So much talk of Russia invading Ukraine for the whole week has been keeping markets on their toes. Even the speech of the Fed’s more aggressive tightening had been sidelined. The slow recovery of the US equities on the back of stronger financial results had just been eroded last night when the call was made to warn Americans to leave Ukraine asap.
While the US is regularly implying that Russia may invade Ukraine at any time, Russia had accused them of fear-mongering. It does not help that Russia has already amassed more than 100k troops on their borders next to Ukraine and doing military exercises. The US has also been sending troops and threatening more sanctions over the last several days.
So what gives? Ukraine has been on the news radar for many years, especially since 2014 when Russia took over and annexed Crimea. Then there was also the famous Trump call to the Ukraine president in 2019 to investigate his rival’s son Hunter Biden. It was also the place where the horrible Chornobyl nuclear accident happened in the 1980s. We should also never forget the accidental shooting down of the MH17 passenger aircraft in 2014 at the height of the last conflict.
For a country that is economically weak and suffering from mass corruption, it had only started to achieve its short independence in 1991 after being part of Russia for hundreds of years. It is now caught between the US/NATO and Russian superpowers trying to gain an advantage because of its strategic location. Not a very envious situation the country finds itself to be in.
There is always 2 sides to the story on how the current escalation evolved. From the Western media, it is about Putin’s nationalistic aggression and wanting to prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO. Democracy is at stake and the world should confront the bully, even though he had already taken over and swallowed up Crimea 8 years ago.
From the Russian side, it is about protecting its borders and exercising its sovereign rights. The Ukraine people’s revolt to kick out a democratically elected president who wanted to shut down the NATO application and pivot to Russia was seen as a slap in the face to the motherland. It was suspected that the US was supporting the protestors to topple the government covertly — sounds like HK 2019 riots…
Ukraine traditionally had a split identity. Half its people (mainly the western side geographically) supported a move towards establishing stronger ties with Europe. The Eastern side is more pro-Russia, having traditionally aligned themselves economically and culturally with them.
It is really hard to say which side has a stronger case but it has now become a “who will blink first” situation. Oil prices are approaching $100 soon and financial markets are jittery into the weekend as any false move could trigger big unintended consequences.
Coincidentally, I am also now reading a book on Hong Kong’s history called The Gate to China by Michael Sheridan. It chronicles the period of time from the 1960s to the 1997 British handover to the 2019 riots till now. It has provided me with a greater understanding of the mindset of China. How it was taking back the country after more than 154 years of British rule when the Opium war shamed China into giving up HK.
Universal suffrage is a concept that the people of HK were trying to achieve, to have individual voting rights. The question to be asked should be – can you ask for something you never had? The British never gave it to HK and Patten planted the idea to the people just before the 1997 handover. A socialist country like China (“Socialism with Chinese characteristics”) can never ever open the pandora box to Western democratic norms to HK.
So it was a failed exercise before it began for the protestors. The 2019 riots were the last straw for the motherland. HK had bitten the hand that fed it and made it successful for the last 40 years as a gateway to China. There were rumours that external Western forces may also have a hand in helping to whip up the rage and violence.
Halfway through the promised 50 years of “one country, two systems” from 1997 to 2020, China has now decided to take back control. Under the guise of Covid, they have harshly clamped down on all the dissidents, jailing all the perceived guilty parties who started the 2019 protests. HK will never be the same again. With its zero Covid strategy and the rise of Shanghai as a financial centre, its decline as a city looks inevitable now.
There are some parallels of this book to the current Ukraine situation. Its people seek to assert themselves but yet are superseded by 2 external opposing powers that take the citizens’ decision to choose their destiny out of their hands.
I had a crash course this week on HTML and CSS programming languages as part of my FinTech project I had to hand up by today. I was blown away by the first full day online class on Mon when we started module 2 – “Developers Toolkit (Part 1): Connecting the Frontend”.
I couldn’t grasp most of the concepts as I did not even have a basic foundation in these programming languages beforehand. The trainer gave some notes to study late last Fri and I could not complete most of it in time. The rest of the week was spent in a panic to run through all the notes and “how-to” links, and ask friends for help in order to be able to complete my project.
I have a better understanding of how websites are created and the detailed steps to develop a better user’s experience. I have at least learnt the basics for now and can deep dive into them at a later date if I want to. What we want to create is only limited by our imagination. It is a real eye-opener for me as I discover only one aspect of the amazing world of Cloud Computing. Next week is another deep dive into Jave Script… 😮
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