The best laid PLANs of mice and men often go awry.
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Welcome back to another effortpost by me generally on the developing arms race in East Asia, this time covering the People's Liberation Army Navy, hereafter referred to as the "PLAN", and its massive growth... and... mostly, well, its massive growth. What that means is mostly covered in other posts about how other countries are responding to it. The why is a bit difficult because, well, China is not well known for open debate, or open anything, really, which will turn up repeatedly.
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1. What you [might] need to know about South Korea's ludicrous arms buildup
2. We shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches.... uh, what do we do after that again?: The Perilous Defensive Position of Taiwan
3. "You've hit another cargo ship? The Problems with the US Navy: Not all of them begin with "Seven" and end with "th Fleet"."
4. Will China's PLAN survive contact with the enemy?
5. Biden's New START and modern nuclear war
6. First And Last Stand Of The Tin Can Navies [ASEAN + Australia and the smaller adversaries China may contend with]
7. Boned: Problems in the US Air [and space!] Force
8. --Unnamed-- effortpost on Japanese military matters, mostly about how weird the JSDF status is
9. --Unnamed--effortpost on Indian military matters, and why they can't focus on China or buy anything that works
10. --Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the PLA, mostly the air force though
11. --Unnamed--effortpost on the rest of the US Armed Forces, mostly talking about how the marines are changing and the Army's new love affair with INF-busting weapons
12. Conclusion?

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Glossary:
PLA = People's Liberation Army = the armed forces of the People's Republic of China, or China
PLAN = People's Liberation Army Navy = the naval forces of the PLA
PLANAF = People's Liberation Army Navy Air Force = the air force of the navy of the PLA
Ashm = Anti-ship missile, cruise missile unless specifically described as otherwise--there's only one anti-ship ballistic missile in existence and its efficacy and whether or not it functions is questionable
CIWS = close-in weapons system, like the Phalanx gun or Goalkeeper
VLS = vertical launch system for missiles
AEGIS = Aegis Combat System if described specifically in that context, a US naval warfare system, but we'll usually be talking about "Chinese AEGIS", which is a nomiker used by the Chinese media in particular comparing the Type 346 radar to the AN-SPY family, with which it shares numerous technical characteristics--but how comparable the "Chinese AEGIS" system is to what the US uses is a complete unknown.
SAM = Surface-to-air missile, in this case usually a S-300 derivative
First Island Chain = The islands, stretching from Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines, Taiwan, and Japan, which keep China inside its littoral seas much as the GIUK [Greenland-Iceland-UK] gap has kept various continental powers out of the Atlantic.
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Some PLAN equipment you might see described--the nomenclature is confusing and a relic of the cultural revolution, and as a result China now has more Types than the British.
Type 003 = China's new conventionally powered supercarriers, currently under construction
Type 002 = China's first truly "operational" carrier
Type 001 = China's first carrier, built on a Soviet hull purchased from Ukraine ostensibly to make a floating casino
Type 055 = Guided-missile cruiser, though generally called a destroyer it's probably more descriptively labeled a cruiser
Type 052D = Guided-missile destroyer using "Chinese AEGIS"
Type 052/051B/052B/052C = the gradual progression of evolving Chinese naval tech, largely built as practice/demo ships like the Type 001. Some of the earlier ones are steam-powered but by the Type 052C you have something almost as advanced as the Type 052D, albeit with turbine problems
Type 054A = the standard modern frigate of the PLAN
Type 053[anything] = old PLAN frigates
Type 096 = China's newest SSBN class, under construction
Type 094 = China's first functional SSBN class, very noisy
Type 092 = China's first "SSBN", believed to have never left port with an actual nuke on board
Type 095 = China's newest SSN class, under construction
Type 093 = China's current SSN class, noisy
Type 091 = China's first SSN class, dumb dumb dumb and is at a 1950s tech level
Type 039[A] = China's new SSK class
Kilo = China's older SSK class, imported from Russia
Sovremenny = China's first capable anti-air destroyers, imported from Russia
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1. The Last Time A Rising Navy Challenged A Dominant Foe

The last time we've seen something like this was in the late 19th century. After the First World War shipbuilding was restricted by the landmark Washington Naval Treaty, one of the first great arms control treaties, and during the Cold War the Soviet Union never really had any hopes of surpassing American naval power. China, however, seems intent on replacing the US as the world's dominant naval power, or at least building a force that can stop the US Navy, even combined with the forces of Japan and other regional allies.
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The nations in question, of course, in the last naval arms race, were the United Kingdom and a newly-unified Germany. Germany never reached the level of the UK, but seriously threatened it. Previously the UK had maintained a policy of having more ships than the next two largest fleets combined, but this was no longer possible, and the UK legitimately was fearful for its naval supremacy. It didn't last too long in the end--under a decade--and a resumption was foiled by first a world war and then the Washington Naval Treaty. The impact of the arms race, though, was massive. It set Germany and the UK at odds with each other, it resulted in a general buildup of warships pretty much everywhere [South America was, believe it or not, one of the biggest offenders there], established Germany for a time as the world's second naval power, having eclipsed both France and Russia and turning a small coastal defense navy into something that was able to defeat the Royal Navy itself, though never comprehensively enough to change the course of the first world war.
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China dwells in a much different situation than Germany did at the turn of the last century, so we can only extend the analogy so far--substituting in Japan for the UK, India for Russia, and so on is possible but not, in my view, educational. However, we can see many of the same elements playing in here. China seems intent on replacing the US as a dominant power, or at least as regional hegemon--the ancient tributary system seems to lie fairly heavily on Chinese minds--and in order to do that, it must be able to have some degree of power projection and the capability to deny the US Navy access to areas within the first island chain. It remains to be seen, however, how successful that quest will be. Much as with the dreadnought battleships, I wouldn't be surprised if we never actually do find out if most of the shiny naval toys people have built actually work. But their mere existence shows the mutual hostility developing in the region and demonstrates the size of the Chinese threat.
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Another lesson learned here is that China, like Germany, may not develop a naval force capable of defeating the US comprehensively, but only partially, and that one of the powers--in this case, China--might be pressured to strike first before the US Navy can close the gap. That ~2030 gap I talked about in my last post is, I think, an especially vulnerable point, because China may look at a degraded, but rejuvenating US Navy, then at their own capable forces, and decide to strike then in Taiwan and the South China Sea, only to back down when the US Navy again eclipses them. Whether or not that will happen, we will see--but I find it a very dangerous and perhaps likely possibility.
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2. What the PLAN looked like 20 years ago

The PLAN has undergone an absolutely stunning evolution in the past two decades. In the Third Taiwan Strait Crisis the US could intimidate China with a pair of aircraft carrier strike groups and China could do pretty much nothing about it. Now the US is afraid of sending anything more than a destroyer through the strait.
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Twenty years ago, the PLAN was a bit of a joke. Even Taiwan figured it could hold the seas against the PLAN. It consisted of a few tens of outdated coastal-defense frigates, some Soviet-era diesel-electric subs, and a large number of unsophisticated missile craft. The pride of the Chinese fleet were a handful of destroyers assembled using cobbled-together Western technology--copied French missiles, American gas turbines, the lot. According to American accounts at the time, the instructions for the equipment hadn't even been translated. The most advanced ship in the fleet used steampower. There were nuclear submarines, but of 1950s quality. Of particular note was the fact that the Chinese fleet had no area air defense capabilities--their premier surface-to-air-missile was an unlicensed knockoff of the French Crotale, and couldn't shoot anything outside of visual range, at high altitudes, or really doing anything more sophisticated than trying to kill their ships with low-altitude dumb bombing runs.
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In the past twenty years, however, the PLAN has, much like the German Navy towards the end of the 19th century, gone from an afterthought to the world's second most powerful force. It began, as modern China's military capabilities almost all began, with the looting of the former Soviet Union for naval technology. While Soviet naval tech was generally lacking, it was much better than anything else China could get its hands on after the arms embargo placed on it in the 1990s by the US and Europe in response to Tienanmen and the end of the Cold War. China bought Soviet diesel submarines, Soviet air-defense destroyers, and Soviet aircraft carriers, which it promptly left lying around [and turned one of them into a theme park]. This was combined with copies of various pieces of Western, mostly European, technology for everything from sonars to surface-to-air missiles. China then began developing its first modern indigenous surface combatants, the Type 052C, but there were still problems. The engines were Ukrainian and had reliability trouble, the gun jammed, there was no VLS.
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It is really in the last ten years that things have begun to move extremely quickly, and even only in the latter portion of the decade. In 2012 the Type 001 Liaoning entered service, and although it remains more of a training ship than an operational vessel, and is held back by a poor carrier aircraft, the mere fact that China "built" a carrier was a surprise to many. In 2014 the first Type 052D destroyer came online. It had learned the lessons from the Type 052C, and in just the last six years at least ten have entered service, with a class size of about 23 expected. This rapid expansion is what has frightened competing navies the most--in a little over a decade, the PLAN is constructing more destroyers than the British, French, and Australian navies have in service combined. It is also building the Type 055, which has generally been called a "destroyer" despite being more aptly described as a cruiser in line with the Ticonderoga-class. China has also built 30 modern frigates in the past decade, which has also swelled its numbers, along with numerous smaller corvettes, submarines, and so on.
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This is why the PLAN has become such an object of concern. While it cannot challenge the US Navy yet, at least outside its littoral zones, the decline of the USN and rapid expansion of the PLAN means that it is a serious threat. And the speed at which it has developed has made many fearful. As recently as 2010, the idea of China operating an aircraft carrier or modern destroyers seemed distant, possibly preposterous. Now China speaks openly of having a six-carrier fleet in the 2030s, although, as with many of China's plans to operate full US-replicated tech and doctrine, these may have somewhat caved to realism. China is mighty, but it has already done the easy part--the last part is much harder, in economics and in military matters. Building the software, the institutional knowledge, the hardware to compete with the US Navy will prove difficult.
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3. What the PLAN looks like now--submarines

Submarines are one of the PLAN's weak spots, particularly nuclear submarines. China is, however, making some fairly rapid advances in this area.
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Their nuclear submarine program has been considered a bit of a joke for some time. In the late 1950s when all the cool kids great powers were getting nuclear submarines, China decided [or at least Mao did] that China needed nuclear submarines too. About 16 years later, the product of this effort finally emerged as the Type 091 submarine. Based on 1950s technology, with poor radiation shielding and basically nothing done in the name of noise reduction, and not even a teardrop hull, the Type 091 was probably more of a threat to the sailors who were on it than anyone else, except maybe the two Tench-class submarines that Taiwan operates, which use 1940s technology and are the world's longest-serving submarines, though they're mostly used for training nowadays. Even then, my money would be on the Tench despite the upgrades the PLAN has made to the Type 091. There's only so much you can do to put lipstick on a pig.
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China also produced an SSBN, the Type 092, which was probably the only submarine more useless than the Type 091. About the only useful thing it did for the PLAN was that it served as a test platform for SLBM launches. Reports suggest that the Type 092 is the noisiest SSBN ever made, and is thought to have only ever undertaken a single patrol. It stayed at port for so long that it was thought to have sunk in an accident. And the experience turned the PLAN off from building SSBNs for over twenty years, until the Type 094 came online in 2007.
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More recent submarines are growing in capability, though. The Type 094 is not the noisiest SSBN ever made, and may not even be the noisiest in current service--that honor going to the Delta III operated by the Russian Navy, which uses 1970s technology, and, which, according to the US Office of Naval Intelligence, is about as noisy as the Type 094. The Type 093 is also moderately capable--it actually functions and can fire anti-ship missiles. However, the Type 093 is still considered only comparable to the Soviet Victor III class, again using 1970s technology. Future submarines have not yet been seen, but expectations are that China will make another step forward to late 1980s or early 1990s tech levels, producing something on par with the Los Angeles or Akula for the first time.
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China also operates a fairly capable fleet of coastal diesel-electric submarines. While some are quite old--the Type 035--most are pretty average for the global submarine force, a mix of Kilos and domestic AIP designs. The large number of boats in operation and their anti-ship missile capability means that these should be considered a real threat, at least in the littoral waters near to China, but they aren't decisive by any means, especially since China is facing off against such threats as Japan's Soryu class, probably the most advanced diesel-electric sub in existence.
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In conclusion, the PLAN is still pretty weak on the submarine front--weaker here than on anything but its carrier force, but its capabilities are advancing rapidly and should not be underestimated.

4. What the PLAN looks like now--surface combatants

The surface fleet is definitely the most impressive and capable portion of the PLAN, no questions about it. China once had a fleet consisting mostly of coastal frigates and missile boats. As recently as 2000, its fleet had no real area-air-defense destroyers, and no SAMs that could operate outside visual range. Now, though, the PLAN operates tens of advanced guided-missile destroyers, advanced frigates, and still retains a large number of small, stealthy missile boats.
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The major focus of Chinese warships appears to be on anti-air, with anti-surface being a somewhat secondary concern for all but the smallest vessels. This makes sense when you realize that the primary focus is, at least for the moment, on using land-based aircraft to strike against hostile fleet formations using long-range anti-ship missiles, in a very Soviet sort of way--"Backfire raids" using long-range land-based aircraft with anti-ship missiles were one of the US Navy's major concerns during the Cold War, and the very reason for the F-14's existence along with the AIM-54 Phoenix it carried. However, China has been developing anti-surface capabilities as well using ashms and land-attack cruise missiles [generally the same thing, actually]. Since China has finally developed a VLS system that allows it to use the same launcher for multiple missiles, its most recent ships have become more versatile in that role.
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How effective these ships are at that task is, however, a relatively open question. Their radars at least seem to quite sophisticated, using flat-panel AESA, and have been dubbed "Chinese AEGIS" by the highly reliable Chinese domestic media. The basic platform their surface-to-air missiles are based on also seems to be fairly capable--the HQ-9 is an S-300 derivative, a respectable SAM system though, again, how capable it is against opponents in an active electronic warfare environment is questionable, and it has basically no capabilities against stealth aircraft like the F-35 as far as anyone knows. The efficacy of their CIWS, again, is open to question. Really this is true of everything about the modern PLAN, and PLA in general. The PLA is secretive, has not exported most of its hardware, and has developed largely independently of foreign militaries, though it is definitely influenced by them. Now that the PLAN has moved away from simply copying foreign hardware and patching it together, its capabilities are much harder to discern.
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However, they should be taken as a very real threat, and not written off. My guess would be that their warships are about as capable as most of their non-American counterparts, save those equipped with AEGIS, but that's all my guess is---a guess.

5. What the PLAN looks like now--carriers

The PLAN currently has two carriers in service, and two more known to be under construction, and most suspect that it will build several more. However, at the moment, the PLAN's carrier force is largely a paper tiger, designed around training. The first carrier, the Type 001, basically was a "how do you build a carrier" kit bought from Russia, possibly by accident--the "fully functional" Minsk ended up as a theme park, believe it or not. The hull was purchased from Ukraine and then completed in China years later. It is also believed that the PLAN may have learned some things about aircraft carriers from the HMAS Melbourne, which was sold to a Chinese firm for scrapping--rumor has it the PLAN had no clue this had happened and then had a field day looking at all the stuff that hadn't been taken out. This was back in the old days when nobody could imagine that China would have an aircraft carrier. The Type 002, however, is built from scratch, but isn't particularly capable especially as it's a ski-jump carrier, leaving the Type 003 the first carrier which will prove actually useful.
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The main thing holding China's carrier fleet back, though, is a lack of a suitable aircraft. Originally China was considering purchasing Su-33s from Russia, hardly a good carrier-based aircraft but functional, but after Russia discovered that China had been mucking about building a Su-27 derivative without asking the deal fell through [China tells a different story, saying that Russia demanded exorbitant amounts to reopen production which it was unwilling to pay for a nearly obsolete aircraft]. As a result China operates the J-15 as its naval fighter, with... less than stellar results. It's extremely heavy, and, if it takes off from the carrier, has minimal range if carrying anything at all--it can't take more than two short range air to air missiles into the sky to fight enemy aircraft. However, the J-15 isn't really intended for combat service--it's intended to teach China how to run carriers, and it seems to work well enough for that task, aside from the multiple fatal crashes. There is, however, thought to be a new carrier fighter in the pipeline--most say the J-31/FC-31, which has reduced RCS and a number of carrier-unique features, is being pitched as a carrier-based aircraft and will serve as China's carrier fighter in the future. China also lacks any fixed wing carrier-based airborne early warning, which could prove troublesome--a lack of AEW means that its view is limited by the horizon--and has no resupply aircraft like the C-2 Greyhound. As a result, for the moment at least, China lacks an effective carrier force, but it is likely to continue developing rapidly in the next decade and become a fairly substantial threat. Remember that as recently as 2010, a Chinese aircraft carrier seemed preposterous to many people, and now they have two.

6. Some attention to land-based aircraft

Land-based aircraft as a naval weapon are not generally used by the US, which has never had a reason to develop them as a doctrinal focus. Sure, you could potentially envision them as being used, and there even were situations where they were utilized, but it just wasn't generally a priority or how things were done. For China, though, taking influence from the Soviets, and lying on littoral seas with hostile powers in the First Island Chain, land-based aircraft and missiles are a key part of doctrine. Although this is often viewed as a new thing, called A2/AD [anti access/area denial], it's really the result of a long historical evolution of naval power, probably most refined by the Soviet Union. As a result, land-based naval aviation plays an important role, firing anti-ship missiles at standoff distances at enemy vessels, and shore-based launchers of anti-ship missiles are also an important weapon. The combination of these systems means that venturing within China's littoral seas is a dangerous proposition during war, and some waters, like those of the Taiwan Strait, are effectively considered closed at this point in the event of hostilities breaking out. For this reason air superiority is also important in this sort of naval warfare, as if either side gains air superiority it can pummel its opponents with air-launched anti-ship missiles. China's capabilities in this area are sophisticated and should not be underestimated, but they are unlikely to go through a rapid period of growth like the PLAN's fleet.
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And a brief note dedicated entirely to the DF-21D "Carrier killer" that the PLA likes to show off. It's a pretty impressive capability, on paper, using a ballistic missile to hit a carrier. The CEP [circular error probable] means that it could even happen, presuming that an aircraft carrier was good enough to sit in one place, not moving, long enough to be detected by China. Aircraft carriers look big, but the seas are huge, and they're surprisingly hard to find. They also move quite fast, in excess of of 35mph/55kph, and thus by the time the ballistic missile has launched it might well be out of range given the fact that ballistic missiles are not particularly known for their maneuverability in terminal stages, at least not in the realm of miles. The DF-21D is not a particular threat to the modern aircraft carrier. It could potentially be one if it evolves into a hypersonic boost-glide vehicle, but that's a whole additional can of worms, that I might address a different day.

7. The PLAN's plans for the future--what will it look like in 2030?

Unfortunately the PLAN is not exactly the most open of navies, as I've repeatedly mentioned. There are no public debates over acquisitions programs, no big fleet shape plans, relatively little detail.
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However, a few things are fairly sure bets or publicly announced.
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China has repeatedly announced plans to build a six-carrier force, including the Type 001 and Type 002, but also a pair of Type 003 [already under construction] conventionally powered supercarriers and a pair of Type 004 nuclear powered supercarriers. However, it seems that the Type 004 is currently on hold. Why, exactly, is unclear, but it seems to be technical difficulties, which are not particularly surprising given that China's experience with nuclear maritime propulsion seem to be rather limited and have had poor results in their submarine fleet. The costs were also expected to be too high--China does not have an unlimited quantity of money, despite what it may flaunt, and nuclear carriers are expensive to develop especially given that China has not built a nuclear-powered surface ship before.
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A new carrier-based fighter is almost certainly in the cards because the J-15 is pretty much useless. The FC-31 seems by far the most likely candidate but it could be another aircraft we haven't seen yet. The addition of this aircraft will greatly improve the PLAN's capabilities.
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China also has two Type 075 amphibious assault ships/LHDs under construction, and I would expect this class to be much more prolific. These ships are much more affordable than the full carriers, and focus on areas in which China is particularly concerned--amphibious assaults, say, on islands in the South China Sea or on Taiwan, and anti-submarine warfare, which is of particular importance given that submarines cannot be easily halted with land-based anti-ship missiles and air-launched cruise missiles provided for in their area denial doctrine--submarines are one of the few things that can slip through that net.
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The surface combatant fleet is likely to continue growing, but I am not sure if it will swell much beyond the ~23 Type 052D ships planned and the 8 Type 055s. We're likely to see the retirement of the classes preceding the Type 052C destroyer and the Type 054 frigate, and they may be offloaded to Bangladesh, Myanmar, or Pakistan--there is substantial precedent here, and it seems that China is interested in expanding the naval capabilities of its partners around India.
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The submarine fleet is likely to see rapid expansion if the PLAN is satisfied with the Type 095 and Type 096 classes, and we're likely to see more diesel-electric subs built as well. Submarines are generally quite good at fighting submarines and conducting area-denial missions, and the large and capable subsurface forces of Japan, Korea, and the United States means that this has to be an area the PLAN invests more in--and the fact that several Southeast Asian nations are also looking at acquiring submarines makes the issue more pressing.

8. Conclusion

China has in the past decade gone from a third-rate navy to perhaps the greatest threat the US Navy has faced since the Second World War. This has significant geopolitical implications, and has resulted in neighbors scrambling to overhaul their naval forces. The growth of the PLAN means that the US can no longer easily defend Taiwan or the South China Sea, or any of China's littoral waters. This, more than anything else, is what has everyone scrambling in the US talking about "great-power competition" because denying access to the US Navy and working on power projection, an inherently naval thing, is essentially a clear sign that China is looking to directly compete with the United States. Underestimate the PLAN at your own peril.
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I hope to have more detail and citations in future posts, but unfortunately the PLAN is very secretive [yes, I've said that fifty times already] and this is a pretty big topic to discuss without going into details about all sorts of naval tidbits. Thanks for reading the fourth post in what I hope will be a fairly substantial series, probably around ~12 posts.
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9. Citations

James Holmes, "The Danger Zone In Naval Arms Races"
USNI, Report to Congress on Chinese Naval Modernization
Hans Kristensen, China's Noisy Nuclear Submarines
Eric Wertheim, China's Type 052D Destroyer is a potent adversary
Robert Farley, Let's Talk About The Chinese Navy's Type 055 Destroyer
Ryan Pickrell, Chinese fighter jet holding China back as it builds carrier fleet
Look, much more here is based on loose speculation, more unreliable sources, and stuff I've picked up over the years, because public info is limited. So take everything I say with a grain of salt, but understand that it's the best information I know of.

Edit: forgot to put NYTimes and date in the title. Sorry.
After a cruise ship docked in Cambodia, passengers streamed off the ship, maskless, and fears are rising that the country could become a vector of transmission.
Feb. 17, 2020 Updated 8:05 p.m. ET SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia — When Cambodia’s prime minister greeted passengers on a cruise ship amid a coronavirus scare on Valentine’s Day, embraces were the order of the day. Protective masks were not.
Not only did Prime Minister Hun Sen not wear one, assured that the ship was virus-free, his bodyguards ordered people who had donned masks to take them off. The next day, the American ambassador to Cambodia, W. Patrick Murphy, who brought his own family to greet the passengers streaming off the ship, also went maskless.
“We are very, very grateful that Cambodia has opened literally its ports and doors to people in need,” Mr. Murphy said.
But after hundreds of passengers had disembarked, one later tested positive for the coronavirus. Now, health officials worry that what Cambodia opened its doors to was the outbreak, and that the world may pay a price as passengers from the cruse ship Westerdam stream home.
Before the Westerdam docked in Sihanoukville, fearful governments in other countries had turned the ship away at five ports of call even though the cruise operator, Holland America, assured officials that the ship’s passengers had been carefully screened.
Prime Minister Hun Sen’s decision to allow it entry appeared to be a political calculus as much as anything else. The region’s longest-serving ruler and a close ally of China, he is known for his survival skills.
But Mr. Hun Sen’s critics worry that the aging autocrat might have acted rashly.
Of course, he had to do the dictator thing: photo op, roses, exploit this for its maximum value,” said Sophal Ear, an expert in Cambodian politics at Occidental College. “Whatever is in the best interest of Cambodians is completely irrelevant to him.”
It is too early to tell whether the decision to let hundreds of passengers from the Westerdam fly off has the makings of an epidemiological disaster. Cambodian health authorities said that 409 of the 2,257 passengers and crew had left Cambodia for their homes scattered across the globe. The rest remain in hotels in Phnom Penh, the capital, or on the ship.
But deficiencies in screening for the coronavirus aboard the ship, along with continued complacency about the epidemic in Cambodia, are raising fears this small Southeast Asian nation could prove to be a surprising vector of transmission for a virus that has already killed more than 1,700 people, mostly in China, the epicenter of the outbreak.
Many health experts urge people who have been in contact with coronavirus patients to self-quarantine for 14 days, lest they add another spoke to the contagion network.
But on Monday, Mr. Hun Sen directed officials in Phnom Penh to treat passengers from the Westerdam to a sightseeing jaunt.
“To tour the city is better than staying in rooms or at the hotel feeling bored or scared,” said a post on Mr. Hun Sen’s Facebook page.
The lack of urgency in Cambodia, where officials milled around the ship on Monday without protection, points to the obstacles in trying to contain a virus that experts warn is spreading faster than SARS or MERS.
This is influenza-like transmission,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota. “It’s like trying to stop the wind.
Last week, when the Westerdam docked in Sihanoukville, the Cambodian government and the cruise operator deemed the vessel virus-free.
The declaration was at a minimum premature.
Only 20 people out of the 2,257 onboard were tested for the virus before disembarking, and that was because they had reported themselves to ship medical staff with various ailments.
The woman who twice tested positive after traveling on to Malaysia, an 83-year-old American, was not among those 20, Holland America said.
Health monitoring for the rest of the passengers was limited to a handful of temperature checks conducted with infrared thermometers, passengers said. In a statement, Holland America said that during one of those screenings, not a single person on board recorded an elevated temperature.
On Monday, an announcement broadcast to passengers remaining on the Westerdam warned that they should avoid the ship’s hot deck and return to their air-conditioned rooms to avoid falsely high temperature readings.
Some health experts have questioned the efficacy of infrared thermometers, also known as temperature guns, saying they measure the heat emanating from the surface of the body, rather than core body temperature.
Various environmental factors can distort thermometer gun reading, said Gary Strahan, who runs a small infrared device company in Texas.
“In Cambodia, you have warmer background temperatures,” he said. “It could impact the measurement. That’s the issue with any noncontact thermometer.”
Even if temperatures are accurately gauged, people may be taking medication that lower their temperature, like some arthritis drugs.
And in any case, people who are asymptomatic can still pass on the coronavirus, scientists have found.
“A person who does not present as feverish is not necessarily uninfected with a disease or a virus,” said Jim Seffrin, an expert on infrared devices at the Infraspection Institute in New Jersey.
In the wake of the positive test in Malaysia, Cambodian health officials said they would be relying on a domestic lab to test all passengers and crew members still in the country for the coronavirus.
On Monday evening, passengers celebrated news from Cambodian health officials that a first batch of 406 people in Phnom Penh had tested negative, although there was no certainty they would not later test positive.
“People on the ship are very grateful to the people of Cambodia,” said Tammie Graves, an American from Kansas. “I was a bit worried that they might be afraid of us, even at the hotel, but it hasn’t been like that at all.”
On Monday afternoon, more than 100 Westerdam passengers took up Mr. Hun Sen’s offer of a capital tour, piling in buses to see the royal palace and other sites.
In pictures of the excursion, posted on a government-linked website, only one person can be seen wearing a mask.
Despite cases of coronavirus popping up in Southeast Asia, Mr. Hun Sen has campaigned against masks, arguing that they are better at spreading fear than stopping germs. At a news conference last month, he announced that he would kick out anyone who dared wear a mask.
Even as other governments instituted China travel bans that angered Beijing, Mr. Hun Sen traveled to the Chinese capital and met with Xi Jinping, China’s leader, in another photo op.
And as other countries organized airlifts of people trapped in Wuhan, the city where the virus is believed to have originated, Mr. Hun Sen said he would not ferry Cambodian students home because they should be “joining with Chinese to fight this disease.”
The sense of solidarity makes sense in a country heavily dependent on China for its fortunes, after having turned its back on a West that was demanding progress in human rights in return for aid and investment.
A torrent of Chinese cash has remade Cambodia, nowhere more so than in Sihanoukville, a once sleepy beach town that is now a sprawling construction site of gilded casinos and towering residential blocks. More than 90 percent of businesses in the city are now Chinese owned.
On Monday, Oeun Yen, a masseuse here, worried about the massages she had given three female passengers from the Westerdam before the virus case was confirmed by Malaysia. She was not afraid at first, she said, because the prime minister had assured people all was fine.
Now I am more concerned,” she said.
In a country where Mr. Hun Sen has dissolved the biggest opposition party and political assassination is not uncommon, such mild concern is as much as many ordinary residents are willing to muster.
But there is also widespread skepticism of the government’s contention that only one person in Cambodia has so far tested positive for coronavirus, a Chinese citizen who has since returned home.
“There is a natural lack of credibility and trust associated with the Cambodian government,” said Ou Virak, a human-rights activist and founder of the Future Forum, a local think tank. “This is Hun Sen’s Westerdam problem, because even if he was doing the right thing, purely as a humanitarian, he will be seen as the puppet of China instead.”
On Monday, Mr. Hun Sen announced yet another publicity stunt: He wants to invite the passengers of the Westerdam to a party.
Masks won’t be welcome.
Reporting was contributed by Sun Narin in Sihanoukville; Roni Caryn Rabin and David Yaffe-Bellany in New York; and Richard C. Paddock in Denpasar, Indonesia.
Hannah Beech has been the Southeast Asia bureau chief since 2017, based in Bangkok. Before joining The Times, she reported for Time magazine for 20 years from bases in Shanghai, Beijing, Bangkok and Hong Kong. @hkbeech
Cambodia’s Coronavirus Complacency May Exact a Global Toll

Wall of text, doing as much for my own thinking as anything else
TL:DR- Did China send infected testing kits to Iran and Italy, and false negative kits since? Deliberate or just crooks? Has this caused unnecessary over reactions globally? why aren't cities or countries already going dark from COVID? The billionaires and non political leaders are strangely silent. The world has fired all its bullets. If this comes back there is no next time. Could something emerge from those ashes?
​
HOW COULD CHINA HAVE POSSIBLY CONTAINED THIS?
How did Wuhan get it, but Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou & Shenzhen etc did not. It is impossible. So the possible outcomes are either

1. It is just not that contagious.
2. Plenty of Chinese in those cities did get it and a few million might have died but overall it is not that bad
3. Chinese got it and all were secretly inoculated
4. They have yet to get it, and when they come outdoors it will eventually break out

​
WHY IRAN AND ITALY UNLIKE EVERYWHERE ELSE
The BIG question which makes little sense is this is how did Italy and Iran get it so bad, so fast, but nowhere else has had a similar explosion
It does not seem probably that Italy and Iran were that close in time to Wuhan, but the rest of Italy and the world were that far behind them, and it is yet to happen
​
WHY ARE CRUISE SHIPS SUCH PETRI DISHES FOR THIS?
Cruise ships have been a ground zero. In Australia we were in lock-down and in late March, after the lock-downs they let the Ruby Princess just unload passengers at Circular Quay,. It was known at least 7 people had the virus, and ships were a petri dish, and yet late one night someone opened the gangplank and over 2000 people just walked off into the night. At least a few hundred of them we now know have the virus. Anyone who knows Australia’s border security and quarantine, and immigration, knows this just doesn’t happen. How did they get at least 20 people to stand back and let those people disembark
​
PATHETIC PROTECTION PRACTICES THAT ACCELERATED THIS- NEGLIGENCE OR DELIBERATE?
Some international travelers who returned to Australia in early March, before the lock-downs, were found to be super spreaders- but the people they infect don’t seem to be super spreaders which makes little sense. In Australia we had multiple instances of people returning from USA, 1 went to a wedding in Hunter Valley upon arrival and infected 31 of the 51 people there. Another went to a 50th in Noosa and similar spreading, another landed from Aspen went to a party in Melbourne and similar infection rates. So how is this happening, and why are those hundred people similarly not infecting on a mass basis?
Now we aren’t testing much in Australia. Lack of kits and what’s the point- if you have normal cold symptoms just lock in at home and ride it out until you feel better. If a 70+ year old Prince Charles can recover in a few days why overwhelm health facilities over nothing and risk nothing more than spreading the infection on right. (So it is “just like a cold then, right?”)
​
MAKING SENSE OF INACCURATE DATA THAT CONFUSES AND CONTRADICTS
It has now been long enough that those people should have similarly infected people on mass. Yet they haven’t. Unless you want to think a huge number of people in Australia already have it. But that can’t be- if so then this appears to be a con, and why are we bankrupting millions of people and risking our economies to prevent this? It doesn’t make sense.
So how did Italy spread like wildfire but pretty well just stop in the local area. Iran similar.
Now enough data is out that we can see most of those who died in Italy were the old, poor health, the air quality. male, smokers, multiple other conditions. We have perhaps 2% (confirm) who die with COVID where it can’t be attributed to multiple other underlying health conditions, and their cause of death is being put within the COVID death tally
So why is Rome not disintegrating and their death rate beyond control? Do we not think those people in the north did not travel to Rome and it spread there before anyone figured out what was going on up North and they started to distance/ quarantine? No way that didn’t happen
The data we are so far seeing is a blip. If UK lost 57,000 in its last bad flu season, let’s call that 4 months, that’s what, 3,000 people dying from it in a week during the season. 10,000, 50,000, 100,000…1million dead WITH this worldwide would not be unusual
And why have we not seen countries with huge density and poor sanitary conditions just explode? More people travel from Wuhan to Thailand than travel to Northern Italy
How did NYC act as an epicentre but LA, Disneyland, Chicago, San Fran- other high urban and ultra high-contact business districts. Why are they weeks behind NYC?
Why has a Nigeria not gone dark? They have 1 slum with 10 million people living in mud, occupying an area 10x10km. Or Sao Paolo? Or India. (They’re going to die from food riots before COVID) And Indonesia- 1 mosque has 150,000 people in it these places are ground zero for mass fast transmission. Or Manilla. Or Bangkok. Infection through ordinary passenger and people movement in these cities must have seen those cities infect up light years ahead of Northern Italy did.
​
THE ONLY PLAUSIBLE EXPLANATION I CAN SEE TO WHY ITALY/ IRAN INFECTED SO HARD AND SLOW EVERYWHERE ELSE
When this first appeared in Italy and Iran as a new virus that hospitals needed to test for, testing kits WERE sent from China them and these kits WERE infected. It appears that this is what massively accelerated the spike in those 2 locations, and why Bangkok, Manilla, NYC, Rome etc have been a slot burn of person to person low level and accumulation infection.
We will probably find that the Shenzhen company that sent those kits also sent them to parts of France, UK and Spain explaining their high initial deaths
Whether this was deliberate remains to be seen. I am a hard core conspiracy lover from way back, but I can see that this could have simply been more dirty crooked Chinese businesses and this one just really fucked us all good.
​
ODD ASPECTS OF IT- WHERE ARE THE PEOPLE AND THE BODIES?
There is so limited footage anywhere in the world showing hospitals and medical centres that appear to have any sense of emergency. Perhaps everyone is out the back and all other things aren’t happening. No kids are in the park falling off a skateboard, no one driving having an accident therefore COVID is the only stuff happening in hospitals and it is “out the back”. That’s entirely plausible
No testing happening- too much footage of empty testing facilities around the world. This is very odd. You'll see a lot of this soon
Only 1 footage of body bags in a NYC hospital – eerie but not proof of anything
​
RUMOURS OF HOW COVID WORKS AND IMPACTS

• It is suggested by some that Asian men have a DNA difference that makes them more susceptible
• It is suggested males who recover become sterile
• It is suggested if you recover your lungs are effed.
• It is suggested that you are not immune and will be worse the next time it comes back
• There is too little data to really know any of this

But there is a MASSIVE VACUUM of factual information- how is it that we see footage of and hear of people walking and just dropping dead. What is COVID doing that causes that if that is really happening?
It is suggested that if you get coughed on, or a small exposure, it’s not much- that’s a cold you just caught and just got 10 units of “it”. If so this could explains why for most people it really is a non issue, a mild cold. That could explain how someone like Peter Dutton or Boris Johnson got it but his wife and kids who live shoulder to shoulder in a house and car etc did not catch it
Some suggest there are super spreaders, they are carrying say a “10,000 load”. According to some they may only be capable of passing on a 100 infection load say, And that person might give off a 10 load and so on
What the emerging data does show is that Nurses and Doctors may be the ones in real trouble. They are being repeatedly exposed to asymptomatics with say 10 units, and over and over and they are building up to a 500 or 5000 themselves. This appears to be a slow burn for them and one to really watch for. (When enough of them decide they aren’t going to work we’re in a world of trouble)
​
THE SHUTDOWNS ARE NECESSARY BECAUSE THEY ALL CAN’T BE THAT DUMB TO DO THAT IF IT WASN’T A REAL CRISIS
Well yes they can be that dumb. Often leaders are just narcissists who ran the system such that they end up in a position of power and we defer leadership to them not on their ability but they occupy a chair. Their decisions are usually based on what is hoped to be good advice from people who lack information and just see what counterparts elsewhere are doing. It’s often a giant circle jerk and they are relying on little, poor, weak and false information.
Watching WHO backflip since January should be enough for you to know that they are bought and owned and incompetent in this. Their information have been shown to be false repeatedly. You watch, they’ll tell us we need to wear masks now.
​
DOGS THAT DON’T BARK
People on this sub know that it isn’t the dogs that bark that are the problem. It’s the dogs that don’t bark. Consider this, think of alllll the non-political leaders around the world. Those who are the captains of industry, the super leaders and super wealthy, Warren Buffet, Richard Branson, each country has them. “Philanthropists” and futurists. Well apparently this is an existential crisis. Billions are afraid for their health and livelihoods, their ability to earn money and provide for their families. It has now gone on long enough that our lives and world will change massively. In the meantime, fear, anxiety, depression, domestic violence, alcoholism, child abuse will explode. Where are they? Where are the great futurists? Where is Elon Musk? Where is Jeff Bezos? Where is Bill Gates? Don't say they are running their empire and its in crisis- they have multiple CEOs do that for them
Ask yourself where are the billionaires and people standing up in your nation saying we need to come together and build community and local digital and physical support networks? I don’t know why but we are being deliberately isolated from each other, physically and psychologically. All of the global elite have gone to ground. Those dogs are too silent
​
THERE IS A REASON THEY ARE STAYING SILENT.
My observation is that they either know something and are deliberately staying out of this, or they are truly corrupt and believe this will blow over and keeping their cash dry to buy investments for cents in the dollar
Whatever is happening they appear to know *something*. These people are such psychopaths, narcissists and ego trippers that they just can’t resist in moments like this
There’s a reason they have gone to ground. Maybe they are just ugly without stylists and botox. Maybe it is lack or that adrenochrome, maybe they’re all in NZ. I have no idea. But I smell a ~~rat~~ **bat**
​
YOU SAW A LIST OF ALL THOSE TOP 500 CEOS RESIGNING
There’s 500 of them and let’s say they stay on average 4 years in the job, that’s 10 a month ordinarily resigning. Keep moving
But it is undeniable that those US politicians on the inside of this saw something a few months ago and sold stocks and bought others. (In principle they should be on the end of a rope for this)
​
TIMING IMPACTS/ SURROUNDING EVENTS
Would any of the following have affected the timing of this?
Happened Right after Hong Kong elections, Right after Taiwan Elections, Right after Chinese New Year, Right after Northern Hemisphere comes out of its flu season period, right after Davos?
​
ANTI CHINA SENTIMENT WILL FORCE CHINA'S HAND INTO SOMETHING
You watch, in the next few weeks there will be an explosion of anti-china sentiment. Buy Australian, America First, British Businesses First. The problem is we have sucked so hard on the China nipple that we will starve if Mother Xi takes it out. You want to see half the universities in UK, Australia and Canada close down- just watch. All they have to do is say fine, we won’t buy your wool, or your coal, or iron ore. In Australia’s case it would FINISH us. Overnight. Never mind our dollar should fall to USD$0.40 after the printing we’ve announced it will fall to US$0.20.
Too many instances of Chines people around the world doing weird things to spread an infection- if they had it, licking things – admittedly probably just mentally ill people but it feeds into the anti china hate
People will turn on China and governments will need a scapegoat for the taxes that will come to pay for this. IF China did this deliberately to destabilise and kill or conquer the West or if they are just innocent victims of crooked businessmen and their pride prevented them from admitting that we’ll see I guess
​
SO WHAT WILL HAPPEN?
It all Depends on whether it was a State Sponsored plan to destroy economies and destabilise them for whatever objective, or if it was just more crooked Chinese businesses who’s factories sent infected testing kits, and false negative testing kits, and falsely labelled fake-masks (Google fake baby formula, fake eggs, fake condoms, etc). This is entirely plausible as would be a cover up in China of that - the face thing Chinese need to grow up and get over.
​
WHAT DO I THINK?
I have no idea. Here is what I think I know

• Everyone lies
• Govts will bankrupt 10 generations to keep people happy tomorrow
• Govts are utterly incompetent
• We are relying on beurocrats and public servants to deliver us from evil. The problem is they have jobs for life and pensions for life. They are incapable of being objective in this
• We have no reason to trust China- Chinese businesses and the Chinese government
• India has 2 weeks or it will go dark. Not from the virus but from food insecurity. First the 2 x religions will turn on each other in small locations, then there will be a wave of exodus for protection, then people will see the govt will not be able to deliver the food, and then the place goes up in smoke
• If this is shown to be a false alarm- there was an unintended/ deliberate infection into Iran and Italy, and unintended spread through false negatives, and a few super spreaders distorted, people who have lost things, like their business, will be pissed off. Casino’s will be the some of the first places to be lit up
• There are too many silent dog

OR
This is deliberate and we are all fucked.
IS THERE AN ILLUMINATI IN CONTROL?
Perhaps. But we have now seen that these NSA, FBI, CIA KGB, Mossad etc intelligence agencies were a myth all along. That anyone with half a functining brain left them and went into private business and the only people left there are zealots, dinosaurs and losers. We know this because they have information but showed no intelligence - none of them saw this or protected against it. No country secretly stockpiled PPEs and Ventilators. Instead it looks like they bought faulty shit from China that fucked them well and good, with economies on the edge of an abyss if a jolt to the system happened during this crisis
​
BILLIONS IN THEIR HOMES, FIRST TIME IN HISTORY, ON LINES, SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING- WILL SOMEONE REVEAL THEMSELVES?
If there was a god, a magician, a healer, an ET, a UFO, a time traveler, a reptilian overlord, a simulation programmer from the 25th century well, now is their window to reveal themselves.
Don’t hold your breath, if they are holding back because they somehow know this goes pear shaped then if it is pear shaped no one will be on line to witness their majesty. Their window is closing daily
​
THE POWERS THAT BE WILL NOT LET US OUT SOON ENOUGH TO REHIRE AND GET THE ECONOMY MOVING BACK TO WHAT IT WAS
Our economies have been so wrecked that the politicians now need this to be bad to make it justifiable
Their best hope is many thousands dead and they can claim the line was not breached they flattened the wave and we can thank and re-elect them, it was all necessary. The cure was worth the price
As soon as they take the foot off the brake and we come out of our little ice igloos and someone gets an infection they have to shut the economy and travel and movement down again.
Governments and police forces NEVER hand back power given to them…EVER. And we have conditioned ourselves to them
The cure WILL be worse than the cold, so to say
​
IT IS INEVITABLE THAT WE ALL NEED TO BE INFECTED WITH THIS
>75% of us need to become infected and immune from this before we can resume any sort of global normal. Borders cannot open for mass travel until then.
Expect rolling infections. They will move medical personnel and supplies zone by zone and turn it from Red to Green. Then you can have your microchip that proves you are not infected. Or a bracelet if you prefer
I am not particularly a deep ended NWO ZOG 666 believer, but I cannot see how this will not be an eventuality. They simply will not allow global travel if they open the doors and this breaks out again. We will have already seen airlines and travel industry go out of business. It can’t happen again. No green check mark, no travel. (And this explains the silence and absence of Bill Gates by the way)
​
HOW CAN I TELL WHETHER IT WAS A CON OR A REAL?
There cannot be a nation that does_not_go dark because of this. There HAS to be a country that smashes the line, Shit even if it were a TB or whooping cough outbreak, something, somewhere, very soon. If it doesn’t then we have been had. And if we have been had then there was a reason. And we are all inside. Isolated. Relying on the govt to eat, and when we are allowed to leave our homes to buy food. With dogs that aren’t barking. It was a set up. For some reason. In 2020 just like they said
​
REAL THREATS IN THE MEANTIME

• The internet going down
• China blocking supply of Tungsten (the most critical raw material on earth and 90% of it comes from China)
• Someone spikes a local water supply
• A few interconnectors go down sending a city dark
• That this really is a slow burn thing and the nurses and doctors get ill and don’t turn up

​
THERE’S ALWAYS A SAVIOR WHO WILL OFFER HOPE
Whoever offers the best solution in or from this- he’s probably the master villain in all this
​
ILLUMINATI, 666, NWO, FREEMASONS, ZOG, REPTILES, ICKE, SKULL&BONES

• I guess here we are there aren’t we. The world can be tipped one way or the other and it will happen now in COVID or in the next type of COVID. Just like the starship enterprise in a battle our global shields are down to 20%- we can’t do another bailout, or rescue, we’ve fired all our photons and those that are on order for future delivery. We’ve spent our global pennies and we better hope it works
• If anyone stands up and offers us a solution it can will demonstrate if there really ever was a hidden hand of apron wearing, cult chanting overlords pulling strings behind the scenes after all
• That’s something

​
WE ARE 100% EXPENDABLE AND ON OUR OWN IN THIS

• Individually you are 100% on your own in this, No one is coming to help you. Your police will even arrest you if you step out of line or don’t line up for your sedative
• Media, politicians, police, military, sportspeople, business leaders, they all exist to serve themselves, at your expense and that is never been more apparent than now
• Sadly there is probably not much we can do. We are all tiny cogs in a big charade. Of incompetence or design.

​
WHAT WILL BE THE OUTCOMES

• Our masters will have more power and they will not hand that back. They never have and never will
• The wealthy will become even more wealthy
• We will all work longer, for less, and owe more, individually and collectively. And death duties. Guaranteed
• If not from this one, within a few years the next “one” will melt the system. THAT is where if I were a hidden hand I would expose myself. Exhaust the people during this one, bleed it dry in this one, strike in the next one

​
WHAT SHOULD WE DO?

• I have no idea. Get out of debt? Buy food? Build a bunker? Stock up on toilet paper? Pray? Beats me
• The best outcome might be to simply accept the inevitable and convince your other you might as well become swingers and enjoy it
• Or learn maybe Chinese

This piece in the New York Times is meant to be a definitive list of self-dealing by the president, his family, his staff or his friends — since he began running for president.
To qualify, an incident needs to seem highly credible, even if it remains unresolved, and needs to involve making money.

Trump and Family

Foreigners are paying the Trumps A few days after the 2016 election, the government of Kuwait canceled a planned event at the Four Seasons Hotel. It instead held the event — a celebration of Kuwait’s National Day — at the Trump International Hotel in Washington.
Governments including Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Bahrain, Azerbaijan, Turkey, China, India, Afghanistan and Qatar have realized they can curry favor with Trump by spending money at his properties.
The Constitution forbids federal officials from accepting gifts, known as emoluments, from foreign powers, unless they have received congressional approval. Congressiona Democrats have sued Trump for violating this clause, and the case is now in federal court.
Americans are paying the Trumps American officials and business leaders have also spent money at Trump properties, sometimes in an apparent effort to please the president. Gov. Paul LePage of Maine last year stayed at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Other Republicans have held campaign fund-raisers and party events at the properties. So have corporate lobbyists.
“National Railroad Construction and Maintenance Association Dinner at the Trump Hotel where I am drinking Trump coffee,” Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, posted on Instagram last year.
Trump Inc. is expanding overseas During Trump’s presidency, his companies have pushed to expand overseas, with help from foreign governments. One example: In May, an Indonesian real-estate project that involves the Trump Organization reportedly received a $500 million loan from a company owned by the Chinese government. Two days later, Trump tweeted that he was working to lift sanctions on a Chinese telecommunications firm with close ties to the government — over the objections of both Republicans and Democrats in Congress. He ultimately did lift the sanctions.
Trump’s businesses have also moved to expand in India, the Dominican Republic and Indonesia, using deals directly with foreign governments. Kushner Inc. is wooing foreign investment.
Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and a top aide, has also reportedly been using his position to help his family business — Kushner Companies, also a real-estate company. Kushner’s sister, Nicole Meyer, has bragged about the company’s high-level ties when trying to attract Chinese investment in a New Jersey apartment complex. The Kushners have wooed Chinese investors despite warnings from American counterintelligence officials that China is using the investments to sway Trump administration policy.
The Kushner company also successfully lobbied the Qatari government to invest in 666 Fifth Avenue, a financially troubled luxury building. The company’s dealings with Middle Eastern countries are especially problematic because Jared Kushner is one of the administration’s top policymakers for the region and has played a central role in policy toward Qatar.
The presidency has become a branding opportunity The president has played golf at his properties dozens of times since taking office. He refers to his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, as the winter White House. Shortly after his election, he celebrated New Year’s along with 800 guests there, with tickets costing more than $500. And Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump adviser, once encouraged people to buy clothes from Ivanka Trump’s line — while Conway was giving a television interview from the White House.
These moves are intended, at least partly, to bring attention and ultimately customers to Trump’s businesses. Of course, some of Trump’s critics have responded in kind, refusing to stay at or live in a Trump-branded property since he won the election. But in other ways, the presidency has clearly helped his bottom line. One example: The Mar-a-Lago club has doubled its membership rates.
Taxpayers are subsidizing the Trumps Trump has visited or stayed at one of his properties almost one out of every three days that he has been president, according to both The Wall Street Journal and NBC News. Like previous presidents, Trump travels with a large group of staff and security personnel, and American taxpayers typically foot at least part of the bill for the trips. Unlike previous presidents, Trump is directing money to his own business on his trips.
In one three-month period last year, the Secret Service spent about $63,000 at Mar-a-Lago and more than $137,000 on golf carts at Trump’s Florida and New Jersey clubs.
Trump Inc. gets special protection The president personally intervened in a plan to relocate the F.B.I.’s Washington headquarters, apparently to protect Trump International Hotel, which is about a block away. If the F.B.I. had moved, its current site would most likely have been turned into a commercial development, and the long construction process — as well as potential for a new hotel on the site — could have hurt the Trump hotel.
Trump stopped this plan, and the White House has instead decided to build a new F.B.I. headquarters on the current site. A report by the inspector general found that officials gave misleading answers to Congress about Trump’s role and the project’s cost.

Trump’s Cabinet, Aides and Allies

Friendly businesses also get special treatment The Education Department during the Obama administration aggressively regulated for-profit colleges — many of which have miserable records, often taking money from students without providing a useful education. Trump chose Betsy DeVos, a longtime advocate of these colleges and an investor in them, as his education secretary. She, not surprisingly, has gone easy on for-profit colleges. Among other moves, she has reassigned the members of an department team investigating potentially fraudulent activities at for-profit colleges.
DeVos is the most blatant example of administration officials protecting companies where they once worked, but there are many others. More than 164 former lobbyists work in the administration, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, including several who regulate the industries that once paid their salaries. Geoff Burr, who pushed for more lax workplace safety laws when he was the chief lobbyist for a construction group, now works at the Department of Labor. Andrew Wheeler, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was previously a lobbyist whose firm was paid millions of dollars by companies whose industries he now regulates. Family, friends and donors get perks.
The president and his aides have repeatedly shown they are willing to use the government’s prestige and power to help their friends and relatives make money.
Among the examples:

• Trump suggested to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe of Japan during a meeting at Mar-a-Lago in February 2017 that Abe grant a coveted operating license to a casino company owned by Sheldon Adelson, who donated at least $20 million to Trump’s presidential campaign.
  
• Ben Carson, the housing and urban development secretary, let his son help organize an official department event and invite people with whom the son had potential business dealings.
  
• Scott Pruitt, the former E.P.A. head, asked his staff members to contact Republicans donors with the goal of helping his wife find a job. Pruitt also rented a condo on Capitol Hill for $50 a night, well below market value, from the wife of an energy lobbyist whose project the E.P.A. approved last March. Pruitt’s many scandals led to his resignation in July.
  
• Elaine Chao, the transportation secretary, used interviews with Chinese and Chinese-American media to raise her father’s profile. He is a shipping magnate whose business transports goods between the United States and Asia, and he sat next to her during the interviews.
  

And although it doesn’t quite rise to the same level of the other examples here: White House staffers receive a discount of up to 70 percent on Trump-branded merchandise at the president’s Bedminster, N.J., golf club, reportedly at the president’s recommendation.
Cabinet officials make unethical stock trades Several Trump officials — current and former — have traded stocks while serving in top government positions. In some cases, they appear to have made policy decisions benefiting the companies in which they owned a stake.
Tom Price, Trump’s first secretary of health and human services, epitomized this form of corruption. Trump chose him despite his history of using his seat in Congress to make money. Price had a long record of putting the interests of drug companies above those of taxpayers and patients — and then investing in those drug companies on the side.
Brenda Fitzgerald, the former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, committed a more mild version of this sin. She purchased shares in food, drug and tobacco companies after taking charge of an agency that regulates them — and that aims to reduce smoking. After her purchases became public, she resigned.
Finally, Wilbur Ross, Trump’s commerce secretary, has mixed government business and his own business in multiple ways. He held on to investments — and then appears to have lied to government ethics officials about those investments. He shorted the stock of a company about which he appeared to have advance notice of bad news. He also met with the chief executive of Chevron, even though his wife owned a substantial investment — which, according to Forbes, “put himself at risk of violating a criminal conflict-of-interest law.”
Trump’s orbit receives cash Michael Cohen — Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, who has since turned on him — received at least $1 million from AT&T, Novartis and Korea Aerospace Industries shortly after the 2016 election. They were supposedly paying for his insight into the Trump administration.
Corey Lewandowski, the former manager of Trump’s campaign, is paid for work that looks very much like lobbying — such as participating in a lobbying firm’s phone calls with clients and doing work on behalf of T-Mobile, the telecommunications company firm. But Lewandowski has not registered as a lobbyist and says he does not need to do so.
Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign chairman, reportedly used his position to offer private briefings to a Russian oligarch to whom he owed millions of dollars. Manafort saw the briefings as a way to “get whole.”
Cabinet officials take junkets Trump officials have made a habit of billing American taxpayers for their personal travel. Ryan Zinke, Trump’s secretary of the interior, chartered a $12,000 flight to fly out of Las Vegas, where he had given a 12-minute speech to a hockey team owned by a businessman who donated to his congressional campaign.
David Shulkin, secretary of veterans affairs, charged taxpayers for a trip to Europe that included stopovers at Wimbledon and Westminster Abbey, plus a river cruise for him and his wife. The resulting outcry appears to have played a role in his departure.
Pruitt, former head of the E.P.A., chartered flights for questionable travel, among many other things. He also pushed to fly Delta rather than the government’s contract carrier, to accrue frequent flier miles. He flew first class and stayed in hotels that were more expensive than those allowed by government standards. And he let lobbyists help arrange foreign trips for him.
Brock Long, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, spent $151,000 on government vehicles without authorization, including to travel to his North Carolina home. He was ordered to repay the government.
Steven Mnuchin, the Treasury secretary, looked into whether he could use a military plane to fly him to Europe for his honeymoon. Later, he used military planes for several trips. The Treasury Department’s inspector general concluded that Mnuchin broke no laws by doing so, but criticized Mnuchin’s insufficient explanation for why he needed to spend $800,000 on the trips.
And Price, former health secretary, spent hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on private planes. His history of unethical stock trading didn’t keep Trump from naming Price to the cabinet. But the private-plane scandal received enough attention that the White House eventually forced Price to resign.
Trump’s team enjoys interior decorating. The pettiest kind of Trumpian corruption takes the form of interior decorating. Zinke, the interior secretary, spent $139,000 in taxpayer money on new doors for his office. Carson, the secretary of health and human services, picked out a dining set for his office that cost $31,000 — and then gave Congress contradictory explanations for the purchase and blamed it on his wife. Pruitt ordered a $43,000 soundproof phone booth installed in his office and appears to have violated federal law by failing to inform Congress about it.

INTRODUCTION

This article titled Duterte still waiting for China’s ballyhooed bonanza is written by RICHARD JAVAD HEYDARIAN a political analyst in Manila. Mr. Heydarian is affiliated with the Liberal Party, the establishment party that Benigno Aquino belongs to, that doesn't favor closer ties with China at the expense of sovereignty. While some people see Duterte as a anti-establishment candidate, in reality he is part of the elite, and is affiliated with former President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo that favors closer economic ties with China. This was evident when she was President.
In the article, Mr Heydarian argues that after 3 years, Duterte has very little to show for in actual investment from China. This is confirmed by this article Playing a losing game with China. All the Philippines has gotten from China right now is about a couple hundred million a year in Chinese investment mainly online casinos which most of the Filipino public and the Chinese government itself want Duterte to shut down. Cambodia shut their online Casinos last month, because of pressure from the Cambodian public and China.
The reality is as far back as a decade ago it was apparent that China didn't consider Philippines strategic. The US$24 Billion in aid and investment that China promised the Philippines was just a promise. Secondly, the reason why Chinese commitment to Philippines has been low is because its more careful lately with disbursing funds for BRI projects, and the Filipino themselves are very careful. Philippines overseas debt is 24% of its F/X reserves. Given China current account balance is moving to balance (small deficits/small surplus), China will be more careful how it lends money overseas in the long run.

SUMMARY

Despite China's highly touted Belt and Road Initiative, a US$1 trillion program to build infrastructure worldwide, Japan's infrastructure-related investments are still much larger than China's in Southeast Asia.
His comments came amid festering territorial disputes between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea, which have escalated since a suspected Chinese militia vessel rammed and sank a Filipino fishing vessel at the sea's Reed Bank in June.
China's promise of an infrastructure investment bonanza, funds that were supposed to drive Duterte's touted "Build, Build, Build" campaign, has not arrived, putting into doubt the wisdom of his mostly acquiescent policy in the South China Sea.
Ahead of his election in mid-2016, he made it clear that he prefers warmer ties with China, because "We have to talk and what I need from China is not anger. What I need from China is help to develop my country."
Three years later, among China's ten proposed big-ticket infrastructure projects, only the $60 million Chico River Pump Irrigation Project and another has apparently cleared the preliminary stages of implementation.
Philippine Finance Secretary Carlos Dominguez III has admitted to several "Roadblocks", including China's initial insistence on using renminbi in aid disbursement, heavy reliance on Chinese workers and managers, and an unwillingness to co-finance projects with other lenders such as Japan and the Asian Development Bank.
However, even more worrying, festering territorial disputes between the Philippines and China in the South China Sea, which have escalated since a suspected Chinese militia vessel rammed and sank a Filipino fishing vessel at the sea’s Reed Bank in June.

OPINION

WHY THE CHINESE DON'T CONSIDER THE PHILIPPINES IMPORTANT
Chinese don't consider the Philippines that important, because they are obsessed with the Malacca Strait. China has billions of dollars in Malaysian BRI projects, while very little infrastructure investment in both the Philippines or Thailand for example.
There are three reason for this.
The first is because of Philippines strict environmental laws, there isn't a lot of Chinese investment in mining unlike Indonesia or Myanmar.
The second is conceptual and historical. The Chinese have a 15th century view of Southeast Asia. At the time Philippines was a scattered collection of small kingdoms and tribes. Zheng He passed the Philippines as they sailed through the South China Seas, without making any stops. In contrast, the Japanese have considered the Philippines strategically important during the war and after the war. During the War the Japanese main invasion route into Southeast Asia was from Taiwan to the Philippines and down through Makassar Strait, capturing the oil fields in Borneo and finally to Java.
The third is Filipino are very pro-American, so relations could easily reverse once Duterte steps down.
HOW FAR CAN THE CHINESE PUSH THE FILIPINOS BEFORE THEY SNAP
Despite what many Mainland Chinese think, the friendliest country in Asia toward ethnic Chinese has been the Philippines, not Thailand. The last time there was serious anti-Chinese violence in the Philippines was 17th century. Unlike Thailand, the Philippines never forced Chinese to assimilate by closing Chinese language schools. Some Chinese assimilated, some didn't.
Over the past decade, there have been numerous incident between Chinese Coast Guard and the Philippines naval and Filipino fishermen. Here is a timeline of the incidents between China and the Philippines
Skirmishes, standoffs, harassment in West Philippine Sea
Between 2012-2016, there had been 8 incidents. In 2018-2019, there have been 10 incidents. In the South China Seas, Duterte appeasement of China only increase Chinese harassment, which sends the wrong message to other claimants - that appeasement will make it worse.
During all these incidents, the Filipinos never started like riots like Vietnamese did in 2014, leaving over dozen Mainland Chinese dead.
How do you think people would react in China? Riots were started over incidents with Japan. There are Mainland Chinese harassing people in foreign countries over Hong Kong.
In one incident this year, a Chinese ship rammed a Filipino fishing boat, sinking it. They left the scene, leaving 22 Filipino fishermen in the water. Someone could have died. The Filipino public were upset, but there was no demonstrations let alone rioting.
SOUTHEAST ASIANS OK WITH CHINA, BUT MAINLAND CHINESE NOT SO MUCH
Chinese think historical and hold grudges, Southeast Asian, particularly Filipinos don't, and are more worried about the present. Filipino's don't care how great China was in the past. They don't obsesses over the Japanese occupation like the Chinese do
Southeast Asia is different from the West, is ordinary people are less concerned with actions of the Chinese government, but with activities of Mainland Chinese in their respective countries. This in turn impacts the overall relations between countries and China. The two biggest areas of concern for Filipinos about Mainland Chinese are:

• Chinese investors have poured money into Online gambling industry in the Philippines that target the Chinese in Mainland China. This has brought an influx of Mainland Chinese workers. The first impact of these workers is to drive up rent and prices of apartments in Metro Manila. Secondly, most of the workers are working illegally, meaning they are working on Tourist visas, Thirdly, as in Cambodia, the online casinos bring a lot of illegal activity like drug use, human trafficking, extortion,,
• Most of the drugs (meth) comes from China, and Mainland Chinese gangs are the main suppliers. This is a long standing problem Despite the talk China hasn't done much to curb the trade. Drug lords in China protected by Communist Party officials, and some could even be members of the Party

The Chinese government recognizes both problems, and has told the Philippines government to ban online Casinos. My personal opinion is China could solve these problems and stop illicit transfers overseas, by legalizing casino gambling in Mainland China.
In my opinion, the only major benefit the Philippines has gotten with improved relations with China is the tourist numbering has doubled from 500,000 to 1,000,000. However, tourist number were increasing before the improvement in relations.
CONCLUSION
If I was in China's position, if I could get something for nothing, I would do the same. I think Duterte's mistake was over promising to the Filipino people of the potential China's bonanza. China didn't cough much aid or investment under Arroyo, and Duterte should have expected that policy should have remained the same.

Alright, this is a fairly comprehensive list of all the active launch sites on Earth as of the year 1999, in Overheaven’s alternate history timeline.
Realistically, most of these only launch satellites, and the ones that do shoot people into space are probably doing so with capsules, though the more developed countries have fleets of reusable space planes (both manned and unmanned). The overwhelming majority of launches are going to be routine unmanned, reusable rockets sending up supplies or satellites or space station construction materials, and then touching back down on the launch pad like SpaceX's BFR (we get that level of reusable launch vehicle by the mid/late 70's, rather than the late 2010’s - amazing what you can accomplish when two superpowers feel the need to put thousands of nukes in orbit, because the 1967 Outer Space Treaty never happened).
Many are run by the military or public-sector space agencies like the ESA, NASA, the Commonwealth Space Program, or Soyuzcosmos (the USSR's NASA counterpart), but I'm willing to bet that at least half (perhaps even two-thirds) of these are private-sector operations, and most non-military public-sector launch sites do private-sector flights as well. Rockets like the Sea Dragon theoretically don't really need launchpads, and while there might be launch facilities which specialize with Sea Dragon-type rockets, I think that the smaller spaceflight companies would just buy one of these rockets, strap the payload on top, and tow it out to sea near the equator for launch. And there's also air-launched sub-orbital vehicles (stuff like Virgin Galactic's White Knight), which I wager could take off from regular old airports on the backs of Boeing 747's or Antonov 124's.
Some of these are existing rocket launch sites (mostly for sounding rockets), which I've turned into full-on Cape Canaveral/Baikonur-type facilities, while others are proposed locations for launch sites, and some are just good ideas I figured would work but never appeared in our timeline.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure this is enough space infrastructure to serve as the basis for a smoothly-running interplanetary civilization by 1999, with the Internet still in its infancy. In Overheaven’s alternate timeline, the lack of an OST leads to a more aggressive and ambitious space race. Men on on Mars by 1976, men on Venus by 1978, and the construction of huge nuclear missile platforms in orbit by both superpowers. By the late 70’s, space industry was just getting started, and by the 80’s, the “Space Boom” was in full swing, baby. Experimental atomic research, rotating space hotels, medical and chemical research labs in orbit, space manufacturing, solar power satellites, mining near-earth asteroids, space tourism, orbital fuel depots, telecom sats, space casinos, offworld banking, and so much more. By the late 1990’s, the idea of people working and even living in space is still exciting, but it’s also pretty damn normal now.
With all these launches, plus material being extracted from Luna and near-Earth asteroids, I think it's perfectly feasible for there to be a few Stanford Toruses, and at least one O'Neill Cylinder, under construction in Earth orbit by '99. And as launch costs continue to plummet, expect the scale of humanity's ambitions to only escalate.
And these are just the launch sites on Earth. I don't even know how many orbital launch facilities there'd be by this point - huge space stations building truly-massive vessels in zero-g with all those resources we're shooting up on what I imagine is a daily or even hourly basis; ships like those, built and fueled in orbit, would undoubtedly be able to reach Mars, Venus, Mercury, the Main Belt and Jupiter with relative ease. And everything I've stated here will only continue to grow at a geometric rate as more of the Solar System's resources are harnessed, spaceflight costs continue to drop, and technology continues to improve. And we’re not talking about Overheaven’s current year, which isn’t actually 1999.
It’s 2185.
Oh, right. Here's the list:
United States of America:
Cape Kennedy Space Center (Merritt Island, Florida)
Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport (Delmarva Peninsula, Virginia)
John Glenn Memorial Spaceport (Matagorda Island, Texas)
Southwestern Regional Spaceport (Roswell, New Mexico)
White Sands Launch Center (White Sands, New Mexico) Datil Launch Center (Datil, New Mexico)
Yuma Spaceport (Yuma, Arizona)
Keweenaw Spaceport (Keweenaw Peninsula, Michigan)
John Bardeen Memorial Launch Center (Sheboygan, Wisconsin)
Mojave Spaceport (Mojave, California)
Vanderberg Space Center (Lompoc, California)
Oklahoma Spaceport (Burn Flats, Oklahoma)
Kodiak Launch Complex (Kodiak Island, Alaska)
Stockton Space Center (Stockton, Arizona)
Lone Star Space Center (Van Horn, Texas)
Coleman Launch Center (Sea Dragon launch facility located between Tutuila island and Manu’a island, American Samoa)
Johnston Space Center (Johnston Atoll, Pacific Ocean)
Sarigan Launch Center (Sairgan, Northern Marianas Islands)
Reagan Launch Center (Kwajalein Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands)
Poseidon (privately-operated mobile sea-launch platform in the Gulf of Mexico)
Ocean Odyssey Launch Complex (privately-operated mobile sea-launch platform in the Pacific Ocean)
Union of Soviet Sovereign Republics:
Baikonur Cosmodrome (Baikonur, Star City)
Tereshkova Cosmodrome (Zapovednoye, Primorsky Krai, Far Eastern SSR)
Vostochny Cosmodrome (Tsiolkovsky, Amur Oblast, Far Eastern SSR)
Okhotsk Cosmodrome (Okhotsk, Khabarovsk Krai, Far Eastern SSR)
Sarishagan Cosmodrome (Priozersk, Karaganda Oblast, Kazakh SSR)
Nyonoksa Cosmodrome (Severodvinsk, Archangelsk Oblast, Russian SSR)
Plesetsk Cosmodrome (Mirny, Archangelsk Oblast, Russian SSR)
Kapustin Yar Cosmodrome (Znamensk, Astrakhan Oblast, Russian SSR)
Isakov Cosmodrome (mobile sea-launch platform in the Indian Ocean, currently 960 miles off the coast of Sri Lanka)
European Space Agency/European Union:
Guiana Space Center (Kourou, French Guiana)
Archimedes Launch Center (Syracuse, Sicily, Italy)
Nuka Hiva Space Center (Marquises, French Polynesia)
Touamotu Space Center (Rairoa, French Polynesia)
Fort-Dauphin Space Center (Tôlanaro, Republic of Madagascar)
Borglio Space Center (offshore platform off the coast of Kenya, administered by Italy)
Koroni Launch Center (Messenia, Greece)
Salto di Quirra Spaceport (Sardinia, Italy)
Cuxhaven Launch Center (Cuxhaven, Germany)
Ile du Levant Launch Center (Iles d’Hyeres, France)
El Arenosillo Spaceport (Mazagon, Spain)
Svalbard Space Center (Ny-Alesund, Svalbard, Norway) (northern-most spaceport in the world)
Andøya Space Center (Andøya, Norway)
Esrange Launch Center (Kiruna, Sweden)
Oberth-Barre Launch Center (Bangoli, Orientale Province, Zaire)
OTRAG Launch Center (North Sheba, Katanga Province, Zaire) (privately-operated spaceport, under German/EU jurisdiction)
People’s Republic of China:
Dongfeng Aerospace City (Ejin Banner, Inner Mongolia)
Hotan Aerospace City (Hotan, Xinjiang)
Xichang Launch Center (Liangshan, Sichuan)
Wenchang Launch Center (Wenchang, Hainan)
Taiyaun Launch Center (Xinzhou, Shanxi)
Taiwan (Republic of China):
Sanxiantai Launch Center (Sanxiantai, Taitung)
Haiqian Launch Center (Manzhou, Pingtung)
Republic of Bulgaria:
Smrikite Cosmodrome (Varna Province)
Republic of Hong Kong and Macau:
Stanley Ho Space Center (Tai Chau Island, New Territories) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Islamic Republic of Pakistan:
Sonmiani Launch Center (Las Bela, Balochistan)
Tilla Launch Center (Jhelum, Punjab)
Federative Republic of Brazil:
Barreira do Inferno Launch Center (Parnamirim, Rio Grande do Norte)
Praia do Cassino Launch Center (Rio Grande do Sul)
Alcântara Spaceport (Alcântara, Maranhão)
Belém Spaceport (Vigia, Para)
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland:
Sutherland Spaceport (Caithness and Sutherland, Highland, Scotland) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
South Uist Space Center (South Uist, Outer Hebrides, Scotland) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Newquay Space Center (Newquay, Cornwall, England) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Ascension Launch Center (Unicorn Point, Ascension Island, South Atlantic) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Diego Garcia Launch Center (Diego Garcia, British Indian Ocean Territory) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Federal Republic of Romania:
Costinești Space Center (Constanta County)
Republic of Colombia:
Soledad Launch Center (Caquetá Department) (jointly-operated with the United States)
Commonwealth of Nations/Commonwealth Space Program:
Mount Kenya Space Center (Nyeri County, Republic of Kenya)
Kilimanjaro Space Center (Kilimanjaro Region, United Republic of Tanzania)
Gan Launch Center (Gan, Addu Atoll, Maldives) (jointly-operated by the Commonwealth and India)
Commonwealth of Australia:
Woomera Space Center (Woomera, South Australia) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Darwin Space Center (Darwin, Northern Territory) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Carnarvon Space Center (Carnarvon, Western Australia) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Manus Space Center (Manus Island, Admiralty Islands, Papua New Guinea) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Weipa Launch Center (Mission River, Cape York, Queensland) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Christmas Island Space Center (South Point, Christmas Island) (jointly-operated by Australia and Japan)
Spaceport Valhalla (offshore privately-run launch platform off the coast of East Timor)
State of Japan:
Tanegashima Space Center (Tanegashima Island, Kagoshima)
Uchinoura Space Center (Kimotsuki, Kagoshima)
Akita Satellite Launch Center (Akita, Tohoku)
Obachi Satellite Launch Center (Rokkasho, Aomori)
Okinotorishima Space Center (Okinotori Reef) (a very large launch platform built atop a coral reef, mostly so Tokyo can thumb their nose at an EEZ dispute with China and Taiwan, increasingly growing into a small city in the middle of the Pacific Ocean)
Ryori Space Center (Iwate, Tohoku)
Watatsumi Launch Platform (very large mobile sea-launch platform in the south Pacific Ocean, currently 100 miles off the coast of Baker Island, USA)
Asada Goryu Space Center (Wuvulu Island, Bismarck Archipelago, New Guinea)
New Zealand:
Birdling’s Flat Launch Center (Canterbury, South Island) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Mahia Launch Center (Hawke’s Bay, North Island) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia:
Morava Spaceport (Lađevci, Republic of Šumadija)
Imperial State of Iran:
Qom Space Center (Qom Province)
Emamshahr Space Center (Semnan Province)
Semnan Spaceport (Semnan Province)
Republic of Algeria:
Hammaguir Space Center (Hammaguir, Abadla District) (originally built by the French, abandoned in the 60’s, brought back online by the Algerian government in the 80’s)
West Indies Federation:
Barbados Space Center (Kitridge Point, Barbados) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
St. Margaret Space Center (St. Margaret, Trinidad & Tobago) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Mabaruma Space Center (Mabaruma, Barima-Waini, Guyana) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
State of Israel:
Albert Einstein Space Center (Hasna, Sinai Peninsula, Israel) (recently launched a Palestinian-designed satellite into orbit as a sign of goodwill)
Socialist Republic of Vietnam:
Phạm Tuân Launch Center (Hon Khaoi Island) (jointly operated with USSR)
Malaysia:
Riau Space Center (Padang, Riau Island)
Ahmad Shah Space Center (Larapan Island, Sabah)
Republic of India:
Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala)
Satish Dhawan Space Centre (Sriharikota, Andhra Pradesh)
Abdul Kalam Space Centre (Bhubaneswar, Odisha)
Canada:
Churchill Space Center (Churchill, Manitoba) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Primrose Lake Launch Center (Cold Lake, Alberta) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Maritime Launch Center (Canso, Nova Scotia) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Cape Breton Spaceport (Cape Breton, Nova Scotia) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Grand Turk Space Center (Grand Turk Island, Turks and Caicos, Canada) (part of the Commonwealth Space Program)
Dominican Republic:
Las Terrenas Space Center (Las Terrenas, Samaná Province) (jointly-operated with the United States)
People’s Democratic Republic of South Yemen:
Qahtan Muhammad al-Shaabi Launch Center (offshore platform off the coast of Socotra) (jointly-operated with the USSR)
Republic of Ecuador:
Puerto Quito Launch Center (Pichincha Province) (jointly-operated with the United States)
Republic of Poland:
Łeba-Rąbka Spaceport (Pomeranian Voivodeship)
Blizna Spaceport (Podkarpackie Voivodeship)
Republic of the Philippines:
Clark Freeport and Special Economic Zone (Clark Field, Metro Manilla)
Lambajon Launch Center (Lambajon, Mindanao) (built with Japanese investment in the 1970’s, recently came under joint Japanese-Filipino administration)
Republic of Cuba:
Juventud Spaceport (Cayo San Juan, Isla de la Juventud, Cuba) (operated jointly with the USSR)
Republic of Chile:
Isla San Felix Launch Center (Isla San Felix)
Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya:
Libyan People’s Space City (Sabha, Fezzan)
Korean Federation:
Tonghae Spaceport (Musudan, North Hamyong) (originally built by the DPRK in the 80’s)
Anhueng Spaceport (Hoengseong County, Gangwon Province)
Naro Space Center (Goheung County, South Jeolla Province)
Iraqi Republic:
Babylon Space City (Al-Anbar region) (jointly operated by the Iraqi and Syrian governments; operates Tammouz rockets for manned launches and Project Babylon super-guns for satellites)
United Mexican States:
Sierra de Jaurez Launch Center (Sierra de Juarez, Baja California)
Alcubierre Spaceport (Laguna Tamiahua, Veracruz)
Puerto Bravo Launch Center (Puerto Bravo, Quintana Roo)
Republic of Singapore:
Changi Spaceport (Changi, Singapore)
Republic of Zaire:
Mbandaka Spaceport (Bamanya, Equateur Province)
Republic of Indonesia:
Motorai Launch Center (Motorai Island, North Maluku)
Biak Launch Center (Biak Island, West Papua)
Enggano Launch Center (Enggano Island, Bengkulu)
Republic of Argentina:
CELPA (El Chamical, La Roja Province)
Felix Aguilar Launch Center (Pampa de Achala, Cordoba Province)
San Martin Launch Center (Mar Chiquita, Buenos Aires Province)
Marambio Launch Center (Marambio Base, Antarctica) (southern-most spaceport in the world)
Kingdom of Saudi Arabia:
King Khalid Spaceport (Tabuk, Tabuk Province)
Al Haddar Spaceport (Al Haddar, Riyadh Province)
Apartheid South Africa:
Denel Overberg Launch Centre (Agulhas, Cape Province)
Walvis Bay Launch Centre (Swakopmund, Southwest Africa)
Aquarius Mobile Launch Platform (mobile sea-launch platform in the Atlantic Ocean, 894 miles off the coast of Liberia)
Jan Smuts Launch Centre (St. Lucia, Natal)

May 28th, 2031, Central Committee
Móng Cái, one of the wealthiest cities in Vietnam, is due for a large upgrade. At least, that is what the Central Committee believes. The Central Committee has proposed to turn Móng Cái on the border with China, into a special economic city. The end goal is that Móng Cái can be turned into the pride of Vietnam. Currently with a population of around 350,000 residents, the Móng Cái Smart City Project has proposed to prepare this new special, and modern, economic smart city to take on in excess of 1,000,000 new residents at the time of its completion.
The proposed total for the project will be: 150Bn
This would make the Móng Cái Smart City, the largest megaproject ever devised in South East Asia. The Móng Cái Smart City project has been proposed to host its own Stock Exchange with districts specifically for Universities, Commercial Businesses, Residential, Office Space, Tourism, and of course the Port Authority. The main focus of this city would be to create industry and economic activity along the Chinese border, specifically for tourism and luxury, similar to that of Hong Kong or Macau. However, since the city is considered a split city between Dongxing in China and Móng Cái in Vietnam, that the project be completed in full two encompass both cities.
The proposed changes and breakdown is as follows:

Type	Cost
Development of Modern Apartment Housing	31 Bn
Commercial District and Technology Park	43 Bn
Móng Cái Port Authority (SEA Trading Hub)	44 Bn
Móng Cái Metropolitan Transportation System (Buses and Subways)	8 Bn
Tourist District	12 Bn
University District	10 Bn
White Sand Beach Development	2 Bn

Total: 150 Bn
Móng Cái Commercial District and Technology Park
The Commercial District and Technology Park is proposed to house the new stock exchange, and consist of businesses, and research institutes. Also it will consist of malls and shopping centers. This area is supposed to be a sanctuary for businesses and research to be conducted, as well as a tax haven. Since Móng Cái Smart City will be a special economic city, it will abide by special laws created within the city. However, it is expected that a lot of wealth and businesses will be brought into the commercial district via the new Móng Cái Port Authority.
Móng Cái Port Authority
The Móng Cái Port Authority is expected to become a large trading hub for all of SEA, as a considerable amount of trade moves through the South China Sea, and through ASEAN participating members. Due to the port's close proximity to China, it is expected to be an ideal place for goods to be shipped into and out of with relative ease, but bear less cost on the companies to operate there, and a geographical advantage over other ports in the South China Sea. The port will also be within a desirable proximity to the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Hainan, and Hong Kong, all very desirable destinations for trade and commerce. The Central Committee hopes that Móng Cái can join the ranks of the elite Asian economic cities.
Móng Cái Metropolitan Transportation System
It has been proposed for a new public transit system to service Móng Cái, including public buses, subway and share bike. The entire program will be serviced by a transportation card called Red Star which will provide users a discount on the fees to use the service. The Red Star card is proposed to be affordable and inexpensive to anyone, making the transportation truly affordable. The subway being the most expensive of the fees, and then buses, and finally share bike. The subway is proposed to run on the Tokyo Metro 13000 Model. The subway will be completely electrically powered. The bus system will service electric-powered double-decker Jinghua BK6126S model buses, and also serve an articulated, and short variant, both being one floor. An app is to be created for the Red Star program to use when getting on and off the bus, filling up your card, and provide a map of Móng Cái and tell you how many stops away the next bus is on your selected route. The App will feature typical map services for the city, but with the previously mentioned added feature, and listing which routes have the least people, and the fastest route. All transportation services, except the share bike program will feature air-conditioning and annual Wi-Fi by subscription, to be used during the services.
Tourist District
Large parts of old-town Móng Cái will be retained in the tourist district, as well as the old markets, but large amounts of amenities for modern tourism must be built up. With the steep budget proposed for this district, the Golden Boulevard will be created. What the Golden Boulevard means, is a long stretch of hotels and casinos right in-front of newly developed beach, will be erected and become the center of tourism for the region. One of the main selling points of the Smart City will be gambling and relaxation. Several casinos have already been proposed, and the invitation to foreign casino companies such as MGM and Bvlgari will be extended. In fact, it is proposed upon completion that 41% of the revenue from the city will be gambling and tourism efforts. The following casinos have been proposed:

• The Jade Bay
• Casino Móng
• The Sand Castle
• Diamonds of Mekong
• Palace of the Sun (A North-Korean Themed Casino) The Democratic People's Republic of Korea will be invited to take management, and aid with designing
• Galaxia
• Sea of Silk
• Grand Ba Dinh Casino
• Egypt-of-the-East
• Rostov-on-Nam (Russian Language Only Casino)
• Uncle Ho's

And many more invitations to private companies!
University District
The University District has a main goal of pulling large academic weight to the city, in order to feed employment to firms operating in the city, and to transfer a large amount of intellectual capital from Hanoi to Móng Cái. The University District will consist strictly of universities, except for a large shopping mall and a series of bars and clubs, catering to the universities.
The following universities will maintain a campus in Móng Cái:

• Vietnam National Univeristy
• Can Tho University
• Hanoi University of Science and Technology
• Hanoi University
• National Economics University
• An Giang University
• Ho Chi Minh City University of Transportation
• Vietnam Aviation Academy
• Institute for International Relations

The following universities will be created in Móng Cái: (Educational Expense)

• Thanh University (Proposed to be the top and most prestigious university in Vietnam)
• Lieu Trong University of Military Science
• National University of Science and Technology (Proposed to be the leading university for STEM studies in Vietnam)
• Vietnam Foreign Language Studies University

A number of foreign universities will also be invited to set up a campus in Móng Cái

With the Bitcoin crash of 2018, NuMoney was at the crossroads. Do we persist with the vision of building the largest cryptocurrency exchange for Southeast Asia, or do we move on? These were decisions I had to make as the CEO of NuMoney.
Putra is the CEO of NuMoney Indonesia, and for a year he had patiently awaited the Singapore team to deliver on our promise -- to ship the cryptocurrency exchange. We did, then the crash happened; then brutal cryptocurrency regulations were introduced in every region that we were operating in. It did not help that the NuMoney team decided that as cool as cryptocurrencies were -- it will never go mainstream because like everything that involves the transfer of money without the blessing of the regulators.
Then there was this fateful day early 2019 for which Putra and I met for lunch near the office. He was in Singapore for a reason I cannot recall, but lunch we had, I remember sharing that the fundamental problem with NuMoney was that the business was built around speculation (of cryptocurrencies). I never sought out to build a "casino." I wanted to work with things that have stood the test of time, and will continue to. What if we can trade something that has real value?
Putra took what I said seriously and spent the next month or two agonizing over what I said and followed it up with meetings with property developers and OJK (the monetary authority of Indonesia) for an equity crowdfunding license, amongst many others.
As of June 2019, we have sold two property on LandX, and we are on track to hit a million dollar revenue in the next few weeks.
LandX is a fractional property ownership platform for Indonesian properties. This business ought to be helmed by an Indonesian-native. NuMoney is now LandX, and Putra is the CEO of LandX, and I will continue doing what I do best -- product.

A financial hub capable of competing with the likes of New York and London. A country that decades ago was a poor country whose rulers dreamt of trying to make it like Sri Lanka. At least Dubai had some oil in the beginning which was used to kick-start the economy but Singapore had no natural resources at all. How did this tiny city state become so successful?

The poor Singapore of 1965

Being under the rule of the British for over 100 years, Singapore was merged with Malaysia under the Federation of Malaysia. After two years, in 1965 the Malaysia Parliament voted to expel Singapore from the Federation of Malaysia.
A tiny country, just expelled from a federation and sandwiched between two large and powerful countries, Indonesia and Malaysia. Singapore was on its own with no natural resources and a largely uneducated populace.
In 1965, much of the Singaporean population was unemployed and two-thirds of Singaporeans were living in slums. Singapore lacked water supply, sanitation and infrastructure. It tried to ask help from the rest of the world to develop but no help came. Singapore was in a state envied by none.

Globalisation

Lee Kuan Yew set about industrialising Singapore. But the problem was Singapore was a trading nation. But trading too was shaky as its two neighbours were not very friendly to it at that time. One of the few but greatest asset Singapore had was its geographic location. A huge fraction of the world’s shipping passed through the Strait of Malacca. Singapore started spending on the manufacturing and shipping sectors.
Singapore needed a lot of investment and it had to come from the West as its neighbours were not approachable at that time. For the Americans and the Europeans to invest in a faraway Singapore, Singapore had to portray itself as a very attractive place to invest.

Attract foreign investment

With its geographic location, Singapore was not only a good place to trade but also to manufacture as Western and Japanese companies can manufacture in Singapore and export it elsewhere.
Singapore created an environment where it was attractive to investors. Taxes were reduced and trade unions were strictly controlled. Lower taxation later attracted even Swiss banks to set up in Singapore after the Swiss Government increased taxes. With low taxation and no trade unions and strikes to worry about, many foreign countries started moving their companies into Singapore. Within a decade, 25% of Singapore’s manufacturing was foreign owned or a joint venture with a foreign investor.
Lee Kuan Yew went further to keep Singapore safe and business-friendly. The death penalty was brought in to punish anyone dealing with narcotic trade and involved in large scale corruption. In addition to making starting a business in Singapore easier, these made Singapore very attractive.
Most of these came at a price. Singaporeans lost a lot of their freedom. Trade unions were suppressed and media freedom was limited. Anyone causing harm to national interests were arrested without proper legal procedure. But with Singapore rapidly growing at double digits, the economic growth seemed to make the majority of the people happy.

Keep the people happy

The success story of Singapore cannot be told without mentioning its founder Lee Kuan Yew. He had a vision to transform this city state into a success story. With no natural resources, it was a tough task. But for any country to develop, its citizens have to be made satisfied. So Lee Kuan Yew created the Housing Development Board and the Economic Development Board.
Singapore was a poor nation which had got its independence from Malaysia in 1965. So many Singaporeans were living in ghettos. The Housing Development Board set about building high rise apartments for the people and moving them in.
As Singapore is small and with a high population density, apartments were the solution to the housing problem. The housing development board transformed Singapore into a world class metropolis and gave the citizens of Singapore a superior standard of living.
The Economic Development Board helped Singapore build up local businesses and industries which resulted in a lot of job creation. This has seen a phenomenal rise in income for Singaporeans. In 1965, Singapore’s per capita was $ 500 but today it is over $60,000. That is a 120-fold increase. This meant the people of Singapore were happy with the progress of their country and it gave a stable government which resulted in further growth.

Investment in human resources

As FDI poured into Singapore, its Government focused on its human resources. Many technical schools were set up. Multinationals were encouraged to educate the local workforce. In the late 1960s, Singapore was manufacturing textiles and other basic items. But the Government trained its workforce in electronics and petrochemicals.
This had a very good long term effect. Two decades later, Singapore would be into industries ranging from logistics and information technology to biotech research, pharmaceuticals and aerospace engineering. A remarkable achievement by investing in the people of Singapore. Even the world’s leading biotech companies have set up in Singapore.

Investment in infrastructure

Today the Port in Singapore is the busiest in the world and when it comes to the cargo tonnage handling, it is second only to the port in Shanghai. Singapore invested heavily in infrastructure. It built its airport to a world class level at the beginning itself. This was crucial as anyone visiting Singapore came through the airport and the first impression was the best.
To explain Singapore’s size, Sri Lanka is 90 times larger than Singapore. Singapore has no natural tourist attractions yet it draws in 10 million tourists a year. It even has a night safari and a nature reserve. Singapore has two of the most expensive integrated casino resorts in the world. In addition to medical tourism which is thanks to its heavy investment on world class hospitals and medical professionals.

Lessons for Sri Lanka

There is a lot to learn from Singapore, from its very strict laws to its zero tolerance for corruption. Singapore’s massive investment on human resources which moved the country from manufacturing basic goods to advanced biotech products which give a much bigger profit and revenue to the country. Investing in the youth of the country is the best way forward.
Singapore’s investment on infrastructure is also to be noted. Its world class airport gives an impressive impression first to anyone travelling into Singapore. Lastly, Singapore ranks second in the world in Ease of Doing Business. This I feel is the most important as foreign investors do not like wasting time on government red tape.
Sri Lanka used to be a model for Singapore decades ago. Sri Lanka is 90 times bigger than Singapore and has four times the population. Sri Lanka has many natural resources including tea and rubber which Singapore doesn’t have.
Singapore’s geographic location was its most important asset but Sri Lanka’s location is not all that bad either. If Singapore with no natural resources can become an economic superpower, there is no excuse for other developing countries.
By Talal Rafi
Originally published on DailyFT on 27th July 2018
The Story of Singapore : Lessons for Sri Lanka

July 2023, China and Japan
China does not deserve to dominate Asia. Korea, Japan, India, Indonesia and others all agree on that simple fact. To make sure that they will not ever do this, it was decided that they must be hurt from the inside. The Uyghurs were determined to be the most effective instrument in achieving domestic instability, and thus a certain Mr. Lee had entrusted another certain man named Leonardo to send money to Uyghur separatists.
Now, more than two years later, the next phase of the plan will be set in motion. Mr. Gupta, Mr. Lee and Mr. Tagomi (the Trade Minister) have once again met and decided on the course of action. Since Mr. Lee provided the first series of transactions, Mr. Tagomi (no longer in the position of Trade Minister, but secretly appointed in a position where his sole task is working against China) has volunteered to handle the second series.
[Secret even to allies] The thing is, Mr. Tagomi happens to be a close friend of Mr. Fujiwara, who is the CEO of the Japan Progress Authority and has enriched himself solely through illegal means unbeknownst to the government itself. His net worth just recently hit $1 billion putting him in the top 50 of richest people of Japan. Through his activities, he has come to know all sorts of people and that includes those who know how to move money from A to B without anyone seeing a thing.
[Still secret] Mr. Fujiwara plans to process the payments from India and Korea through the Japan Progress Authority (state corporation doing Shin Nippon) and then funnel them to a contact who will get the money to the Uyghurs.
[India and Korea can see this again] Mr. Tagomi simply requests the governments to make secret payments to a certain account owned by the Japanese Progress Authority, which can be viewed as aid or an investment of some kind and due to to the nature of the JPA do not have to be made public.
[To the Uyghurs]

"We hope the money arrives without problems. If your organization proves itself to be a moderate non-extremist one eager for Uyghur independence and completely hostile to China but still committed to a stable Asia, it might even be possible to ship arms as well...
"For now, you will receive $12M [please confirm] per year to continue to grow your organizations and train new recruits. We hope that you will be able to unite the Uyghurs under the simple idea of Uyghur independence and nationalism, and not Islamism."

Once the organization has united the Uyghurs and has proved itself to be primarily about Uyghur nationalism, with Islamism and other ideologies in the background, the next phase can be begun.