of the Axis powers. The Americans, since 1945, still has military bases in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.

Americans themselves are critical of, and vocally against, their government leaders for keeping US military bases in foreign lands in this century. It is anachronistic and antithetical to their concept of popular democracy.

The second world war, which united the British, the French, the Nationalist Chinese (of the late Generalissimo Chiang Kaishek, predecessor of now the Peoples Republic of China in the mainland and in the United Nations), Russia (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics) and the US, also incubated the Cold War even before 1939.

It was the offshoot of the 1917 victory of the Russian Bolsheviks (headed by Stalin, Lenin, Trotsky, Beria and General Zhukov), which emboldened the followers of Karl Marx to push for communist (versus capitalists and monarchies) dominance worldwide as the alternative government “because men are not born equal.”

In practice, however, as is actually evidenced both in Russia and China, this is a myth. There is a “strong government” which translates in suppression of individual liberties and complete control by the central government. They both have adopted the capitalist principles of international trade and export economy.

But unless a Russian or Chinese is a member of their Communist Party or kowtows to the ruling Central Committee controlled by Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping, respectively, one cannot be a “capitalist” or “entrepreneur.”

For student readers of this paper, particularly the millennials, the Cold War was the ideological conflict between the Americans and their European allies on one hand, with Russia on the other. They were allies for convenience against Hitler’s Nazi Germany, Italy under Fascist Mussolini, and Imperial Japan of Emperor Hirohito and Prime Minister Hideki Tojo, known as the Axis.

(Before 1939, Stalin’s then Soviet Union, which had converted to communism the North Korean leader Kim Il-sung, Chinese leader Mao Zedong, and North Vietnamese guerilla-chief- againstthe-French Ho Chi Minh. They were schooled in Moscow.They all government control.

( Mao beat Chiang in 1949 in their power struggle and he founded the current China. Chiang retreated to Taiwan, and was militarily supported by the US for more than 25 years. Ho and his military chief General Giap beat the colonial French in the 1950s and their successor, the US, in 1957— the Vietnam Wars), while Kim invaded South Korea in 1952 and launched the Korean War which ended in a truce in 1954).

Russia directly supplied the North Koreans with war planes and military intelligence during the Korean War. Russian and Yalu River known as the MIG alley. China sent army troops and tangled with American (and their allies) foot soldiers under General Douglas MacArthur.

Russia’s stake in the Asia you look at the world map. Its eastern side—part of Siberia—is well in Northeast Asia. Its Asia port of Vladivostok is opposite Japan’s Hokkaido Island. It has a border with North Korea and a long borderline on the Amur River with China.

And Putin’s vision of Russia is - ic power, in friendly and peaceful competition with Europe and the West. Yet the Russian leadership has not forgotten the historical wars with Napoleon’s France, Hitler’s Nazi Germany, their defeat with the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the popular destruction of the Berlin Wall which defeat from Afghanistan in 1991.

Therefore, the question persists: are the Russians under Putin and the Central Committee not on a revenge mode by dreaming ofreturning their homeland to its “old glorious years”?

China has claimed it has not “invaded” nor “colonized” any country or people and its claim of neighboring countries (Tibet, Nepal) and the South China Sea; that it is a “civilization state” country even before the Treaty states as a group of people inhabiting a territory it can defend against invaders, having abinding common language and history, and a duly organized government recognized by other countries.

But a cursory readingof a few published accounts shows this being questioned by scholars: In the early centuries of man’s development, communities expanded and grew into territories and eventually into tribes, clans and dynasties of families or ruling classes for their own increasing populations (though infant mortality was also high for lack of medical technological advance).

This was called “the territorial imperative,” or the need for land to feed, house and clothe the people. Admittedly, it is primitive but effective. And the only way to expand the territory is by invasion and occupation. China was ruled by families which intermarried to keep their land and continued to go to war—to defend their holdings or acquire additional areas.

The Qing Dynasty invaded Burma four times from 1765-1769. They have an 800- mile border. The Northern Burmese fought the invaders each time and China gave them independence.

Emperor Yongle of the Ming Dynasty invaded Vietnam, then known as Dai Ngu, and captured the Ho Dynasty, which was ruling Vietnam then and occupied the Vietnam from 1407 to 1427.

China invaded Tibet and the current Dalai Lama had to escape through Kashmir in 1957 and is still in self- exile. He has not announced any successor but the Chinese under Mao declared thePachen Lama as the head of government.

China invaded Vietnam but the troops of Ho and Giap, victorious over the Americans in 1975, Chinese to retreat in March 1979.

Thus, the Chinese are still dis technological offers worldwide.