I scribbled this for John Menadue's blog this morning. 

A feast of new reading 3. 

We just need a few tools and guide posts for what will be a lively ride in 2023.

In 2022 I offered a “feast of new reading” in two parts, here and here. 

With changes in the world the media landscape changes, with shifts in particular outlets and new outlets. 

I decided to write this having received the daily email this morning 4 January from Asia Times, headlining this essay from David Goldman:

https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/israel-government-is-new-normal-in-the-middle-east/

David P Goldman is an astonishing modern Renaissance man. My understanding is that having made a fortune as a merchant banking shark before the 2008 crash, he retreated to Hong Kong and eventually bought out the Asia Times with an associate and in some contrition embarked on contrarian news. 

This new item, link also above, blows through many conventional and also critical, negative thinking about Israel. I do not agree with it all but it is essential reading on power variables in the Middle East. At the main page you will see the spread of interests and currently a half price (USD49 p.a.) subscription to the half of their writing which is not free. Above all else, watching Asia Times over recent years is watching the evolution of sensible thinking as seen from Hong Kong.

The South China Morning Post, to which I also subscribe, is the leading English language newspaper of Hong Kong. It is also a way to follow Hong Kong minds, seeing China from the minds of people in Hong Kong. It writes especially for expat and elite English speaking readership. I used to say scathingly that people in Hong Kong knew a lot about… Hong Kong, rather than China. I apply my social anthropologist sniffer dog approach to writing out of Hong Kong.

Recent in my radar is Asia Financial, a British-owned Hong Kong business providing astonishingly interesting daily news. I’ve never received an invitation to subscribe. A lot of it is, like financial news everywhere, full of minor particulars, but it provides a important real money perspectives, contrasting with the simplicities and ignorance of much reporting in Australia on the region. 

From inside China, my mainstays have become the Global Times, fairly widely known as a somewhat tabloid strident (Murdoch on Yangtze, but fact-based) voice of the party. Very valuable, for example as relayed recently in the Menadue blog... and the most valuable China resource, which I access on my iPad, the app of the State Council, also available on the web. The State Council is the cabinet. So the app and website has a main page of current news, click sideways for the state council’s business schedule and decisions, sideways again for the premier (prime minister), then sideways for more news, policy areas, services (especially for foreigners dealing with China. In the seas of media muck about China and hysterias about governments in Australia, I can just say… It would be really nice to have a fact-based access to government in Australia, in so coherent a format. 

In the reordering of the world that is underway, Multipolarista is important, with a base in Latin America. Please note that there is a link top right of that English language page for Espanol, which in fact reveals a different domain name and series of articles.

https://multipolarista.com/

and

https://geopoliticaeconomica.com/

Chrome browser will offer an English translation. 

There are large and important changes occurring in Latin America, notably with the election of President Lula in Brazil. Prospects too, for evolution of formal structures between reforming countries in Latin America, including UNASUR.  But relatively small changes that add up. I recall in Beijing our astonishment in 1984, suddenly to be able to buy fresh bananas, multiplied astonishment to hear that this happened because the foreign minister of Ecuador had quietly lamented to the Foreign Minister of China that there was a trade imbalance. And now, as if it were out of the blue, the American Tiger as the Chinese once called them, wakes up and discovers that there will be a free trade agreement between Ecuador and China, just one of several in the region. 

This is not one hegemon trying to replace another, it is multipolarity. See this thoughtful piece today in Asia Times:

https://asiatimes.com/2023/01/the-road-to-the-end-of-history-runs-through-asia/

There continue to be US supported or directed projects to overthrow any government in Latin America not wedded to US business first. 

I surf YouTube for new voices. There are now more radical news sources out of India, some of which really deserve the Bill Hayden expression, the ‘basilisk eye’, often triumphant in declarations about international headline subjects that venture ahead of fact… but to see the playground of speculative writing is good. 

Others, such as Hindustan Times, generously, for my tired old eyes, read through articles from European media that I might not see elsewhere. (The print editions of the Hindustan Times have a total circulation of about one million, New York Times about a third of that.) The ferocious interest in the real world is far beyond the small-townerie of the ABC and the seemingly perpetual summer silly season of The Guardian Australia.

The most valuable voice I have found on YouTube is of the Singapore financial advisor Sean Foo. Serious stuff, for example this on European desire to confiscate Russian assets:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kk86RQtaKUQ&t=121s

apart from the content quality, there’s no mucking about, it’s straight in… 

And so I will leave you with enough to go on with, wishing you an exciting new year. We just need a few tools and guide posts for what will be a lively ride.

Just to bring you up to date

 World news as seen by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation at this moment.

Sigh…

More movement in the Middle East.

 In the middle of 2022 President Biden went to Saudi Arabia with some demands or petitions among which notably that Saudi Arabia increase oil production. Several months later, OPEC+, the 1970s oil producers plus Russia, decided on a cut in oil production. Then Chinese President Xi visited Saudi Arabia, receiving panoply welcome not given to Biden, and joined a summit meeting of the Gulf Cooperation Council.

 And Saudi Arabia seems keen to join BRICS. But President Lula is not President Bolsonaro. Non interference in other countries, tolerance of other countries, will be tested. See the character of President Lula’s inauguration. 

https://peoplesdispatch.org/2022/12/31/everything-to-know-about-lulas-inauguration/

Meanwhile there is a rapid shift in the situation between Turkey and Syria, overseen by Russia. This is valuable background 

https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-consolidates-in-east-mediterranean/

Bhadrakumar is a retired Indian ambassador.  More than that he is from Kerala, the most tolerant Indian state, with the highest literacy rate and women’s literacy rate in India, where they don’t vote for Modi’s party. 

At his blog see also this on the development of Russia-Iran relations and transport systems  

https://www.indianpunchline.com/russia-iran-open-a-trade-route-heralding-a-bloc/

Iran wants to join the SCO and BRICS.  The world is changing … but don’t expect Saudi Arabia to be happy about such warming relations with Iran. The Saudis may want to turn away from the dollar but divisions from Iran are both strategic and religious.  With Trump and his son in law and the Abraham Accords https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abraham_Accords  the Saudis traded off a lot in giving space for Israel among Arabs  … and for this to happen, after they have softened their support for Palestine. 

https://scheerpost.com/2022/12/12/chris-hedges-israel-and-the-rise-of-jewish-fascism/

On Palestine see the Electronic Intifada  https://electronicintifada.net/

For the history of intifada start here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intifada

A useful analysis of the US defence budget

 https://strategic-culture.org/news/2022/12/27/high-cost-of-blowing-up-world-ukraine-and-2023-ndaa/

There is a wrinkle in understanding US budget passage through the system. First there is an authorisation bill and then an appropriation bill. I think, I think, the authorisation bill was passed months ago, the appropriation bill just now. But when people refer to the NDAA and it’s appropriation or authorisation, in my depth of acronym management, I just say, it’s done, it will sadly, be done, and the money will be borrowed or printed. And fundamental social needs neglected. 

I mention in that context that China continues to sell US treasury paper, down 10% in the past year, approximately, from a trillion to nine hundred billion. They need the money at home but are also mindful of pressures on the dollar and of Russia’s experience of the fate of its funds in the US. And Afghanistan’s. Confiscated. 

China is also now involved in a bigger game. Sean Foo in Singapore is worth listening to:

https://youtu.be/dPb_7Pc_mJc

We don’t think about west Africa much, but Australian mining countries are quietly there.

 Here is a view from the other side, the Russian side..

https://beeley.substack.com/p/nato-will-confront-russia-in-west?utm_medium=reader2

My essay remains popular

 Still standing as of this morning among the five most read articles at John Menadue’s blog is this of mine published a week ago. 

https://johnmenadue.com/the-breakdown-of-us-hegemony-is-the-defining-feature-of-our-strategic-environment/

And in the maelstrom of news and opinion, it’s good to go back a whole week and see that I wrote something that makes sense  

Two big explanations: on AUKUSmadness and woke

 This paper by Richard Tanter is the most important paper in a generation on Australia’s strategic dilemma, in its presentation of facts about Australia’s embedment in US defence systems for war. Recommend it to your offsprung. But keep in mind the deeply flawed American inspired blindness, in castigating Putin going to war, to the illegal, horrendous and wicked war conduct of Bush, Obama, Trump and Biden in the Middle East … and Australian participation in all that. Also, he’s over the top on Russia and Ukraine, fed on a Washington diet  

https://johnmenadue.com/aukus-and-the-threat-of-war-with-china/

Second, the word woke crept up on me like a cliché from the deepest crevices down the page in the Guardian app.  Caitlin sorts it out. 

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/21/identity-politics-anti-wokeism-serve-the-same-interests/

And one more important link, from sensible Laura Tingle: The future is now, and dire predictions are coming true

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-12-22/2022-bad-news-cycle-climate-ukraine-cost-of-living-politics/101798714

Fifty years of relations with Beijing.

 Nice to share the top of the page at John Menadue's blog this morning with an excellent editorial from Global Times. My essay is here.

an end of year wander into international understanding and music

 Having been preoccupied by international politics this year, I have always in the back of my mind: "what was it, how was it easy, where did it go" — the broad, possible communications between people who are different.

Terrorism and the politics and wars of antiterrorism have shriveled our hearts. pandemic closed our doors, minds, horizons. Edginess now rules in the hunt for beauty. 

From a time in the night, recent hours, I have been diverted into music. Not sure how. Much of this is new to me. It's a mind-wander into the question of connections between people in a time of havoc. There is no other way forward.

I found something special in Yoyo Ma's Silk Road projects. In this introduction to the documentary The Music of Strangers Yoyo Ma says in his modest way "I'm always wondering how I fit in the world... which is something I share with several billion people."

Twenty years ago Smithsonian Magazine wrote about early years of Yoyo Ma's fascination with the Silk Road, historical connection not just for goods but also art and music, before the European renaissance, before Vasco da Gama and Christopher Columbus and the wonders and tyrannies made possible by ships.

In 2018 Ma undertook a global tour of performances of Bach suites, to explore from his personal perspective how culture connects us. A glimpse:

The history of the Bach suites for cello is also about rediscovery of lost culture. 

Some may prefer Yoyo Ma with James Taylor and George Harrison's Here Comes the Sun.

Receiving a Christmas email from Debbie and Doug Townsend, Doug a friend for sixty years and former Australian Ambassador to Kazakhstan, I then stumble across the Silk Road Ensemble and this love song sung across the Kazakh-China border.

Wandering through the YouTube offerings of the Silk Road Ensemble I come upon a performance of a Japanese song Omoide by Rhiannon Giddons, also someone new to me.

This is a very familiar tune being the intro tune to Netflix's Midnight Diner, an addiction for us.  So then I find this Australian blogger Peter's glorious background to Omoide. Deep down on that page find his discover that the origins of Omoide seem to be in Ireland...  A Pretty Girl Milking her Cow sung in a movie Judy Garland, brought into English by Thomas Moore. It's all at Peter's page, with more. This is Peter's blog, about life in international understanding.

It's 7am, day dawns. Time to address the immediacies, exit my expensive wonderful recliner, struggle to my electric wheelchair, go and deal with my incontinence in the toilet with indispensable Japanese bidet. Be respectable for family.

But I wanted first to share these 4am discoveries with you. 

My point is that, not least amid political shouting and spear shaking, the future belongs to shared culture, mind, loss of fear of difference, between people. It should not be as hard as it has become, we have to find the mindspace.

When I presented my credentials as ambassador to China to President Li Xiannian in 1984, I startled him a little by telling him that in Hong Kong, before travelling to Beijing, we had been guests at dinner with a Chinese family, Hong Kong residents, all Australian citizens except the affable patriarch at the top of the table who was a member of the Chinese Peoples Political Consultative Committee. And I said to him that the future of our relations as two countries depended on the connections between our peoples. This remains so.

Chris Hedges: teaching Solzhenitsyn to prisoner students

This is an astonishing (though that's not unusual) piece of Sunday writing by Chris Hedges. It could be a Sunday sermon, he is, as well as being a former war correspondent, a Presbyterian minister. 

It is a reflection on his experience teaching students in the New Jersey prison system, and their reactions to The Gulag Archipelago. But there's nothing remote in his reflection, it relates to this last week, please read right to the end. 

Please use the internet to search for human decency. It's out there. 

Photo, bio from wikipedia.

Caitlin Johnstone, views of the future

Caitlin Johnstone has recently written (yet another) essay of great importance, ending with this profound observation:

The humanity of the not-too-distant future operates very differently from the humanity of today, either because it learned to work in cooperation with itself and with its ecosystem or because it’s an extinct species, yet most visions for our future imagine we’ll remain the same. We need to abandon the notion that the humanity of the future will move and operate in more or less the same way as the humanity of today, just with better technology. That is the very least likely of all possible outcomes.

It is so normal for the world just to ignore major realities because they are too big to comprehend. I commend to you the rest of her essay. 

Photo is a still I've taken from a youtube interview.