TR EMERITUS

There is no specific qualification or skill set needed in political office. The closest in terms of relevance would be some social science disciplines and public administration, but still inadequate as some ministries could entail and demand very specific and professional skills, e.g. Defence, Home Affairs, Health, Housing, Education etc.. etc. It would be difficult to cast a specific academic qualification for appointments like the President or the Prime Minister. The presumption that anyone as long as he is an elected politician is good enough to helm any ministry is the biggest flaw in a democratic system. Hsien Loong is a mathematician by training and he is the PM. Chee Hian is an engineer, Tharman an economics grad, Eng Hen and Vivian are in medicine, and there are some from law, the hard sciences etc.. etc. In political offices, the academic or professional qualifications needed are non-specific except for a few ministries when professional qualifications are very useful like law and health or defence. The common denominator actually is that nothing is relevant. What then is the qualification or skill set needed to be a politician? In my view, other than a basic academic qualification to show that one has the ability to understand the 3-Rs, the other important attributes are the intangibles. Leadership, trust, integrity, honesty, compassion and a heart of gold, to want to look after the interest of the people are more important attributes than academic qualifications. Our obsession with super talents ended up wasting super talents but having to pay super talented pay for skill sets that are totally irrelevant to the jobs. Political office is about country, nation and people and their well-being. From these aspects, it is clear that super talents in the professions are not a necessary requirement and irrelevant in many cases to the appointments. It is the man and his mission and his heart that make a good political leader. Political leaders must be clear that it is all about country and people, to prosper the country and people. It is not about how good one is a doctor or lawyer or engineer or how much one is earning in the profession. It is not about self and how well they should be compensated. So, what is the relevance in making a case for super talents to be better politicians and demanding ‘out-of-this-world’ salaries? Where is the relationship in a super eye surgeon and a ministry like defence or the environment? Where is the relationship in a super lawyer and the education or health ministry? Broadly, the only relation is a good heart, a good mind and a mission to serve the interests of the people. A good leader is priceless but not demanding to be paid ridiculously. His value is not in his qualifications or profession but the lifting of the quality of life of the people and the people's interests.   Chua Chin Leng aka redbean * The writer blogs at http://mysingaporenew.blogspot.com    Read More →

(June 27, 2014) - Wan Qingliang Is Under Investigation for Suspected 'Violations of Discipline and Law' SHANGHAI—China put the top Communist Party official in the southern economic powerhouse city of Guangzhou under investigation and appointed a successor, in a fresh signal that Beijing is continuing a major anticorruption drive. Wan Qingliang, a 50-year-old who briefly served as Guangzhou's mayor before he became the city's Communist Party chief about two years ago, is under investigation for "suspected serious violations of...   Read more:   http://online.wsj.com/articles/china-probes-guangzhou-party-chief-wan-qingliang-1403863214?mod=World_newsreel_4      Read More →

Six women aged between 18 and 30 years old were charged in court yesterday (27 Jun) over an attack on a 19-year-old girl, also from PRC, Ms Zheng Lu. The incident happened in K-Box, a karaoke chain, at Orchard Cineleisure, on the night of 2 May last month. Of the six charged, five are Chinese nationals while 1 is a new Singaporean citizen: Wu Huamin, 18, PRC, student Wu Huachun,19, PRC, student Qiu Zhulin, 28, PRC, assistant account manager Liu Jiabao, 30, Singapore PR, housewife Wang Xi, 23, Singapore PR, student Ding Jiao, 28, new citizen, consultant On the night of 2 May at about 11pm, for some reasons, Wu Huachun together with Wang were allegedly attacking Ms Zheng, punching and kicking her. This was said to have gone on for 3 hours. At about 2am, the other 4 allegedly also joined in the attack. Ding, Wang, Liu, Qiu and Wu Huamin were accused of taking part of an unlawful assembly with a common object to cause hurt to Ms Zheng. Wu Huachun was charged together with Wang for voluntarily causing hurt to Ms Zheng. This is believed to be the second case of rioting involving PRCs at K-Box in recent months. In April this year, five women, also from PRC, were charged with rioting for allegedly attacking 20-year-old student Chen Xing on Nov 10 last year. The 5, all students, are: Shi Yanjun, 17 Li Xuefei, 19 Hu Heying, 20 Ma Ruian, 21 Pan Jingwen, 19 They are scheduled to go for another pre-trial conference on 7 July while the first 6 will go for theirs on 21 July. If convicted of rioting, each offender could be jailed for up to seven years. For voluntarily causing hurt, the offender could be jailed up to 2 years and/or fined up to $5,000. Meanwhile, the 6 were told not to approach the victim, Ms Zheng. PRCs behaving badly outside China PRCs behaving badly even outside of their country appears to be a common phenomenon these days. Last year, South China Morning Post reported PRC tourists got into a fist fight in a French lavender field [Link]. A Chinese wedding party and a group of PRC tourists got into a scuffle in a lavender field in Provence, France as they jockeyed for better backdrops for their wedding photos. The video of the fight, which was shot by one of the tourists involved, was posted online and went viral. One woman in the video shouted, “You mainlanders behave so badly”, fueling speculation that one of the groups might be from Hong Kong or Taiwan. The PRC group was rumoured to be tourists from Anhui province. When asked to comment on the incident, Anhui government said, “We have an obligation to inform tourists to behave well, but we can’t force them to do so.” Many Chinese netizens criticised their fellow compatriots. “You guys make all Chinese people lose face,” said one Weibo user. “If you go abroad, you represent not only yourself, but also all Chinese people,” commented another. Others felt sorry that the beautiful French lavender field had been damaged in the fight.    Read More →