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For non-professionals trying to figure out Chinese data, the task is daunting due to difficulties of language, access to info, and certain degree of unreliability of official information. Much information comes from Western analysts, many of which are tainted anti-China propaganda. Another important source is from Chinese dissident diaspora many of whom reportedly have contacts with some official channels. Again, there is need to be wary of anti-China propaganda slant. One channel I follow is Lei, a US-based Chinese. She likes to talk about the "disappearing Chinese people", her fear language for the phenomenon of a declining population. Recently she cited  the closure of primary schools in China with great alarm. According to Lei, primary schools in China shrank from about 553,600 in 2000 to 177,600 in 2016 (end of one-child policy) and 143,500 in 2023. These are alarming figures and the auto reaction is to attribute it to the declinin...

Recently the Malaysian Federal Court made an important decision which London-based ex-Singaporean Tan Wah Piow commented on his Facebook. QUOTE: "Yesterday I belatedly congratulated my friend Amir Hadi for his recent victory in the Federal Court of Malaysia. On August 14, 2022, Amir Hadi, a prominent member of a Malaysian political party, organized a peaceful rally at the Sogo Complex in Kuala Lumpur. The protest aimed to draw attention to an alleged scandal involving a Ministry of Defence contract. He was subsequently charged under subsection 9(5) of Malaysia's Peaceful Assembly Act 2012 (PAA 2012) for failing to provide prior notification to the police, as required by subsection 9(1) of the Act. His legal challenge focused not on the notification requirement itself, but on its criminalization. In a landmark decision in July 2025, the Federal Court of Malaysia unanimously ruled that Section 9(5) of the PAA 2012 was unconstitutional and no longer a valid law. The ...

“Politics is downstream of culture” is a slogan made famous by Andriew Brietbart, an American media entrepreneur, political commentator and provacateur. The core idea of politics is downstream of culture were discussed way back in 1920s by Marxist Antonio Gramsci, and later in the Frankfurt School in mid-1950s, and well into the 1960s-1980s in US where there was a consensus by then that the Right had lost the culture war. Andrew condensed these debates into a catchy slogan. “Politics is downstream of culture” means culture influences politics, or politics reacts to culture. The words can be played around to mean the same stream -- like culture is upstream of politics, or culture is the mainstream. The idea is shifts in cultural values, norms, and narratives gradually shape political priorities, policies and ideologies. Put another way, it means one can GAIN POLITICAL POWER BY CAPTURING CULTURE. Culture is the battleground where ideological power is won. The 3 pillars of ...