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（早报讯）联合国框架下首个以新加坡命名的公约《新加坡调解公约》（Singapore Convention on Mediation）已在联合国大会通过。公约将促成国际商业和解协议的执行，从而促进国际商业发展和跨境贸易。
《新加坡调解公约》明年8月7日将在我国签署。
我国律政部发文告指出，第73届于美国纽约举行的联合国大会今天（美国时间20日）已通过决议，采纳联合国国际和解协议的公约，并以新加坡命名。这是联合国框架第一个以新加坡命名的公约。大会也决定，签署仪式明年8月在新加坡举行。
新加坡驻纽约联合国常任代表也在联合国大会发表声明，肯定联合国国际贸易法委员会（UNCITRAL）在调解方面的工作，并感谢联合国支持公约签署仪式在我国举行。
1. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap? https://www.belfercenter.org/thucydides-trap/overview-thucydides-trap
2. “Prospect Of U.S.-China War Rising” After US Warships Sail Through Taiwan Strait https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10-23/graham-allison-tensions-taiwan-strait-prospect-us-china-war-rising
3. History of Peloponnesian war
4. What is Thucydides’s Trap? https://www.quora.com/What-is-Thucydides%E2%80%99s-Trap
The Thucydides Trap is a theory proposed byGraham Allison who postulates that war between a rising power and an established power is inevitable:
“It was the rise of Athens and the fear that this instilled in Sparta that made war inevitable.” Thucydides from“The History of the Peloponnesian War”
The two key drivers allegedly being “the rising power’s growing entitlement, sense of its importance, and demand for greater say and sway, on the one hand, and the fear, insecurity, and determination to defend the status quo this engenders in the established power, on the other.”
Source: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-09/hitler-trump-great-man-theory-debunked
The “Great Man Theory” [Link] tells us that history can be largely explained by the impact of great leaders.
Herbert Spencer [Link] forcefully disagreed with the “Great Man Theory.” He believed that great leaders were merely products of their social environment.
One of the significant shortcomings of many political philosophers is their ignorance of human nature.
Donald Trump, He’s a brute, a bully, and a demagogue, but he understands the zeitgeist, the spirit of the times and he adjusts his message to appeal to his base.
I have known many bullies; on the playground and in the boardroom. A bully may achieve short-term gain, but for long-term pain. It is very easy to destroy corporate culture, but extremely difficult, if not impossible, to mend a toxic workplace after the bully was dismissed. Now, extrapolate this to the world under Donald Trump.
China is building a large, new embassy at the mouth of the Panama Canal visible to every ship “as they enter a waterway that once symbolized the global influence of the United States.”
China is replacing U.S. influence in Latin America.
The elites are running out the clock in order to loot as much as they can before it hits the fan.
We dirt people will continue to suffer from stagnant wage growth while the so-called increase in national wealth goes to a tiny minority. [link]
It is said that every few generations, money returns to its rightful owners. That is what’s happening now.
or 5,000 years, China was a world superpower with only a short, two-century hiatus that is now ending as China again emerges as an economic superpower. Such a massive shift in wealth cannot be attributed to either leadership or the people below. It is a painful reversion to the mean. All the finger-pointing and wailing and gnashing of teeth … not even bombastic Trump and his tariffs can stem the tide and make Amerika great again as money continues to flow back to its rightful owners.
The USA is a declining, bankrupt, warmongering police state and most of its indoctrinated citizens think they live in a free, peaceful country.
China is a corrupt police state, but most of its citizens know it.
We have met the enemy, and he is us. The future awaits.
Mr Kausikan said Singaporeans must be aware of China’s covert “influence operations”.
“persuade, induce and coerce”.
The first involves rejecting the norm of non-interference in another state’s domestic affairs and believing that its interests should be promoted wherever they may be
China uses a range of tactics from legitimate diplomacy to more covert and often illegal deployment of agents of influence and operations – to sway decision makers or public opinion leaders.
the aim of its influence operations, which he added was not just to direct behaviour but to condition it as well.
a key tactic is to present target countries with oversimplified narratives, “forcing false choices on you and making you choose between them”
“China doesn’t just want you to comply with its wishes, it wants you to … do what it wants without being told,”
“When the Chinese try to impose a Chinese identity on Singapore, we must resist, because modern Singapore is based on the idea of being a multiracial country,” he added.
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a “far cry from reality and leaves an unfavourable impression of China on others”.
“China does not impose its ideology and development model.”
the target of “groundless attacks”, as global media is largely dominated by the West.
“the Belt and Road Initiative and the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. These have gained a positive response from many countries, not because of manipulation but because they meet the interests of other parties and provide opportunities for common development,”
willing to share its development opportunities with others and by no means imposes its models on other countries.
“misleading others into misunderstanding China”
Go one step beyond that, and countries are going to begin blockading shipping and closing borders entirely. Finally, there is the danger of war as the only recourse that some leaders will decide is needed to set matters straight again.
Think of Chinese support for North Korea: Pyongyang relies on Beijing for virtually all its oil and a large percentage of its food, among many other items. If the US fails in its dialogue with North Korea over denuclearisation and the danger of war again hovers over the Korean peninsula, China would surely side with North Korea, as it did in the Korean war.
The stand-off with China extends all round the rim of Asia, down to the South China Sea and on to the Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, and beyond.
Korea’s trade surplus with the US last year was US$23.1 billion, down from a high of US$28.3 billion in 2015 but still considerably more than US trade officials would like.
Japan, whose surplus with the US last year reached US$68.8 billion, down from a peak of US$76.4 billion in 2012 but still far too high.
With numbers like these, it’s easy to see why Trump is talking so tough about the trade deficit while America’s trading partners are outraged by moves to cut it.
The fear, however, is that these nasty battles could eventually explode into armed conflict in which hundreds of millions, maybe billions, would perish. Policymakers and negotiators have to keep this risk at the top of their concerns as they confront one another in a global trade war that could someday erupt into the third world war.
Source: https://www.artofmanliness.com/articles/podcast-412-the-power-of-conspiracy-and-secrets/
Baidu link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1CS_LNE0_m9r08Jim8izifQ
Back in 2016, a bizarre story emerged in pop culture. Professional wrestler Hulk Hogan won a $115 million dollar lawsuit against the gossip website Gawker for publishing a sex tape that had been made without his consent. The victory was somewhat surprising but the real surprise was who was actually behind the lawsuit; it wasn’t Hogan himself, but the billionaire founder of PayPal, Peter Thiel.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/01/18/a-bipartisan-agreement-trump-is-bad-for-democracy/?utm_term=.8240512a2c3f
“I think [America First is] very short sighted,” Kasich said of the desire to “withdraw, take care of ourselves.”
The report explains that democracies around the globe were under assault, but by six separate measures — “politicizing independent institutions, spreading disinformation, amassing executive power, quashing dissent, delegitimizing communities, and corrupting elections”
Most important are the report’s recommendations. Congress should do its part. There is a role for the press, for the public and even the private sector to speak out and defend the rule of law and independent sources of information.