Business community and pundits are screaming there is no connection whatsoever between China turning back an Air NZ flight and the wider geopolitical tensions – yet breaking news now is China is strangling off diplomatic ties…
EXCLUSIVE:
Diplomatic links with China appear to have plummeted to a new low as Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern is given the cold shoulder by Beijing and a major tourism promotion is postponed by the superpower.
Ardern was scheduled to visit China early this year but the invitation has been put on hold.
The 2019 China-New Zealand Year of Tourism was meant to be launched with great fanfare at Wellington’s Te Papa museum next week, but that has been postponed by China.
…it’s like the business community and punditry, (many of whom have personal vested Chinese Business interests) are too busy screaming everything is fine to have noticed China have started a fight.
The issue was always been what would happen once the GCSB banned Huawei from setting up 5G infrastructure, in this ratcheting up of geopolitical tensions, what happened to Air NZ and the sudden freezing of diplomatic relations is the sort of fight you have before you start a real fight.
It is in China’s strategic interests to damage the weakest member of 5 Eyes as a warning to the other 4.
Watch what happens when NZ starts pushing back against Chinese water interests.
Acknowledging that there are geopolitical tensions rupturing between China & NZ isn’t being disloyal to Jacinda, it’s the inevitability of forces well beyond our shores. How we fend off Beijing’s commercial interests & Washington’s 5 Eyes is the diplomatic issue of our time.
So then the consequences of reverse engineering American military technology is to scream “what about muh trade deal?” This puny nobodies are not allowed to dictate to the government and its departments.
It’s time to wean ourselves off China. That and their third rate crap they manufacture.
Nothing comes for free and they are now demonstrating they practically own us. When they say jump, we better do it.
They own the National Party scarily too and now’s the time to see just how entwined the host is in our favourite trading partner, beneath the facade that is.
What’s that old saying, he who sups with the devil should use a long spoon. Very long would have been good advice to Helen Clark!
To late with that comment xray and directed at the wrong superpower. It is not Beijing whose orders we have jumped at but Washingtons. If the cell phone infrastructure were to be decided on merit then Huawei woud most likely win and it is that which Washington cant stomach. They cant compete on merit so must order via ‘security’ concerns
I wonder why the Christchurch Migrants Centre was shut down.
Perhaps it is is time to shut down the Asia New Zealand Foundation and the NZ-China Council too.
Excellent time to reexamine the free trade deal then and the wholesale manipulation of our property market by the Chinese. C’mon Jacinda time to grow a spine …and use it.
Well I blame Obama for claiming to pulling out of the Middle East so America could do its pacific reset to ring fence China and then not pulling out of the Middle East. Screw ups. Absolute amateur.
Fat chance. Labour and National have had no spine for awhile now.
Nice idea, but you might win power ball before that happens.
Really, so the rampant property market was Jacinda’s fault Shona, nothing to do with the Messiah and his disciples?
which messiah / master of the universe was that?then G.A.P.?Helen Clarke signed the free trade deal and opened up the migration gates again. Bolger and Lange/Douglas let in any Chinese with a $100,000 in their back pockets. Sham businesses for residency were the norm from the late 1980’s onwards. The effect of Chinese money on the property market is easily tracked for any fool with half an eye to see. There are none so blind etc etc etc
Where did I say any of this was Jacinda’s fault @ G.A.P?
Interesting. So TDB bloggers seem to have got it right: there are behind-the-scenes manouverings going on. The MSM is only now starting to catch up with what Martin and Frank saw as going on.
And that’s why we read this blog.
#thumbs up#
Use this as a chance to pull back from China. Disagree about 5 eyes, it’s our tie to the US who we are going to have to be much better friends with for our own protection.
Oh right so China a physical threat? Grow a brain. They may hang us in the wind economically but invasion please. And you really think USA will buy all that milk we are so dependent on selling?
It’s almost as if we shouldn’t have used our public water to increase dairy production to pollute our water increasing dairy production to sell low value ad product to China, isn’t it.
Who would have thought?
If you don’t think China is a physical threat you haven’t been paying attention.
How are they going to attack? Send the navy? Or paratroopers in solar powered gliders?
But youre right about the water.
You don’t need to look out the window just yet spikeyboy, but I suggest you read some Chinese newspapers and enlighten yourself on Chinese nationalistic military power (the imaginary and the real)
Just joking of course you know the party line better than all of us here 🙂
Yes. Invasion plans for NZ are a definite top priority
Military invasions are so old hat now. These days achive the same effective control by making us dependent on them economically, which I suspect they have already done – i.e. if you cross them they turn you into Venezuela, so you just do as your told without ever requiring any invasion/occupation. Germany figured this out ages ago.
After WW2 Germany has become a vassal ally state of the US Empire, tied in also with occupation forces from the west, i.e. UK and France.
This was welcome by the US and UK, so they used Germany as the front state to exert power over the rest of Europe, particularly the Centre, South and East now.
It simply happened so without Germany after WW2 setting out to do this, they felt they had to serve also the ‘friendly interests’ of their allies, so it went.
For most Germans, even governments, they bend over backwards not to be seen as a strong power that puts pressure on others, given the dark past under Hitler.
But English being the widely spoken, most preferred foreign language there, that tells us all about who really wields the power there and elsewhere.
It seems to me our “good friend” the USA just exploits our friendship by dragging us into their resource wars so they can claim the international community supports them. How did we benefit from Iraq Afghanistan or Viet Nam? No doubt there is diplomatic pressure on now for NZ to support military regime change in Venezuela so the US can grab their oil. Congratulations to the labour Government for resisting that.
Look what our “allies” did when we went Nuclear Free. Abandoned us. The French actually attacked us.
We would be safer and better off if we left 5eyes and declared our non-alignment with all the super powers.
I completely understand China’s frustration at NZ rejecting the Huawei proposal based on unproven allegations. The GCSB should provide evidence or shut up. The American security agencies are the ones who have a proven record of monitoring everyone’s communications They don’t like Huawei because they don’t provide backdoors for them.
“Protection” from the USA. Show me where in the world they are creating peace and stability because I can’t see it.
Great opportunity to promote, made in NZ and give a kiwi a job.
If our goods are rotting on their docks then seize their NZ property’s and relieve the housing crisis with them.
Bout time we rounded up the spy’s, bribers and their cohorts here.
Bout time we cleaned out the foreign influence’s on our election process.
Who gives a shit what the Chinese think, we be better to stockpile our food reserves and treat them like a strategic asset, with food production down 30 percent worldwide, we should get a better trade deal while we can.
Tit for tat doesnt really work when you have more to lose than them. A few NZ properties? That will really scare them. Maybe a truely independent foreign policy would be more productive?
I see. So we repeatedly poke China in the eye with our membership of the five eyes, and as a vassal of the U.S.Empire, being broadly in support of their hostile stance to China.. We join in the economic sanctions on China, which is essentially what we have done in the Huawai incident. And then we are surprised that retribution is rolling in. We are the party that has fired the first shots, not China. We deserve a good kick up the ass from China. Enjoy!!!
Not often we see eye-to-eye, Pete, but I think you’ve nailed it on this one. Well sussed.
‘Free trade’, yeah right.
But is ‘free trade’ that good anyway, when we trade with murderous, torturing and oppressing regimes all over the world?
Principles of any kind were thrown over board long ago, that is, provided they ever existed.
As for the US and China tensions, NZ would be well advised to follow a truly independent course. But that is then of course not possible, as either super-power will pull their levers and put pressure on us, for not standing by their side.
Whatever a NZ Inc government does these days, they are damned if they do, damned if they don’t do something.
And not taking sides also can bear the stigma of being indifferent about human rights issues.
We still trade with Saudi Arabia, I last noted, even though somehow a regime critical journalist was murdered and vanished in one of their embassies. We still trade with Iran, one of the leading nations for capital punishment. We still trade with China, where organ harvesting, ethnic cleansing and the likes were at least still recently issues of concern, besides of no freedom of expression there. We still trade with the US, and we are part of the Five Eyes spy network, no matter what our ‘allies’ do, rightly or wrongly.
So hypocrisy is the best description for New Zealand and its government, but are there any citizens out on the streets protesting much? No, most are at the malls shopping today, or doing their home improvements or going to parties, events and what else there may be on weekends.
Screw human rights, the rule of law, freedom of expression, democracy and so forth, we want to self indulge, screw the rest of the world.
It never ceases to amaze me the vitriol spilled on this blog towards China. It would appear that most of you are about to get your wish, and are about to find out if we need China or not. Meanwhile our bestest buddies, the shining beacon on the hill,upholders of freedom and democracy are in the process of deposing another freely elected president of a sovereign country. I do not want China spying on me,if that was there intention, and i sure as hell don’t want the other bloody lot doing so either. Waihopai etc.
All of this is obviously true SHONA, though cannot see where you get the idea that i think the rampant property market is a good idea??? Sadly i did not see the currency gambler and his crew doing anything to stop it. At least the education rort (path to residency) seems to be dying a natural death.
Too much dependence on China is the Highway to the Dangerzone
All of this is obviously true SHONA, though cannot see where you get the idea that i think the rampant property market is a good idea??? Sadly i did not see the currency gambler and his crew doing anything to stop it. At least the education rort (path to employment/residency) seems to be dying a natural death.
ps. could somebody tell me what is happening to reply’s, this was first posted three hours ago
[Apologies for delays in publishing comments, GAP. Each comment is first vetted for spam, then trolling and mindless abuse. Also for anything that might be defamatory (we get a few of those). So if Martyn, Crimsonmod, or myself aren’t on-line, comments can be queued longer than is ideal. But we try to get to approving comments as soon as we can. – Scarletmod]
Thank you for that Scarletmod, i suspected as much. For some reason i thought that when commenting on a reply the mail seemed to spend more time in the ether than normal.
The whole business as usual of world governments has to stop. The world is facing ecological collapse, insects are facing immanent mass extinction, once they go, we go. This is due to factory farming and industrial use of pesticides and climate change caused by pollution. Trade of commodities, the money go round etc…none of it will matter in fifty years. The natural world is in massive crisis. It would be a great thing if NZ could create policies to help mitigate what is to come, ban plastics, ban factory farming of plants and animals, ban pesticides.
No surprises here.
Anne-Marie Brady break-ins: Police investigation hits dead end
An investigation into a burglary and other incidents reported by prominent China critic Anne-Marie Brady is unresolved and police say they have no further lines of enquiry.
Anne-Marie Brady Anne-Marie Brady Photo: Supplied
Canterbury University professor Anne-Marie Brady has said her office has been broken into twice, her house burgled, her car tampered with and she has received a threatening letter after she published a paper on the influence of the Chinese Communist Party in the Pacific.
“Professor Brady has reported a number of incidents which have occurred since late 2017 including a burglary at her home, two break-ins at her university office, damage to her vehicle, and a series of anonymous phone calls,” Detective Superintendent Stu Allsop-Smith said.
“Police have taken these incidents very seriously and a lengthy, detailed and extensive investigation has been conducted.
“This has involved all necessary police resources including detailed forensic analysis, interviews and expert advice.
“The burglaries and other matters reported remain unresolved at this time.”
Mr Allsop-Smith said at this point there were no further lines of enquiry to pursue unless new information became available.
“Any new information will be carefully assessed to determine what, if any, evidential relevance it may have,” he said in a statement.
Police and the university would continue to provide her with updated advice, including security advice if required, and maintain an active response plan, Mr Allsop-Smith said.
International academics, researchers and human rights advocates wrote an open letter to Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern last year in support of Prof Brady.
Am i losing the bloody plot here. New Zealand Police after extensive inquiries into the Brady case conclude nothing to see here. Former weather man on resuscitated radio live this morning, after reading breaking news suggests 1. Evil Chinese spies to smart for nz bobbies? 2. Da gubermint stood over police? Unfortunately the station got wise a while ago and there is no longer a facility to listen to previous broadcasts, making it hard to hold there feet to the fire. Not being a watcher of what passes for news on msm tv, i may make an exception tonight to see what interpretation is placed on this, although i am not holding my breath for any sanity.
It cannot be what must not be, simple!
Mr Bradbury’s account of this story, which by the way was initially introduced to NZ media by the worldly and experienced NZ broadcaster/journalist Richard Harmon from a tweet posted by one of the passengers, makes me question his true position on the matter. Does he regard the speculative media approach to this story a worthwhile endeavour and if so does this make him less of a journalist and more of a tabloid hack?
When will we find a group of true journalists who are willing to use their skills and experience to rise above the current quagmire of readily available, so-called news reporting? Our mainstream media outlets continue to head down the road of the inevitable headline chasing, sensationalist pack mentality we see from our western brothers and sisters. Is this truly what we want from NZ Journo’s?
The simple answer for any one of us who would like to experience the kind of jornalism that is factual, fair and unbiased is to STOP reading, listening and visiting their blogs or twitter posts. Cleanse yourself of these worthless viewpoints and become a detective of sorts, seeking out worthy accounts of factual events. When a viewpoint has no viewers it becomes the preverbial falling tree in the forest.
Another thing, journo’s and broadcasters have a responsibility which in this country seems to be one which is taken extremely lightly or is it just that our standards have slipped? Either way the reposibility lies with those who are given the freedom to speak to us on a daily basis and I believe a whole lot more care needs to be taken by these individuals. Where is their pride? Kia kaha!
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