In Pictures: Food of August in Jakarta, Indonesia

Contemporary Indonesian Cuisine Reinvented using French Techniques

No.46 of Asia’s 50 Best Restaurants 2024

Infographic: The Countries Using the Most Mobile Data

Source : Visual Capitalist

Why the Dollar Will Lose Its Status as the Global Reserve Currency

James Hickman wrote . . . . . . . . .

By the early 400s, the Roman Empire was coming apart at the seams and in desperate need of strong, competent leadership. In theory, Honorius should have been the right man for the job.

Born into the royal household in Constantinople, Honorius had been groomed to rule, practically since birth, by the finest experts in the realm. So even as a young man, Honorius had already accumulated decades of experience.

Yet Rome’s foreign adversaries rightfully believed Honorius to be weak, out of touch, divisive, and completely inept.

He had entered into bonehead peace treaties that strengthened Rome’s enemies. He paid vast sums of money to some of their most powerful rivals and received practically nothing in return. He made virtually no attempt to secure Roman borders, leaving the empire open to be ravaged by barbarians.

Inflation was high. Taxes were high. Economic production declined. Roman military power declined. And all of Rome’s foreign adversaries were emboldened.

To a casual observer it would have almost seemed as if Honorius went out of his way to make the Empire weaker.

One of Rome’s biggest threats came in the year 408, when the barbarian king Alaric invaded Italy; imperial defenses were so non-existent at that point that ancient historians described Alaric’s march towards Rome as unopposed and leisurely, as if they were “at some festival” rather than an invasion.

Alaric and his army arrived to the city of Rome in the autumn of 408 AD and immediately positioned their forces to cut off any supplies. No food could enter the city, and before long, its residents began to starve.

Historians have passed down horrific stories of cannibalism– including women eating their own children in order to survive.

Rather than send troops and fight, however, Honorius agreed to pay a massive ransom to Alaric, including 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and literally tons of other real assets and commodities.

(The equivalent in today’s money, adjusted for population, would be billions of dollars… similar to what the US released to Iran in a prisoner swap last year.)

Naturally Honorius didn’t have such a vast sum in his treasury… so Romans were forced to strip down and melt their shrines and statues in order to pay Alaric’s ransom.

Ironically, one of the statues they melted was a monument to Virtus, the Roman god of bravery and strength… leading the ancient historian Zosimus to conclude that “all which remained of Roman valor and intrepidity was totally extinguished.”

Rome had spent two centuries in the early days of the empire– from the rise of Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD– as the clear, unrivaled superpower. Almost no one dared mess with Rome, and few who did ever lived to tell the tale.

Modern scholars typically view the official “fall” of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476. But it’s pretty clear that the collapse of Roman power and prestige took place decades before.

When Rome was ransomed in 408 (then sacked in 410), it was obvious to everyone at the time that the Emperor no longer had a grip on power.

And before long, most of the lands in the West that Rome had once dominated– Italy, Spain, France, Britain, North Africa, etc. were under control of various Barbarian tribes and kingdoms.

The Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Burgundians, Berbers, etc. all established independent kingdoms. And for a while, there was no dominant superpower in western Europe. It was a multi-polar world. And the transition was rather abrupt.

This is what I think is happening now– we’re experiencing a similar transition, and it seems equally abrupt.

The United States has been the world’s dominant superpower for decades. But like Rome in the later stage of its empire, the US is clearly in decline. This should not be a controversial statement.

Let’s not be dramatic; it’s important to stay focused on facts and reality. The US economy is still vast and potent, and the country is blessed with an abundance of natural resources– incredibly fertile farmland, some of the world’s largest freshwater resources, and incalculable reserves of energy and other key commodities.

In fact, it’s amazing the people in charge have managed to screw it up so badly. And yet they have.

The national debt is out of control, rising by trillions of dollars each year. Debt growth, in fact, substantially outpaces US economic growth.

Social Security is insolvent, and the program’s own trustees (including the US Treasury Secretary) admit that its major trust fund will run out of money in just nine years.

The people in charge never seem to miss an opportunity to dismantle capitalism (i.e. the economic system that created so much prosperity to begin with) brick by brick.

Then there are ubiquitous social crises: public prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law; the weaponization of the justice system; the southern border fiasco; declining birth rates; extraordinary social divisions that are most recently evidenced by the anti-Israel protests.

And most of all the US constantly shows off its incredibly dysfunctional government that can’t manage to agree on anything, from the budget to the debt ceiling. The President has obvious cognitive disabilities and makes the most bizarre decisions to enrich America’s enemies.

Are these problems fixable? Yes. Will they be fixed? Maybe. But as we used to say in the military, “hope is not a course of action”.

Plotting this current trajectory to its natural conclusion leads me to believe that the world will enter a new “barbarian kingdom” paradigm in which there is no dominant superpower.

Certainly, there are a number of rising rivals today. But no one is powerful enough to assume the leading role in the world.

China has a massive population and a huge economy. But it too has way too many problems… with the obvious challenge that no one trusts the Communist Party. So, most likely China will not be the dominant superpower.

India’s economy will eventually surpass China’s, and it has an even bigger population. But India isn’t even close to the ballpark of being the world’s superpower.

Then there’s Europe. Combined, it still has a massive economic and trade union. But it has also been in major decline… with multiple social crises like low birth rates and a migrant invasion.

Then there are the energy powers like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia; they are far too small to dominate the world, but they have the power to menace and disrupt it.

The bottom line is that the US is no longer strong enough to lead the world and keep adversarial nations in check. And it’s clear that other countries are already adapting to this reality.

Earlier this month, for example, China successfully launched a rocket to the moon as part of a multi-decade mission to establish an International Lunar Research Station.

By 2045, China hopes to construct a large, city-like base along with several international partners including Russia, Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Egypt. Turkey and Nicaragua are also interested in joining.

This is pretty remarkable given how many nations are participating, even if just nominally. Yet the US isn’t part of the consortium.

This would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. But today the rest of the world realizes that they no longer need American funding, leadership, or expertise.

We can see similar examples everywhere, most notably in Israel and Ukraine. And I believe one of the next shoes to drop will be the US dollar.

After all, if the rest of the world doesn’t need the US for space exploration, and they can ignore the US when it comes down to World War 3, then why should they need the US dollar anymore?

The dollar was the clear and obvious choice as the global reserve currency back when America was the undisputed superpower. But today it’s a different world.

Foreign nations continuing to rely on the dollar ultimately means governments and central banks buying US government bonds. And why should they take such a risk when the national debt is already 120% of GDP?

In addition, Congress passed a new law a few weeks ago authorizing the Treasury Department to confiscate US dollar assets of any country it deems an “aggressor state.”

While people might think this is a morally righteous idea, the reality is that it will only turn off foreign investors. Why should China, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else buy US government bonds when they can be confiscated in a heartbeat?

All of this ultimately leads to a world in which the US dollar is no longer the dominant reserve currency. We’re already starting to see signs of that shift, and it could be in full swing by the end of the decade.

Source : Schiff Sovereign

China Commercial Banks’ Net Interest Margin Dropped to 13-year Low

China Commercial Banks’ Net Interest Margin Dropped to 13-year Low

A key profitability metric for China’s commercial banks dropped to its lowest in 13 years in the first quarter, weighing down their profit growth, official figures show.

The banks’ net interest margin (NIM) came in at 1.54% in the three-month period, down from 1.69% in the previous quarter, figures released Friday by the National Financial Regulatory Administration (NFRA) showed.

Source : Caixin

Aesthetic Evolution: Tracing Female Beauty in Ancient Chinese Art

Cai Qin wrote . . . . . . . . .

Editor’s note: “Fair Ladies — Digital Representations of Ancient Chinese Women,” a Zhejiang Museum exhibition of more than 1,000 paintings from 32 museums across China, was held first online in 2021 and then offline the following year. Based on the exhibits, Cai Qin, curator of the exhibition and the museum’s deputy director, compiled the book “Images of Her in Ancient China,” which aims to highlight, through exquisite artworks, how ancient Chinese women lived, as well as their styles, talents, and artistic creations. Following is an excerpt from the first chapter of the book.

---

The emergence and development of any art form are always intertwined with various social and cultural phenomena of their time, and artistic representations of women are no exception. Images of female subjects in ancient Chinese art across different stages of history present society’s shifting ideas about them. Although the styles, techniques, narratives, and character choices of each depiction are influenced by the talents and sensibilities of its creator, when all of these details are laid out side by side, they reflect the changing trends of their respective eras, almost forming a “history of female beauty.”

For example, the Warring States period (475–221 B.C.) was an era of significant transformation in Chinese history. During this time, people conceptualized the universe as a vast space encompassing all things. In visual depictions of this conceptual universe, human figures featured as part of the cosmic landscape.

“Silk Painting of a Lady, Phoenix, and Dragon” (image above) is recognized as the first work in Chinese art history to focus on a female subject. Unearthed in 1949 from a Chu state tomb, located in the modern-day Hunan provincial capital of Changsha, and now housed in the Hunan Museum, the painting dates back to the late Warring States period. The painting features a profile of a woman standing in the lower right corner of the image with her hands clasped together. With her elaborate hairstyle, slender waist, long trailing skirt, and voluminous sleeves, the woman embodies the willowy female figure idealized in Chu culture. A phoenix soars above the woman’s head, while on the left a dragon spirals skyward. Based on Chu customs and archaeological evidence, it is believed that the woman in the painting is the occupant of the tomb, while the dragon and phoenix are accompanying her soul on its journey to heaven.

During the Han dynasty (206B.C.–220A.D.), the feudal ruling class revered immortals and pursued longevity and immortality. During this period, people believed that the soul persisted after death and could ascend to the heavenly realm, giving rise to the widespread practice of elaborate burials. Few paintings from the Han dynasty exist today, and the majority of the surviving works bearing depictions of women are silk paintings that were found in tombs. One of these is the painted silk banner that covered the coffin of the Marquise of Dai, discovered in Changsha’s Mawangdui tombs. The T-shaped banner depicts the sun and moon, a dragon, and a serpentine representation of the goddess Nüwa on the wide upper portion, while the narrow lower portion bears a painting of a dragon and a likeness of the deceased marquise.

By portraying the human realm in the upper part and the underworld in the lower part, the painting follows a similar theme of the soul ascending to heaven as well as reflects the feudal ruling class’s fanciful imagination of the afterlife. The marquise is portrayed with a full figure and a solemn bearing, leaning forward with a slightly hunched back, embodying the image of a noblewoman.

Court ladies

From the pre-Qin era through the Qin and Han dynasties, a period that spanned almost 1,000 years, numerous artworks bearing images of women were produced. However, this category of art did not yet have a clear and consistent name until the publication of the Southern Qi scholar Xie He’s book “The Six Principles of Chinese Painting,” where a term to describe “woman-themed” paintings as a specific genre first appeared.

Subsequently, in the Southern dynasties period, Yao Zui’s book “Continuation of the Classification of Painters” introduced the term “qiluo” to refer to silk pieces woven with patterns. It was not until the Tang dynasty (618–907) that Zhu Jingxuan’s book “Famous Paintings of the Tang Dynasty” introduced the term “shinü,” or “court lady,” which referred to a noblewoman in the upper social strata.

As time progressed, the court lady genre of paintings saw significant development, particularly during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The convention of exclusively depicting noblewomen was broken, and paintings of women from all walks of life, from aristocratic maidens to brothel courtesans, began to emerge, expanding the concept of “court lady paintings.”

The Wei, Jin, and North-South dynasties (220–589) were plagued by political turmoil, life for the common people was full of hardship, and Confucianism faced significant challenges. In addition, the new-age “pure conversation” and metaphysical philosophical movements gained popularity, forming an aesthetic ideal that expressed noble inner qualities through beautiful external appearances. Guided by this aesthetic ideal, artists adhered to the principle of “depicting the spirit through form” when portraying human subjects. Portraiture became an important and rapidly developing artistic genre, and female figures assumed a leading role, often appearing alone in paintings and becoming objects of aesthetic admiration.

“Graceful shape and elegant features” formed the aesthetic ideal for women at that time, with images portraying female subjects with willowy figures and slender waists as a physical expression of their inner gentility and refinement. One of the most iconic artistic works of this era is Gu Kaizhi’s “Nymph of the Luo River,” created during the Eastern Jin dynasty (317–420). Among the numerous copies of the painting, the most complete version is housed in Beijing’s Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City.

“The Nymph of the Luo River” (partial image shown above) was created based on the poem “Ode to the Nymph of the Luo River” by the renowned poet Cao Zhi. In the poem, which was written in the third year of Huangchu (222), Cao recounts the story of encountering a beautiful river goddess while crossing the Luo River on his way to Luoyang, subtly expressing his longing for her between the lines. This story later reached Gu Kaizhi, who transformed the work into an artistic masterpiece. The sprawling scroll painting unfolds to reveal majestic mountains, graceful trees, flowing waters, and other beautiful natural images, along with people engaged in various activities — a motif that threads through the whole scene.

During this period, paintings of court ladies continued to extol female virtue and moral conduct. Gu’s “Wise and Benevolent Women” (image above) depicts 15 women from “Biographies of Exemplary Women,” a Han dynasty compilation of historical women that served as a textbook of ideal female conduct. The women were considered to be exceptionally knowledgeable and enlightened about heavenly principles. Also housed in the Palace Museum, the surviving portion of the painting from the Northern Song dynasty consists of 10 segments depicting a total of 28 people and is inscribed with seven complete stories.

[ . . . . . . ] continue to read and view pictures at the source . . . . . .

Source : Sixth Tone