Our Chinese Overlords are angry!
New Zealand’s tourism industry is facing backlash following rocky relationship with China
China is turning up the heat on New Zealand, threatening our booming tourism industry will take a lashing on the back of the Huawei saga.An article published in the English version of China’s People’s Daily newspaper suggests New Zealand has fallen out of favour with Chinese travellers.
The paper, regarded as the mouthpiece for the Chinese government, quotes a traveller who saved more than $3200 to come to New Zealand but cancelled his plans.
“Is it a kind of robbery? New Zealand stabbed us in the back but asks for our money? This is double-faced,” a Beijing-based worker told the Global Times.
Wait, you mean China will stop over loading our groaning infrastructure with their tourists?
You mean those Chinese tourists who walk straight onto buses owned by Chinese businesses that operate the spaces they go to and the Chinese restaurants they eat at which we’ve just tolerated for the sake of meaningless and rarely ever seen by the locals ‘economic growth’?
YAY! Less Tourists taking up more of our infrastructure that has been so poorly planned for that we can barely use it our selves!
THIS IS A WIN!
Can we now also get China to stop buying all our bloody milk powder which in turn will stop incentivising our greedy corporate farmers from polluting our rivers?
And after we have stopped our greedy corporate farmers from polluting out waters for intensive dairy farming can we finally get the bloody Chinese out from stealing our fresh water fro their bottling plants?
Our Chinese Overlords are angry – we should have angered them a lot sooner!
If we have finished angering China, can we start pissing off America please?
On the money, Martyn.
Most of the Chinese are just here on shopping trips for NZ land and assets.. so looking forward to an easing off on congestion, pollution and overseas assets sales…
Can we anger other government’s too… also tired of the violence and crimes against women as for whatever reason our governments preferred choices of new residents seem to be from countries that have poorer rights and violence against women statistically…
We already have a family violence issue in NZ, why the hell do we need more of the same. you can actually apply for permanent residency in NZ on the basis of being in a abusive relationship here…
80 percent of methamphetamine precursors came from mainland China until a “joint task” effort by the New Zealand and Chinese police “cracked down”; the latter shifting export of their illegal drugs to Triad crime centre Vancouver, whose housing market, incidentally, has been priced out by the Chinese criminals the CCP is happy to have laundering money and exporting drugs for them overseas, so long as it benefits the Middle Kingdom.
The idea of entering into a Fair Trade Agreement with China was always a ridiculous notion and now they are showing themselves to be happy to breach any principles and punish New Zealand severely for deciding against one of that country’s companies in an open tender for infrastructure services. This is totally unacceptable and we need to ramp up trade with partners like Britain (thank God for Brexit) immediately.
We also need to deploy our Navy to protect our territorial integrity and our resources. Failing that anyone who criticizes the UK’s recent announcement of sending ships to the Pacific is a suicidal fool.
If there is any benefit culturally or otherwise to this period it will be the complete and utter end to the glib and historically inaccurate neo-Marxist trash that we are being forced to swallow on a daily basis which is quite clearly designed to weaken and divide us as similar rhetoric was during the Bolshevik terrors of the early 20th Century.
+100 HEINRICK…re “The idea of entering into a Fair Trade Agreement with China was always a ridiculous notion ..” (naive in the EXTREME)
…it would have been far better for agricultural trade to have had an agreement with Russia…but the jonkey Nacts snubbed Russia and cultivated China for their own personal benefit
You sure have a funny idea of what open tender means. Uncle Sam doesnt usually get to decide who participates…
You sound like a cheerleader for the random Guaido. Most of that type has been recognised in Venezuela as the traitors they are.
Anyone trying to instill fear over the very minor Chinese reactions that have occurred so far and use them as a reason to sell our sovereignty to USA deserves contempt. Donald Trump and his ilk may inspire you but most of us can see it for the delusional self interest that it is.
We pissed off the Yanks and the French in the mid 80s. Now the Chinese. Russians next? God knows Russian oligarchs have bought up chunks of our best land. They can piss off to.
the whole lot of them can piss of
As China is so miffed with NZ, I take it the Chinese government will also stop families moving here, bringing their non English speaking aged parents with them, who get all the benefits of superannuation, Super Gold Card, health care etc? Then the families move back to China, leaving the old parents in NZ!
No more Chinese tourists coming, so no more aged Chinese parents to take advantage of NZ’s social welfare system. Fair enough!
I love how China thinks it can blackmail or bully sovereign nations into doing what it wants, and there’s not going to be any comeback. We’re small, but we’re feisty. How about we shut down your water bottling plants and you can stop flogging our natural resources? Thanks, National, for cultivating a relationship with China that borders on incestuous in order to line your own pockets.
The long-term thinking on this should be quite simple.
If every single negotiation with this party carries with it a risk big enough to be a threat to every other negotiation with them, historically and in the future, then trading with them is not advisable and alternative trading partners should be sought.
Turning back our planes, throttling the flow of tourism, and stopping our exports at port are all very egregious breaches to any FTA we may have with them, which, given these unilateral actions, makes any FTA agreement not worth the paper it is written on.
I myself have sat in a room with Chinese businessmen backed by the CCP, for the purpose of signing a contract. While looking over the agreement, they informed me that any business dispute that didn’t go their way ended up with the other party being arrested.
I told them to shove the contract up their arse and walked out. NZ should do the same.
To be honest I imagine a lot of the Chinese who come to here to live / buy real estate / come here on holiday are the same pricks who have profited by destroying their own environment back in China while the poor bastards who didn’t are left to deal with the consequences – would be more than happy if they all went home.
What the fuck is it with the corporate media?
Fran O’Sullivan seems to have no concept of sovereignty and Barry Soper, being a bitchy whiny arse ever since his Visa to the US was cancelled, has none either.
If it wasn’t Huawei it would some other contrived incident. To be fair robberies happen, the police are understaffed and our driving is poor, exacerbated by foreign drivers. All valid criticism but I don’t fancy my chances in respect of the same issues in China, that’s for sure
We gave the Chinese government legitimacy doing a free trade deal, we gave them our trust and that is priceless for them to hold up to others in the world of business but now it looks like we are in a relationship with a gang whose tactics are pure underworld.
Does this mean no more money laundering from their end through us, no more absentee landlords, no more water exploitation,, no more psuedoephedrine, I bloody hope so!
I don’t much fancy the US government but compared to the Chinese the American people are okay with me.
Umm
If the Chinese are overlords, pray tell; What have the Americans been?
Empires die.
The French found this to be true following Dien Bien Phu (Vietnam) and Algeria. Oh! and the 6 weeks it took Germany to conquer France in 1940.
The British found this to be true after Dunkirk, Singapore and Kenya (Mau Mau).
Russia and China are now in the process of proving that the incumbent Emperor (Uncle Sam), has fewer and fewer clothes.
As the Roman’s found, so to will China, but at the moment, if the objective of our government is to create an environment where employment may flourish (and the down stream effects), I reckon its not a good idea to kick sand in the face of the emerging Emperor.
Your foolish mistake is to look at all empires or pretenders to it as potential equal partners.
It’s lovely that our culture promotes that, at least internally, in respect of the people of different origins that come in.
But you are very naive if you think those foreign powers are so lovey-dovey in respect of the existing population here. They are not. And Tangata Whenua won’t get any special treatment either.
Idiot. We are part of the British, American and to an extent French empire.
And you’ll realize that quite painfully when we can no longer call on them.
No I’m not. You white people my be though. My ancestors came from Taiwan.
I wrote this in 2016, but in 2019 it is as relevant as ever. It is something that bothers me quite a bit working in a related sector.
I have no problems with Chinese tourists coming. The ones I have met have been nice, polite and as far as this non-Mandarin speaker could tell, were having a great time here.
But the numbers that are coming over is not sustainable. Unless we have a major overhaul of how we deal with tourists, New Zealand is going to do major damage to itself.
So in a perverse way, I sort of welcome any cooling down of the market.
Yeah let’s all give it to the Chinese. We don’t need their money. After all, all they do is buy our land and assets.
The disgusting xenophobia on this site is embarrassing. But I guess the Chinese have always been our *niggas* since they first arrived here. Yeah lets just trade with people who look and act like us. A lot further to send whatever it is we think we’re going to sell them but who cares about the carbon footprint of doing trade with the Europeans.
The Tibetans are just one minority group under the jurisdiction of China which are victimised , oppressed and second class citizens to the majority grossly over populated Han Chinese, who have invaded and plundered Tibet
…so don’t cry victimisation and “xenophobia” and *niggas*…and try and play the guilt trip card…you will only fool the gullible woke and ignorant
https://www.freetibet.org/
https://freetibet.org/about/china-argument
https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-11-24/new-book-documents-china-s-exploitation-tibet-s-natural-resources
Glad you you could find the time to drop by TBD. Writing your weekly hagiography of Emporer Xi for the Blue Dragon newsletter must be quite time consuming. I guess the Chinese Embassy sees the baiting of any cheeky laowai who dare to question the authority of the motherland as being worthwhile.
China is only getting what’s coming to it for being a bully. As it’s about to find out, New Zealanders don’t like being bullied by bigger nations, especially ones with human rights records as dire as China’s. Both France and the US have been surprised in the past by the tenacity of New Zealanders in the face of injustice and unwarranted pressure.
China is stupid. It had New Zealand exactly where it wanted it. The National Party is in its pocket and is willing to put China’s interests above those of New Zealand citizens for cash. Chinese companies have had free reign in buying up New Zealand land and assets and bottle trillions of litres of New Zealand’s purest water for free. Up until a year ago, Chinese nationals were free to buy up as much badly needed residential property in New Zealand while New Zealanders had no reciprocal rights in China.
That’s all been jeopardised now because the Chinese Communist Party has thrown a tantrum over a building phone network they claim not to care about. So no, nothing xenophobic about it.
You know all this how? Don’t confuse feelings and hatred of people different to you, with fact. And of that’s your strongest rebuttal then as z country we are in a sad place.
Let’s cut off their water companies ASAP for offending us. We don’t benefit, so I am all for it.
Rather weird how people here think that NZ can do anything to China that will scare them. All they are saying is that if you want to trade with us its a two way thing. If not then we cant really be bothered and its not any skin off our nose. NZ may need China but they certainly dont need us.
“You mean those Chinese tourists who walk straight onto buses owned by Chinese businesses that operate the spaces they go to and the Chinese restaurants they eat at which we’ve just tolerated for the sake of meaningless and rarely ever seen by the locals ‘economic growth’?”
Yes, I guess you do.
They’d be the ones where driver’s working conditions and wages match those in China (and not those that are supposed to be upheld in NZ); and those Chinese restaurants where the Labour Inspectorate has ‘suddenly’ realised that there has been an Earth to Houston moment – i.e. exploitation is rampant.
I reckon Air NZ should probably review some of it’s route options and start talking to some ofO its Star Alliance partners.
Number of Visitors, Country of residence, 2018 (month of July)
Australia 121,984
China, People’s Republic of China 29,264
Yeah..its Aussies clogging things up actually..
file:///C:/Users/User/Downloads/international-visitor-arrivals-to-new-zealand-july-2018.pdf
How many of those Aussies were New Zealanders?
Yes but isn’t OZ our biggest trading partner and their Nationals have plenty of their own land and assets to buy up which Kiwis are free to purchase too… and Aussies don’t seem so keen on working for minimum wages or paying to work here, as they already have NZ residency and have higher wages and a welfare system in their country so are raising our wages not dropping them!
Don’t pick quarrels with your paying customers. Learn the lessons from South Korea and Singapore. You don’t have to sell out your values. Just stop being so self righteous. You will miss the $$$ when they are gone.
Haha nice one. What lessons should New Zealand learn from South Korea and Singapore? That China is a bully and it uses illegal trade barriers when it doesn’t get its way? The only thing New Zealanders are going to learn from this is that China is an malicious and untrustworthy trading partner.
The mantra of any self respecting drug dealer!
China is playing a dangerous game. If it really believes it can bully a sovereign democratic nation, albeit a small one, with the threat of economic ruin through trade warfare, it’s in for a few surprises.
It may be able to do some damage to the New Zealand economy, but that will turn out to be a spectacular own goal in the long run. Many larger Western democracies that are vital trading partners for China, despite its constant braying about new trade with Africa through Belt and Road etc, are watching closely. They’re already very weary of China’s unfair mercantilist trade practices and rampant theft of intellectual property. China’s bullying of New Zealand will only reinforce their doubts further and speed up the realisation that China is an untrustworthy trading partner. It will show beyond doubt that all countries need to minimise their economic exposure to China as much as possible.
Of course there are the usual Cassandras screaming about the folly of not bending over backwards to accommodate China’s every wish and demand in the manner of “Sir” John Key. Liam Dann is seems to be gripped by a terrible panic, running around screaming like Chicken Little. There’s that bloke who’s run a Beijing-based hedge fund for 34 years, David Mahon, telling us all how bad things are. His viewpoint couldn’t possibly be influenced by his business interests in China, could it? Surely there’s no way he’d be spouting the Chinese Communist Party line just to win its favour…And then of course there’s the Nats, who besides being owned and paid for by the Communist Party themselves, see a much needed opportunity to distract the public from their latest disastrous poll results, and a handy issue to cudgel the government with at the same time.
Finally, what’s the deal with Huawei? On the one hand its executives are claiming New Zealand is a tiny market and they couldn’t care less whether we buy their 5G technology or not. Or the other they seem desperate to be allowed to build this critical infrastructure here, to the point of running a comical ad campaign about how New Zealand wouldn’t be the same without rugby and how 5G can’t possibly survive without Huawei. It’s so embarrassingly bad, one can only assume it was thought up by the People’s Ministry of Propaganda in Beijing.
None of these things inspires confidence in China as a fair and reliable trading partner for New Zealand. Let’s do what we should have done years ago and show the Chinese Communist Party our nation’s middle finger.
Totally agree WIN, I find it hard to believe the xenophobia i am reading here.
While we are on the subject, “If it really believes it can bully a sovereign democratic nation, albeit a small one, with the threat of economic ruin through trade warfare”.
Ever heard of Venezuela??
“Ever heard of Venezuela??”
Sure have. However living in New Zealand makes what’s happening here a lot more pertinent right now.
Join the dots. Palese. If we don’t do as we are told, then we had better watch ourselves. Wakey wakey. The thing that saves us is that we don’t have masses of oil.
Are you implying that New Zealand is under threat of invasion by the People’s Liberation Army if it doesn’t appease the Chinese Communist Party’s every desire?
Crikey!
Fair enough Martyn get rid of our trading partners and all sources of external income for NZ. This sounds like the minimum wage argument. Make everybody happy by increasing the minimum wage. But wait. Hello, with an increase in the minimum wage we will have to put up prices for our products. But now the consumer wont be able to afford them. I know lets put up the minimum wage.
Frankly I think this has xenophobia written all over it. Few complained when everyone you met in as tramping hut was German. Perhaps the Chinese tourists go where directed because they don’t speak English/. Understandable really as the proportion of NZ business operators speaking Chinese is at a guess 0.000001%
NZ needs overseas trade to maintain the standard of living all those bureaucrats in Wellington and all the Jafa’s in Auckland have become accustomed to. The USA has been in an undeclared recession for years.( The current demonetization of China and Russia is a desperate attempt to prevent the de-dollarisation that is accelerating daily) The EU is a basket case and the UK could not find its way out of a wet paper bag. (unless Corbyn is elected) All the desperate attempts by the Western bankers to create a war in order to hide their malfeasance and blame the desperate economic situation of the west on somebody else have failed. ( Thank You Vladimir Putin, the greatest statesman in the world today.)
The only economic bright light is President Xi’s One Belt One road project and NZ can either get on board or watch as our overseas income declines, unemployment increases and society degenerates as fewer and fewer people are able to earn a living wage.
Perhaps the Chinese outrage at at being unfairly excluded from the 5G rollout is justified.
Great comedy writing there. It’s a shame Jono and Ben has been cancelled or you might have been able to pick up some work on the show.
As for xenophobia, how many German nationals and their elderly parents currently reside in New Zealand as permanent residents? Maybe 5? With mainland Chinese it’s 290,000 and they vote all National (despite having no voting rights whatsoever in their homeland).
I am pleased you were amused Simonm. Remember what I said and in a year or two you may have a different view, especially if you begin to take the bullshit mainstream media with a grain of salt.
NZ should not be letting rich people buy citizenship of whatever nationality. Immigration should have been based on such things as an ongoing economic contribution, not cash, needed occupational skills, refugee status, with limits, and family ties.
“NZ should not be letting rich people buy citizenship of whatever nationality. Immigration should have been based on such things as an ongoing economic contribution, not cash, needed occupational skills, refugee status, with limits, and family ties.”
100% agree. Would you like to inform the National Party too? Cash seems to be their only consideration when doling out permanent residency and citizenship.
NZ is already addicted to Chinese money. 15 years ago, China began infiltrating NZ. One of the first things they did was donating huge number of books to the Auckland University library, all published in China of course. Then they took over the Asian Studies Centre there and put China-friendly people in charge. Now they have bought much of our media and telecom business people too. If Kiwis do not wake up now, it’d be too late.
LI AN +1
Most of the articles I link to are warnings from migrants themselves who are being ignored about what might happen here, as those in NZ in power prefer to listen and promote views from foreign nationals or migrants who are in groups and networked who donate goods or services or have a lot of money for their self advancement.
Those migrants and others on the outer who might still be too scared to speak out against power interests (and where that is leading), do not have the same voice or ability and finances to promote an opposing viewpoint from the same nationality.
“I love how China thinks it can blackmail or bully sovereign nations into doing what it wants, and there’s not going to be any comeback” By comparison is it ok for America to bully sovereign nations into doing what it wants? Whether we like it or not the next century belongs to Asia and we have no say. Going fwd now would be be a good time to re consider our alliances
We have no say huh? Might as well just wait to be herded off to concentration camps like China’s Uighar minority then I guess.
We need to do business with China, same as with Australia or USA. That doesn’t mean that we need to follow their policies and choices. I agree and disagree with many of your points.
Agree:
China can not dictate our society rules. We can not accept their view of the world or definitely can not accept them mingle in our internal affairs. We need to be in control of our resources, our land, our country. We have huge cultural differences and maybe we will never understand them.
Huawei or any other newtwork company can not run NZ telecommunications. It was mistake to let them in in first place. It’s the cultural differences that’s the problem. In China is ok the government to rule all your aspects of life, We cherish human freedoms and individual choices. It’s total opposites and will be difficult to bridge that. This cultural differences were developed trough thousands of Year of different environmental and cultural landscapes. Will not change or merge in 10-20 years. So NZ stand for your freedom. No money can buy that.
Disagree:
As China can not change us, we definitely can not change them. Let them develop and live as their choice. What they do inside borders of China is not our concern. Can we ignore them ? How? Quarter of human population? Just because we have different values ?
We will work with them and do business. Hopefully this will improve our life’s and same theirs.
Conclusion:
We need to keep independent policies and stand to anyone that tries to control or influence us. Same, we can not push for any country to change because we disagree with their culture or social organisation.
Business, we need and we will work with all countries in the world and hopefully humanity will grow and prosper in a way that will safe our environment from total collapse.
Well said! Agreed! Just stick in our values and let them stick with theirs. As long as we cooperate well for the benefit on both sides and NEVER ever let them to blackmail us.
Viko: “We need to do business with China, same as with Australia or USA. That doesn’t mean that we need to follow their policies and choices.”
Exactly. A lot of sabre-rattling going on here in the comment thread, but you have pointed out the reality. We as a country need to trade with other countries: our economic survival depends upon it.
What we also need to do is to stay the hell out of the internal politics of the countries with which we trade. That’s what an independent foreign policy looks like. We ourselves take a dim view of other polities sticking their noses into our internal affairs; the boot is also on the other foot.
Enough with the outrage over China’s human rights record! Even supposing that we actually have a proper handle on what’s going on in Xinjiang province and elsewhere: it’s none of our goddamn business. What does anybody here think that we should do about it? Ride over the border as part of a coalition of the willing? You first, professor…and not my offspring, either. We cannot change the regime, or that country’s political arrangements; nor should we be so presumptuous as to think that that we – or any other country – should try.
Last I looked (and I’ve had a lot of years of life in which to do it), China has not started a war with another country, demanded that we join in with its invasion, and threatened our trade if we don’t fall in obediently with its military plans. But the US has done just that. I know which polity worries me more; and it sure ain’t China.
And even so, what happens in US domestic politics is also none of our business. It is a trading partner: that ought to be all.
“Huawei or any other newtwork company can not run NZ telecommunications. It was mistake to let them in in first place.”
We are being dictated to by the US over this issue. And it’s mostly for commercial reasons. If it isn’t Huawei, it’ll be US technology. And if there are backdoors in Huawei systems, you can bet your bottom dollar there’ll also be backdoors in the US technology. But on the bright side: given the crappiness of the US systems, they probably won’t work.
Martyn says: “Our Chinese Overlords are angry!”
Twaddle. It is the US which is our overlord – and has been allowed by successive NZ governments to assume this position. This is because our governments desperately want a FTA with the US, and will do anything the US demands, in the belief that this is how we’ll get what we want.
We won’t. It’s abundantly clear that – as a member of this household put it – the US will put a man on Jupiter, before they’ll give us a FTA that’s worth anything at all.
It’s well past time that NZ had a foreign policy that actually is independent.
Business with China…a warning for New Zealand
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wBxZRsNAMEo
They are damning the Mekong which will destroy (what’s left of) Cambodia. Nothing can stop them.
This is a bit over the top, we do not yet have Chinese Overlords, we may be in danger of having them, but it is up to the people to take a stand and not let this happen.
We may instead have a number of existing and potential ‘overlords’ or powers influencing us, or trying to do so, nothing else.
You are an idiot. I lived and worked in Asia for a decade and you have no idea what you are dealing with and your equivocations are naive and basic.
The idiot is you, with such a stupid comment.
All I am saying is, that singling out China is a silly thing to do, there are just as well other countries and economies that try to exert power over New Zealand, via trade and global strategic politics, and some may succeed to degrees.
Asia is a BIG place, so where in ‘Asia’ did you work, in Turkey, Iran, Siberia, Sri Lanka, India, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, Hong Kong as part of China, Japan, Taiwan, or even the Middle East???
You throw insults and accusations around, but deliver NO proof and qualified argument of anything.
What a stupid comment. If you have indeed worked in asia for decade, pity the poor people you work with your sense of superiority firmly in tact. I realise it’s not easy being an outsider but you do have to have a certain humility when living in another’s land.
“I realise it’s not easy being an outsider but you do have to have a certain humility when living in another’s land.”
Maybe someone should have Zhang Yikun that LOL!
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2018/10/16/279660/zhang-yikun-and-the-alleged-100k-donation
Having said all of that some kind of evidence that Huawei is up to no good would be very helpful right now.
But I maintain that NZ must not have all its trading eggs in one basket and China’s unpredictable unreliable nature when doing business is an outstanding example of why that is!
What they do to the Falun Gong and other minority’s should tell you all you need to know, why do you think Potus started the trade wars?
It’s so much better that we have USA overlords aye? They look like us and speak our language. And they’re really good at bombing countries, killing people and destroying places. They let the big guys off scott free. They have a very flexible version of democracy and I forget how many wars they steal fighting at the moment. About to start another one in Venezuela I hear. Yip and silly old China hasn’t had the gumption to invade any country recently. Heard the Uyghurs have ISIS members in their ranks. Perhaps that is the reason silly old China keeps an eye on them. I heard Xi had lifted 45 million people out of poverty. I know small drop in the ocean compared to the increasing numbers of Americans and New Zealanders living under the poverty line. Silly old China. Yes we need to be very afraid of their strong sense of business, industriousness and intelligence. Whereas with the US we only need to be afraid of their bringing democracy to the world not matter how many people are killed and countries destroyed.
It’s so much better that we have USA overlords aye? They look like us and speak our language. And they’re really good at bombing countries, killing people and destroying places. They let the big guys off scott free no matter what. They have a very flexible version of democracy and I forget how many wars they are still fighting. About to start another one in Venezuela I hear. Yip and silly old China hasn’t had the gumption to invade or destroy any country recently. But apparently they like coming here and doing business with us. But yeah nah they’re trying to take over the country.
Heard the Uyghurs have ISIS members in their ranks. Perhaps that is the reason silly old China keeps an eye on them. I heard Xi had lifted 45 million people out of poverty. I know small drop in the ocean compared to the increasing numbers of Americans and New Zealanders living under the poverty line. Silly old China. Yes we need to be very afraid of their strong sense of commerce, their industriousness and intelligence. Hey, with the US there is no need to be afraid. The US is only concerned with wars, I mean bringing democracy to the down trodden. No matter how many people are killed and countries destroyed. They’re our buddies – as long as we do as we’re told.
You just beat me to it WIN. Hey it’s all about the evil Chinee, no mention of our bestest buddies, those spreaders of freedom and democracy and there murder of many hundreds of thousands of innocent people in there economic / regime change wars all around the world. A special mention should be made of their good work in South America,setting up murderous dictators who then decimate there own people. But hey look over there at Tibet! From what i read, Huawei may have started off copying others phones etc. (who doesn’t) but there research and development is now world leading. As i stated in a previous reply, i don’t want the Chinese spying on my communications, (unproven) and i sure as FK don’t want the other lot doing so either(proven).
Better the devil you know. Really.
The Devil you know doesn’t care about you.
The Chinese (about whom you, I am guessing, know nothing about) given even less of a fuck about you. Much less than a fuck, in fact; you are in the way. They certainly do not care about your “human rights”. To start with, you are not Chinese.
Do we really want this lot as our major trading partner?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-west-ignored-crimes-against-humanity-in-the-1930s-its-happening-again-now/2019/02/15/d17d4998-3130-11e9-813a-0ab2f17e305b_story.html?utm_term=.0e849a51657f
The Washington Post used to be “the paper of Record” in Washington. Not any more. It was bought by Bezos the owner of Amazon and I think the worlds richest man. Since then it has become a partisan rag not worth anything.
Anne Applebaum is a propagandist for the Neocons and not worth the time of day either.
So it’s all made up, is that what you are saying?
Applebaum has made a career out of half truths and deceitful reporting. Here is an article written by her about the recent Kerch straight incident. It is full of absolute bullshit from start to finish. The Ukrainians deliberately carried out this provocation yet she incredibly accuses the Russians of a provocation. Ukrainian ships are allowed to pass through the straight but under an agreement, that was ignored on this occasion, they must stop and pick up a pilot. Standard procedure in many difficult to navigate waters. Lets also not mention that Ukraine politicians have advocated blowing up the new bridge.The whole incident was engineered by Poroshenko to boost his flagging electoral ratings and hopefully drag the US/EU into an escalated conflict. All his machinations were however masterfully de-conflicted by Putin.
This and other examples of Applebaum’s writing make it clear she is a war-mongering neocon of the worst sort so why should anyone believe what she writes about China
The missing Link
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/anne-applebaum-escalation-of-ukraine-crisis-was-inevitable-so-why-now-37573147.html
There is plenty on the internet about the plight of the Uyghrs that supports that article.
And a lot of it comes from similar sources.
The US propaganda machine also feeds a large part of RNZ “News”
That sure is a big problem John. Here’s 3 sources you can always rely on to report the truth in a fair and balanced manner with no hidden agenda whatsoever:
http://en.people.cn/
http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/
http://www.globaltimes.cn/
I’m a big fan of Huawei and AliExpress, though I also enjoy the American Military’s open access, GPS system and Google.
How about we just leave the 5 Eyes and get some 5G up in here? Such a beastly geo-political situation we are facing.
The Eastern Kingdom, I’m a fan .. Xi Jinping should aid/enable the gospel to be propagated in China. It would do wonders for them socially and economically .. just my opinion.
Ummmm, yeah, well .. it is what it is. New Zealand and China have both benefited from each other. This whole Huawei scandal could have been avoided if New Zealand gave better “Face” to China. Perfect task for Helen Clark to be involved in really.
I forgot the link
https://www.independent.ie/opinion/comment/anne-applebaum-escalation-of-ukraine-crisis-was-inevitable-so-why-now-37573147.html
A link like that hardly gives a fair view of what has taken place.
The US expansion of interference in other countries has many states over thrown after applied pressure of CIA regime change routines, including vast expenditure on subverting local political processes and public information flow.
Maybe this will be of interest
https://thesaker.is/the-wests-home-grown-threat/
An anti western propaganda article?
What does that have to do with the OP?
In a case of life imitating art, the Chinese troll army has invaded this blog post of Martyn’s and we are less well off for it.
+100…and much of the sophistry doesn’t make sense to ordinary New Zealanders…however anyone who reads this blog will see New Zealand certainly has a problem
The United States of America especially has become accustomed to being the universal and unitary Super Power. I think must people know this even though some people may be in cognitive dissonance over this. The truth is there are rising powers, Russia, China, African continent, but the are other rising powers too. One of the problems is we live in a state centric view of the universe. International relations for most of us is run by states, nation states is a global political unit of the international order and this is what we learn in social study’s as kids. But that is not the way the world has worked for most of human history.
Nation states are only about 300-400 years old. Before nation states there where empires and tribes and everything else. The rein of states to wage war and everything else legitimately is coming to a close. We are actually going back to a place of the anti status quo and the global order was a free for all of like the Middle Ages and antiques and what became before. And one of the things about that free for all is nation states wasn’t just super powers. In the Middle Ages rich aristocracy where super powers and we are going back to this world again so y’know we random billionaires today who have as much power as states, there are about 60 or so billionaires who owns half the worlds wealth. And we’ve got Fortune 500 companies who are more powerful than most of the states on the world.
Of the 190 nation states of the world most are fragile or failed. We only take the top 25 states like the U.S. G20, ect. But they’re anomalies, the vast motorists of states are more either regimes hiding inside states or are outright just rubbish fires. So what we will see in the future is those with wealth and political power who can also higher there own private armies now, become super powers in there own right. The world use to wage a lot of private wars in military history infect most of history IS privatised. Mercenaries have always been a major component of war and what happens is when you privatise war, military strategies blend with business ones. Blending strategies puts us all at risk because what happens is our 3 and 4 star generals and policy makers are not prepared for this type of warfare.
Mercenaries have been around for ever but about 150 years ago they went away for good. A lot of people say they went away after the 30 years war and stuff like that where mercenaries ran amuck where both rulers and ruled were both tired of them and rulers and kings started investing in there own armies which is now very expensive. Mercenaries are cheaper than standing armies just like it’s cheaper to rent than to own, and countries start to invest is armies of there own and there’s reasons for that, some are technological, some political but nation states have monopolised the use of force and over and mercenaries went underground around the 1850’s during the wars of decolonisation in Africa but they where always in the shadows. Now they are returning and they are upfront whether it be Blackwater in the United States of America or the Wagner Group for Russia which is a powerful mercenary group or Executive Outcomes for South Africa in the 90’s.
We are seeing mercenaries come out of the shadows and what can put them back into the shadows is one thing, if all the nation states of the world got together and band together as they did in the 1600’s and say no more mercenaries, which I think world peace would be easie, so I don’t think that’ll happen. Some people want to put faith in international public law, the UN and international laws of war but the truth is that international laws around war is already feeble and let’s not forget mercenaries can shoot your law informant dead.
Force is the only commodity that can not be regulated and this is what makes medina rise so dangerous and by the way who’s going to go into the Middle East and arrest all these mercenaries now? Will it be the UN? The US marines? They had there shot in Iraq and blew it. So I don’t think laws are the answer to this, I think the most we can do is shape the market and incentivise good behaviours and blackball bad ones. But the market for force thought out all of history had a brief hiatus but it is returning now and we are not prepared for this and it’s one of the biggest security threats of the 21st century yet we are still focused on ISIS.
In some ways CEOs have more to say about strategy in future private warfare than than does the pentagon and we are not prepared for this and we are not prepared for this. You’ve got think about mercenaries as a market for force with supply and demand, demand is clients and supply is force. Mercenaries don’t want to work themselves out of business, they want to start elongated wars for profit and when they’re out of work they become bandits creating artificial demand for there services.
In the Middle Ages for example one of the things a mercenary force would get involved in is racketeering and extortion. For example a small mercenary force shows up at the gates of a city demanding and they’d say we want 5000kgs of what ever, and the people give them all there gold just so you don’t sack us and take all our gold and the mercenaries say thanks we’ll be back next year.
Buzzard.
So a world awash with mercenaries is a world awash with more wars and the resurrection of private armies is symbolic and symptomatic of durable disorder because they will keep persistent conflict going and keep contributing to entropy and let’s not forget there are clients who are random billionaires and multinational corporations who will use private forces to secure their assets and people or they can wage war for what ever reason no matter how petty. No matter how petty. And having mercenaries in the world meeting with money lowers the barriers to conflict. It makes going to war easier, and it makes stopping war harder.
It’s sad how the world has declined into a place where money dominates everything – from domestic funding of political parties to foreign policy.
The idea that the global market is supreme, nation states should just manage the place of their nation state within that regime via corporate led FTA deals and faciliate the interests of coporate profit making over human rights – forsaking sovereignty, security and values for the sake of easier economic activity.
The irony that this makes transition from hegemony from one super power to another more seamless is lost on some (but not Trump and thus his nationalist rebellion against the international regime the US built).
Given we have professed to believe in democracy, human rights and multi-lateralism and collective security, the argument that we should not care about another regime’s behaviour, just trade (even when they use debt to take over land in other nations – debt imperialism, build fake islands to steal the economic zones of other nations, lie they will not militarise these atolls and then do, proving what they say cannot be relied on) is frankly nihilistic and amoral – the nadir of post modernism.
Sure it’s an irony that the fading super power that built the global market regime (for corporate profit making first) placing money at the centre of their order of rule has paved the way to being superceded.
And its hypocritical that an economic and military super power which leveraged security concerns to spy on the world via technology, now says its successor is a security threat if it has the same capability.
But 5G’s connection to smart devices means the risk ofmailious activity is now becoming higher. This quite apart from the concerns on the health impact on people and supplier connections to government perfidity. Let others be the canaries in the gold mine – kick for touch.
Comments are closed.