OPINION

Heed the sound

Re: "Call of the Wild", (Life, Oct 23).

Heartfelt thanks to the Thai Media Fund for supporting the important and necessary work of Woraphot Bunkhwamdi and his nature sound recording project at Praisan.org.

Evidence that human sounds are encroaching on nature sounds to the detriment of evolutionary processes and sustainable ecosystems is presented in the first paragraphs, via Woraphot's story about the vanishing sound of button top shells washing up on the shore at Ao Manao beach in Prachuap Khiri Khan.

There are innumerable examples of this acoustic crisis. The fact is, birds, fish, insects, and plants all use some form of sound to communicate among their species, for evolution, for procreation, and for socialisation. In his new book, Sounds Wild and Broken, environmental biologist David George Haskell describes four urgent and intersecting issues: "the silencing that ensues from loss of ecological habitat especially in tropical rainforests; the nightmare of industrial sound in the oceans; noise pollution in cities; and [frequent human failure to listen to and celebrate] the sensory richness of our world."

Open your ears, and listen as wind, water, birdsong, and other natural sounds activated by the sun and gravity produce an ever-changing symphony of life.

Power play

Re: "PM's global choice", (PostBag, Oct 24).

I would like to help JC Wilcox expand his understanding of the Belt and Road Initiative, and specifically address his claim, "China's BRI is about education, manufacturing, and free trading. Silk Roads are the roads to freedom".

China, under Xi Jinping, has openly declared its goal is to rule the world by 2049 -- the CCP's centenary celebration. Religion has always been considered by CCP strategists as their enemy and any openly popular expressions of it such as the distribution of Christian bibles, Tibetan Buddhists receiving instructions, or Falun Gong gatherings have been ruthlessly persecuted.

This is also present-day policy in the authoritarian surveillance dictatorship that is modern China -- to wit, the Dalai Lama continues to live in exile in India and there are essentially no Buddhists who can enjoy freedom in this hellish "people's paradise".

The BRI is one of the means by which China has been planning for more than three decades to take control of the world and achieve "the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation." This is nothing less than the hegemonistic global expansion of its political, social, military, and governmental power. I urge PM Srettha to follow the historical successes as achieved by the great kings of Thailand in delicately balancing foreign relations to avoid such risks in the future.

Debt burden

Re: "PM's global choice", (PostBag, Oct 24).

It's evident from Mr Wilcox's latest piece of fantasy that either he has not the slightest clue of the damage China's "Belt and Road" has done to various countries or he chooses to ignore them.

The debt with which China has saddled various nations, much of which it has hidden from view with various nefarious instruments, has left economies in tatters.

Countries have borrowed money at loan shark rates and handed the cash to Chinese companies to build white elephant infrastructure projects that are left to rot, or environmentally catastrophic roads and railways that serve one purpose: To feed the Chinese manufacturing behemoth.