Asian Games Incheon 2014 South Korea; I dream of South Korea

Video:  http://t.cn/RhNH7xQ

 INCHEON -- The 2014 Asian Games officially opened in this western port city of South Koera on Friday evening, attracting more than 14,000 athletes and officials from 45 countries and regions across the continent.

South Korean president Park Geun-hye declared the games open in front of a watching IOC chief Thomas Bach.

The 17th Asian Games, which will run through Oct. 4, offer 439 gold medals in 36 sports.

The Incheon Asiad is the third continental event hosted by South Korea, following the Seoul Asiad in 1986 and the Busan Games in 2002.

17th Asian Games open in Incheon, South Korea Hightlights from Incheon Asian Games opening ceremony

China aims to dominate the Asian Games medal table for the ninth consecutive time as it sends more than 1,300 athletes and officials for the continent's premier sporting event. Hightlights from Incheon Asian Games opening ceremony >>

For the Incheon Games, the 897-athlete China Team, its largest ever contingent for any Games overseas, will participate in all 36 sports but kabbadi, featuring 33 Olympic champions.

Liu Peng, chef de mission of the Chinese delegation for the Incheon Asian Games, said that "we've been the leaders on both medals and gold medal tables of Asian Games, and we want to keep on winning."

"The Asian Games are not only a competition but a platform for countries and regions from all over the continent to comunicate, cooperate, exchange opinions and better understanding each other," said Liu.

"Therefore, we expect more than just titles and medals and No. 1 position in the tally from our athletes, but hope they will show fighting spirit and sportsmanship at the games," added Liu.

Xiao Tian, the deputy chef de mission of the Chinese team, said,

"We consider the Asian Games an important part of our preparation for the 2016 Rio de Janerio Olympic Games."

Since the 1982 games in New Delhi, China has topped every Asiad medal table, with its largest harvest of 199 golds from the Guangzhou Asiad four years ago.

For South Korea, the 1,068-member squad for the Incheon Games is its largest-ever Asiad delegation, including 831 athletes who will compete in all 36 sports.

With home turf advantage, the hosts hope to win more than 90 gold medals in Incheon to strengthen their second overall position which they occupied since the 1998 Bangkok Asiad in their seesaw battle against Japan.

Meanwhile, three countries are hoping for their first-ever podium finish at the continent's quadrennial sports event, namely Bhutan and the Maldives, both at their seventh outing, as well as East Timor, which is in its fourth Asian Games.

The Asian Games was first held in 1951, and China and Japan are the only two nations to have finished first in the medal standings.

In terms of overall gold medals, China leads Japan by 1,191 to 910, while South Korea ranks third at 617. - Xinhua

I dream of South Korea

South Korea is at the Crossroads. She will become a helpless victim if she loses her sense of direction

Last night, I had a troubled sleep, tossing and turning, having one nightmare after another. In my dream I found myself in 2020 on the unified Korean Peninsula. I was overjoyed because the long-cherished dream of unification had come true at last. Soon, however, I found that some radical changes had taken place during the unification process. Among them, South Korea had turned into a communist country due to the large number of pro-North people in the South who naively and paradoxically supported Marxism and socialism, even though they relished the sweet fruits of the capitalist economy.

In the unified Korea, everyone had finally become equal, as many South Koreans had long wanted, not only in class but also in wealth. No one was allowed to be smarter than anyone else, and accordingly, all the universities in Korea bore the name of the prime university, Seoul National University. No one was permitted to be richer than anyone else either. Consequently, everybody was equally mediocre and destitute in Korea. Even better, Korea had become a workers’ paradise, where your job came with a lifetime warranty regardless of your performance and competence.

Nevertheless, I found the communist system had some serious flaws and downsides. As the nation had adopted the food rationing system, the government had turned into Big Brother and controlled people’s lives. Naturally, everybody was under constant surveillance and no one was allowed freedom of speech or of the press. Another problem with the communist regime was that it had a hierarchy instead of classes, and thus there were still quite a few privileged people – the party members and political leaders.

Deeply disturbed, I fell asleep and woke up in 2020 again, but this time in a different timeline. I found the Korean Peninsula was at war. Washington had made the same mistake that it had made just before the Korean War; it had pulled back the US troops from South Korea. In an effort to exercise a restraining influence on China’s expansion policy in Asia, the US had formed alliances with Japan, Australia and India, but not South Korea. Disappointed in South Korea’s policy of leaning heavily on China, the US government had retaliated by withdrawing her troops from South Korea.

As soon as the US troops had left, North Korea launched an attack on South Korea with numerous hidden artillery and biochemical weapons that eventually devastated the whole country. Many South Korean soldiers, who belonged to the Soft Generation and whose morale was low due to pervasive violence in military barracks, were not capable of fighting back.

While trying very hard to wake up from these bad dreams, I tumbled into another nightmare. I woke up in another timeline, in 2020 again.

This time, I found everyone was learning and speaking Chinese, as China impudently claimed that the Korean Peninsula had been part of China in ancient times and still was. Not realising what would happen to us, we Koreans had naively chosen China over Japan and the States as an ally.

Frustrated by the series of nightmares, I fell asleep again, intensely wishing to have a sweet, beautiful dream this time. When I woke up in 2020 again, I finally found South Korea had become a peaceful, advanced country without factional skirmishes or ideological brawls. An affluent society, South Korea served as a role model due to its miraculous economic success and democratisation.

Skilfully maximising her geopolitical situation, South Korea had emerged as a powerful, influential nation that earned respect and admiration from her neighbours.

The 1988 movie Sliding Doors shows two different futures the protagonist could experience depending on whether or not she catches a subway train. Our future, too, will be entirely different depending on whether or not we choose the right path at the right moment. Indeed, South Korea is at the crossroads now and thus should decide which way to go. If she loses her sense of direction, she will be inevitably caught in the crossfire and victimised helplessly.

Last night, I was wide awake in the middle of the night, sweating from bad dreams and worrying about the future of Korea. In my nightmares, Korea had headed in the wrong direction and suffered the consequences.

Waking up in 2014, I am so relieved that we still have a chance to prevent a disastrous future by choosing the right path.

By Kim Seong-Kon The Korea Herald

Kim Seong-kon is a professor emeritus of English at Seoul National University and president of the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.\


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Asian Games 2014 Final Medal Table

Rank	Country	Gold	Silver	Bronze	Total
1	China	151	108	83	342
2	Korea	79	71	84	234
3	Japan	47	76	77	200
4	Kazakhstan	28	23	33	84
5	Iran	21	18	18	57
6	Thailand	12	7	28	47
7	DPR Korea	11	11	14	36
8	India	11	9	37	57
9	Chinese Taipei	10	18	23	51
10	Qatar	10	0	4	14
11	Uzbekistan	9	14	21	44
12	Bahrain	9	6	4	19
13	Hong Kong	6	12	24	42
14	Malaysia	5	14	14	33
15	Singapore	5	6	13	24
16	Mongolia	5	4	12	21
17	Indonesia	4	5	11	20
18	Kuwait	3	5	4	12
19	Saudi Arabia	3	3	1	7
20	Myanmar	2	1	1	4
21	Vietnam	1	10	25	36
22	Philippines	1	3	11	15
23	Pakistan	1	1	3	5
23	Tajikistan	1	1	3	5
25	Iraq	1	0	3	4
25	United Arab Emirates	1	0	3	4
27	Sri Lanka	1	0	1	2
28	Cambodia	1	0	0	1
29	Macau	0	3	4	7
30	Kyrgyzstan	0	2	4	6
31	Jordan	0	2	2	4
32	Turkmenistan	0	1	5	6
33	Bangladesh	0	1	2	3
33	Laos	0	1	2	3
35	Afghanistan	0	1	1	2
35	Lebanon	0	1	1	2
37	Nepal	0	0	1	1

Source: NDTV Sports

Property prices to further rise in Malaysia, Credit Suisse predicts

Higher selling prices does not necessarily mean bigger profits for developers with Credit Suisse noting that developers’ cost of doing business has reportedly risen 20% in the first half of 2014. “Margins are being compressed,” it said in a sector report on. The firm is negative on the sector.

PETALING JAYA: Property prices, which rose 8% in the first quarter of this year, will continue to head north, as developers pass on the rising cost of building houses to buyers, according to Credit Suisse.

But higher selling prices does not necessarily mean bigger profits for developers with Credit Suisse noting that developers’ cost of doing business has reportedly risen 20% in the first half of 2014.

“Margins are being compressed,” it said in a sector report on Monday. The firm is negative on the sector.

Property sales, especially in the affordable category, had slowed since the start of the year with measures to curb speculative purchases dampening sentiment in the property market.

The report indicated that the Government was considering additional measures to cool down rising prices with specific plans to address the issue of affordable housing.

Credit Suisse said it believed that measures to facilitate home ownership among the lower and middle income groups such as allowing developer interest bearing schemes for first-time house buyers or those below a certain income level, would be positive for the market.

“However, a blanket policy to stop the rise in property prices would be negative as sentiment is already so low,” it added.

According to the Real Estate Housing Developers Association’s first half of 2014 property industry survey, a majority of developers are either neutral or negative about the outlook for the second half of 2014.

This sentiment is expected to carry through to next year, with only 13% of respondents optimistic about the outlook in the first half of 2015. Developers have been holding back new launches this year, with only 39% of respondents launching in the first half compared with 52% a year ago.

Take-up rates fell to 49% in the period, the first time it dipped below the 50% level.

The main reason for slower sales was the difficulty for buyers in securing financing. Properties priced between RM250,000 and RM500,000 saw a 30% rejection rate, while properties prices between RM500,000 and RM700,000 experienced a rejection rate of 24%.

Additionally, growth in housing loan approvals has slowed since December 2013 and fell 13% year-on-year in July 2014. For the first seven months of the year, total housing loan approvals were up only 1% year-on-year at RM68bil.

But despite the soft market condition, Credit Suisse said it believed that prices would continue on an uptrend next year as input costs are pushed up by the Goods and Services Tax (GST).

“Residential properties are GST exempt, but developers would look to pass on the higher costs via higher launch prices,” it said.

Sources: Credit Suisse/PropertyGuru/The Star/Asia News Network, Wed Sept 17 2014

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How can China forget '9/18' Japanese militarists' "Mukden Incident" (望海楼) ?

On Sep. 18 of every year, the Shenyang ‘9/18’ historical museum holds a ceremony of sounding the alarm. The 14 bells and the 3-minute air defense warning are always an emotional moment for China. (People’s Daily/He Yong)

On Sept. 18, 1931, Japanese troops blew up a section of railway near Shenyang that was under their control. They then accused Chinese troops of sabotaging the railway to create a pretext for war. Later that evening, they bombarded the barracks of Chinese troops near Shenyang, starting a large-scale armed invasion of northeast China.
On July 7, 1937, the Lugouqiao Incident occurred, and the nationwide War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression started.

83 years ago, Japanese militarists planned the ‘Liutiaohu’ event and then invaded northeastern China, unleashing full-scale aggression against China. However, this ‘9/18’ event has been deliberately obscured and ignored by Japan. There are only a few words about the event in the Hiroshima atomic bomb data repository: “Japan started its war against China starting on 18th September.” http://english.cntv.cn/special/sept3victoryday/history1931_1945/index.shtml

There are a number of equivocal accounts of the war crimes committed by Japan against China. After the Second World War, unreformed Japanese militarists refused to acknowledge what they had done in the war. They coveted China’s land and resources then, and the Japanese government’s conduct and its policies still indicate an attachment to militarism. The militarists dug their own grave by waging war against China. A militarist mindset will never be of benefit to Japan.

Why was China ravaged for years by Japan, which is only one thirtieth the size of China? Because Jiang Jieshi’s government pursued a policy of non-resistance, even though it had greater military power than its Japanese adversary.

Most of Jiang Jieshi’s troops withdrew without fighting, leaving southeastern China to fall into the hands of Japanese troops in just four months and 18 days. The great powers were busy trying to carve up poverty-stricken China. A backward China was bound to be mauled. These are valuable lessons to be learnt from history.

The victory gained by China in its anti-aggression war against Japan has created a solid foundation for its rejuvenation. 14 years of arduous war cultivated the Chinese people’s anti-aggression spirit. China's national strength is growing, and so is its national status. But China is still facing challenges from home and abroad, so we must remain vigilant against potential threats even in times of safety. As long as the Chinese people remain united in the spirit of anti-aggression, we can overcome any difficulties and realize China’s dream.

By Hua Yisheng - This article was edited and translated from 《“九一八” 我们怎能忘记（望海楼）》, source: People's Daily Overseas Edition

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