Singapore, although a small country in the Strait of Malacca, is only one-fourth the size of Beijing, but it has an international influence that is not commensurate with its territory. This is due to the outstanding leadership and long-term vision of Lee Kuan Yew, the Founding Father of Singapore.
Ten years ago, before his death, Lee Kuan Yew made his own analysis and judgment of the international situation, with a total of five points, that is, the five prophecies made by Lee Kuan Yew, which is often referred to as Lee Kuan Yew.
Time flew by, and in the past ten years, the world situation has undergone major changes. Now that Lee Kuan Yew Si has passed away, have the five prophecies he left behind been fulfilled?
From 2010 to 2019, China's total GDP has grown from $5.1 trillion to $14.28 trillion, nearly tripled, from only one-third of the US GDP to two-thirds, from a parallel development with Japan to a total of three times that of Japan.
But there is no disagreement that the United States remains the world's number one power so far. The total GDP of the United States is still the first in the world, and under the guarantee of huge GDP, the military strength of the United States is very strong.
The U.S. Air Force has more than 5,000 fighters of all kinds, of which more than 800 are fifth-generation aircraft, more than five-generation aircraft in the world, more than the fifth-generation aircraft in the world.
As of 2015, the United States has reached 5,500 military bases around the world, in addition, the United States has a large number of superficial allies and substantive satellite countries, and NATO, the world's largest military alliance, strong military strength is the guarantee of US hegemony.
Under the guarantee of strong military strength, the United States is more comfortable in promoting the hegemony of the US dollar. By over-issuing money, only paper money needs to be printed, and physical goods can be purchased globally, and the United States can easily harvest global wealth.
Since the recent outbreak of the new crown epidemic, the United States in order to tide over the crisis, over-issued nearly twice the currency, although there is a certain relief effect, but the excess currency into the stock market, real estate and other markets, because the dollar is the global currency, many countries have to pay for the dollar over-issue, promoting global inflation.
Under the strong economic, military, and financial power, what is even more terrifying is the strong soft power of the United States.
The world's four major news agencies, two of which are located in the United States; almost all of the world's top 100 box office movies are from Hollywood in the United States; the Internet era, from Microsoft, to Facebook, to Twitter, etc., are all American... They have mastered the main microphone of global public opinion, exported foreign cultures in all aspects, promoted American values, and subtly influenced various times, and even slandered and attacked China.
In contrast, China's economic strength is the place where the gap between the United States and the United States is the smallest. Militarily, the Navy does not yet have the ability to match the U.S. Navy, and the lack of overseas bases has a huge impact on the military's projection capabilities; the strength of the Air Force also has a large gap with the United States, and the number of fifth-generation aircraft is only one-tenth of that of the United States.
The gap in soft power is even more shocking. China's external influence is limited to economic influence, inferior to the United States in terms of cultural export, and relatively passive in international public opinion.
Just as people often say that "a mouth is open to rumors, and rumors are broken", the public opinion of Western countries led by the United States constantly manipulates Xinjiang, Hong Kong and other issues, and all kinds of slander subtly corrupt China's image. In addition, the United States has also directly attacked China's key industries through trade wars, chip wars, etc.
From this point of view, the United States will remain the number one power for decades to come.
After the United States surpassed the United Kingdom to become the world's first in GDP in 1894, it was only in 1945 that it truly surpassed the United Kingdom to become the world's first with the dividends of World War I and World War II, which lasted for half a century. So we still have a long way to go to surpass the United States as a world power.
Europe, in modern times, has been the world's most powerful continent. Since the Age of Discovery, European colonists have accumulated filthy wealth through brutal oppression, plundering, enslavement, and even the slaughter of colonial people. In modern society, Europeans have become so-called gentlemen, continuing to exploit the vast majority of third countries openly and covertly in order to maintain Europe's economic status.
However, the extremes of things must be reversed, and the prosperity and decline. When European countries are enjoying a high economy and high welfare life, they are quietly being eaten away. Several European countries, led by Britain, France, and Germany, have slowed down their overall economic development due to their high economic level and perfect welfare. As a result, in 2020, China's total GDP will surpass the entire European Union.
High welfare also attracts illegal immigrants from the Middle East, Africa and other places, and the Mediterranean has staged a tragic tragedy of illegal immigrant ships being flooded all year round.
Because the EU's historical baggage is relatively heavy, it is wavering on the issue of illegal immigration, political correctness is popular, and because Europe is a country, kicking each other's ball is the norm, resulting in no one daring to solve the problem of illegal immigration throughout Europe.
In addition, the overall level of EU leadership is average, and there are many faint operations.
For example, during the Arab Spring in 2010, European countries did not realize that the relevant area was closer to Europe, and participated in inciting civil unrest in the Arab countries driven by the United States. Among them, Syria broke out the worst civil war in the 21st century.
Syria's population remained 21.4 million before the war, and after the outbreak of the civil war, a large number of people were displaced, and more than 5 million people became refugees and fled Europe. The European countries that were willing to be the pawns of the United States lifted stones and smashed their feet, and were hit by the flood of refugees.
With the illegal immigration of the country and the increase of ethnic minorities, the demographic structure of Europe has quietly changed. Among them, although only 8% of the current population composition of France is immigrants from Africa, the Middle East and other countries, 27% of the new population in France has an immigrant background. In 2018, the French football team won the World Cup, and 8 of the 11 players who started were black, which once caused a heated discussion.
The increase in illegal immigration has greatly increased the contradictions with the people of Europe. Because illegal immigrants come from backward countries, lack of skills, are prone to taking crooked roads, and have a relatively high crime rate, resulting in poor security in European countries. Not to mention being seduced by extremist forces outside the country and becoming the main force in Terrorist attacks in Europe, bringing turmoil.
Historically, Japan has long been the number one developed country in Asia, and its economic power is second only to that of the United States among Western countries. However, since the 21st century, the Japanese economy has stagnated for a long time.
In 1988, Japan's total GDP was $3.07 trillion, 10 times that of China; in 1998, Japan's total GDP was $4.03 trillion, which became four times that of China; in 2010, China's GDP surpassed Japan for the first time, when Japan's total GDP was $5.7 trillion; in 2018, China's total GDP was already three times that of Japan, and at this time, Japan's total GDP was 4.4 trillion, even down a lot from a decade ago.
Why has Japan fallen so badly? This starts with the reasons for Japan's rise. After World War II, Japan was in ruins and had a per capita GDP of only four times that of China in the same period. However, with the support of the United States, Japan's economy developed rapidly and soon became a developed country, reaching 75% of the United States at the peak of GDP.
However, success is also the United States, and defeat is also the United States. Due to Japan's advantage in trade with the United States, the United States has launched trade wars many times, and in 1985, the United States held a G5 meeting, and the agreement finalized at this G5 meeting is known as the "Plaza Agreement".
The agreement stipulates that the Deutsche Mark, the Yen will appreciate by 10% to 20% against the DOLLAR, the Franc, and the Pound Sterling, and the consequence is that the Yen has appreciated by nearly 50% in just 3 years! The appreciation of the yen hit Japan's export industry hard, collapsing rapidly after a brief boom in yen appreciation, causing the Japanese economy to stagnate and industry to hollow out.
Blessings are incomparable, and misfortunes are not alone. At this point, two other blows followed: a declining birth rate and industrial competition.
As we all know, Japan's aging population is relatively high, but Japan's birth rate is also very low, resulting in negative growth in the Japanese population for many years. The economy is created by people, and when the population decreases, it also has a negative effect on the economy.
No matter how many policies the Japanese authorities issue, it will be difficult to reverse the fact that the birth rate is lower than the death rate. It is estimated that Japan's population will fall below 100 million in 2055, or 27 million fewer than it is today.
The blow to industrial competition is equally severe. With the rise of Countries such as South Korea and China, their industries directly competed with Japan's industries and completely defeated Japan in related fields.
For example, in the mobile phone industry, there were many well-known brands in Japan in the past, such as nec, Sharp, Sony, Panasonic and so on. However, with the rise of brands such as Apple in the United States, Samsung in South Korea, Huawei in China, and ZTE in China, Japanese mobile phones continue to lose market share due to being too old-fashioned and do not conform to market trends, and eventually become niche brands.
For example, the semiconductor industry, in 1990, Japan's semiconductor industry accounted for 60% of the global share, and now under the blows of Taiwan Province's TSMC and South Korea's Samsung, it has been forced to retreat to some segments.
The shrinking population and the decline of industry indicate the bleak prospects of Japan. It is predicted that in the past ten years, Japan has still not come out of the quagmire of stagnation, and it is difficult to have a better development in the future.
In 1945, as the Asian theater of World War II drew to a close, the Soviet Union launched the August Storm to fight Japan, and the Soviet army swept through Northeast China and the Korean Peninsula in a short period of time.
At this time, in order to prevent the Soviet Union from monopolizing the entire Dprk, the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated the demarcation of forces with the 38th parallel north as the boundary, which artificially caused the division of Korea, and the two superpowers ignored the tranquility of the people on the Korean Peninsula, creating a wall of brotherhood and the tragedy of countless families scattered.
By the 21st century, the smoke of World War II had dissipated, the Cold War had long ended, and several countries that had been divided by the hegemony of the United States and the Soviet Union, such as Germany, Vietnam, And Yemen, had completed national reunification through political consultation or military reunification.
But the 38th Parallel, a living fossil of the Cold War, still straddles the Korean Peninsula like a scar carved into North and South Korea. To this day, there is no armistice between North and South Korea, and the two countries remain legally at war.
Now, both North and South Korea have the desire to unify the country. However, although the Soviet Union has disintegrated, the United States still firmly controls South Korea, with tens of thousands of AMERICAN troops stationed there, and South Korea's Samsung, Hyundai and other chaebols have the shadow of the United States behind them.
In addition, the United States continues to carry out various military blackmail and ideological infiltrations against North Korea, forcing North Korea to maintain a larger army to prevent invasion. Due to the relative weakness of the DPRK, it is impossible for a DPRK-based reunification to exist at the present stage.
Although the United States also has the idea of reunifying the Korean Peninsula, this unification is based on South Korea-based reunification, which is enough to extend the power of the United States directly to the northeast border of China and will pose a threat to the security situation in the north of our country. Because of our influence, such a unified approach is unlikely to exist.
In fact, as long as the United States is still the strongest country in the world, then the two Koreas cannot be unified in a short period of time, unless the United States declines to the point where its strength is insufficient to maintain its influence in East Asia, and the reunification of the two Koreas will really usher in the opportunity.
India, like China, is a large developing country that has attracted attention. Due to the example of China's rapid development, many people are equally optimistic about India, believing that India's development speed is also good and will be the star of tomorrow. Lee Kuan Yew dared to make such predictions, and it was easy to be punched in the face by reality. Yet a decade later, India's rise is not as pronounced as China's, and Lee Kuan Yew's prediction seems to have come true.
In recent years, India's GDP growth rate has been slightly higher than China's, which has led many to believe that India is developing faster than China.
However, in fact, in 2016, for example, India's GDP growth rate was 8.26% in this year, but india's per capita GDP in this year was only 1732 US dollars, and the average GDP of Chinese was at this level in 2005, and China's GDP growth rate in that year was a staggering 11.39%!
That is to say, in the case of The same level of India's economy as China's economy, India's development rate is far inferior to China's, not to mention that in the case of China's economic growth slowdown in recent years, India's GDP growth rate in the 3 years from 2018 to 2020 is still lagging behind China.
The pace of economic growth has not caught up with China, and India is lagging behind in terms of social structure, humanistic thinking and other inherent strengths. As a democratic country, India has not carried forward much of the advantages of democracy, but the ills have appeared everywhere. In order to vote, Indian officials have become dramatists, attacking political opponents to tear each other down, and not really caring about the well-being of the Indian people, so that India's COVID-19 epidemic performance in 2020 has not been good, and in early 2021, Indian farmers have gathered in New Delhi to protest and cause chaos.
India, on the road to rise, still has a long way to go.
There are many people who can make prophecies, but like Lee Kuan Yew's prophecies, there are very few prophecies that have withstood the test of reality, and five prophecies are fulfilled one by one at a time. It can be seen from this that Lee Kuan Yew, as a political strongman in the 20th century, still has quite an international strategic vision and a down-to-earth insight.