Jacinda Ardern went to the media to tell us all that the NZ/China relationship is lovely and wonderful and any suggestion otherwise is just fake news.
Of course she would say that because as Prime Minister she has to be diplomatic and because National and their right wing pundit troll farm are trying to enflame a tense situation, she had to poor cold water on everything to take back the narrative.
With screaming headlines and pundits claiming Winston Peters is dragging us into a conflicting foreign policy and examples of Chinese passive aggression turning up weekly what is actually happening here?
I believe there are 5 main things to consider in trying to work out what the hell is going on.
1: 5G is bullshit
Let’s just be clear from the beginning. 5G is bullshit and there’s no actual fucking need for it…
The ‘Race to 5G’ Is Just Mindless Marketing Bullshit
Buried beneath the hype around 5G rests a growing sense that wireless carriers are aggressively over-selling the technology’s potential.…so we are fighting for Huawei to put into place a network that won’t make a functional difference to the vast majority of people and it’s just something the big networks are desperate to endorse and implement so they can con consumers into using more data and pointless price rises. This is about Spark and Vodaphone’s profit margins first and foremost. Let’s not lose sight of that.
2: It’s TICS stupid
Look I appreciate the vast majority of people have no idea what the fuck the TICS legislation was, but because I was so involved in the protests against mass surveillance, I’m very well versed. TICS was the technological enabling legislation that gave the mass surveillance law real power. It forced every network in NZ to give the GCSB uninhibited access to every thing they do. A network is gagged from telling you the customer that they have handed access over to the GCSB and if a network doesn’t provide access, the TICS legislation allows for that network to cease functioning. The truth of the matter is that Huawei was NEVER going to give the GCSB access to their systems and because of that, the GCSB was NEVER going to allow them to operate here. Remember, this was a fucking piece of legislation the National Party rammed through so banning Huawei was their responsibility, not Labour’s.
3: Media manipulation
As I blogged this week, if I were China and I wanted to spin crap, I’d hire Matthew Hooton who amazingly had a column out claiming Winston was driving us away from China the week before it started to cascade out. This was all communicated in a Newspaper who earlier this year was busted promoting Chinese Government propaganda and has a journalist like Fran O’Sullivan who has been whipping up the China hysteria while not pointing out that she is a member of the New Zealand China council.
This has been whipped up by journalists and pundits who are very good friends with China.
4: National Party corruption
National are trying to claim this is a Labour Party problem despite it being their legislation (TICS) that banned Huawei.
It’s funny hearing National trying to make the geopolitical tensions with China into an issue, because are they doing it for NZs interests or their own?
Ex National MPs Jenny Shipley, Don Brash, Ruth Richardson and Chris Tremain are Director’s of the China Construction Bank, current Leadership challenger, Judith Collins had interaction with Chinese Officials to help her husbands Chinese Company, Oravida, gain more Chinese money and former MP Maurice Williamson’s love affair with Donghua Liu saw him become Liu’s personal handyman when doing up Liu’s batch and pressing the Police to drop domestic violence charges.
Let’s not forget the allegations of a Chinese spy inside the National Party caucus, or that a Chinese Businessman recently inquired about getting two Chinese candidates onto the National Party list after making a $100 000 donation.
Many National Party identities have private business relationships with China so watching National scream about the relationship with China starts sounding very self interested doesn’t it?
5: Hypocrisy of 5 Eyes complaining about China, buuuuuuuuut
The truth is that the mass surveillance powers of the 5 Eyes which was legalised by National have opened us up to the GCSB and NSA, that is the real danger to us, buuuuuut that doesn’t mean we want the largest totalitarian communist regime having that power over us either. We want less mass surveillance not more of it!
Personally I’m thrilled that China might be angered with us and will stop the unsustainable tourism, the incentivisation of intensive dairy and might be forced to stop stealing our water, but let’s remember that ultimately it was the National Party who put all our cows in one Beijing paddock here, so trying too make this out as a Labour Party fuck up is as disingenuous as Matthew Hooton pretending he’s a fair minded critic.
So, now we have finished angering China, can we start fucking America off?
Look, this is a geopolitical problem started by Helen Clark and her free trade deal, exacerbated by National and now has landed in Jacinda’s lap.
Paid Chinese goon Journalists and pundits scream it’s all Jacinda’s fault while ignoring their own vested interests and the National Party (who are nothing more than a front for Chinese business interests) are more worried what their rich Chinese mates who are also making them rich might have to say.
Yes there is a problem with China AND America, no it is not Jacinda’s fault – it is National’s for passing TICS and it’s for a 5G network that is bullshit anyway.
This is about corporate profit margins and vested Chinese interests, it’s not Winston or Jacinda’s fault.
Who ants to trade with such an unstable and self serving partner?
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-02-21/china-bans-coal-import-and-send-dollar-tumbling/10835136
Isn’t all trade ‘self serving’?
Australia has been selling coal (and iron ore) to China to acquire computer digits so people in Australia can buy stuff from overseas (a lot of it from China).
China has been buying coal (and iron ore) from Australia so China can manufacture goods to sell to places like Australia in order to acquire computer digits to pay for imports and wages etc.
China is Nazi Germany on steroids
Bit over the top eh Castro?
But a very different socialism, history and peoples.
China
….banning 23 million citizens from plane/train travel due to bad credit ratings.
…holding over 1 million Chinese Muslims in concentration camps.
…holding information on us all courtesy Israel/Russia
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7qdIWukjfA&feature=em-uploademail
China has a history of Anglo/ Euro / American colonialism and interference with sovereignty. Much of that has been overcome but with some distance to go. It has been a struggle with high costs.
US propaganda about China is echoed by states compliant with Anglo / US dictates.
USA – Highest incarceration rate per 10,000 in the World.
NZ has little to be proud of.
USA 655 imprisoned per 10,000
NZ 214 imprisoned per 10,000
Australia 172 imprisoned per 10,000
China 118 imprisoned per 10,000
So out of those 4 countries China has the the largest proportion of free citizens, over 5 times freer than the US.
There is always more than one perspective.
Deaths by firearms per 100,000 each year
USA 11.96 ( with DC being over 31 )
NZ 1.07
Australia 1.04
China hardly registers but Hong Kong 0.03
Brilliant thanks M. This whole China syndrome thing is sure a media and right wing National beat up, who as yet still have no answers for politicians 4 sale. Plus which, not impressed by China strong arm tactics, if that is what they are(turning planes back etc..)….for what exactly. Thanks again for this article.
Great Cartoon !!
xx
im not going to get into the potential health risks posed by 5G but if you think that its just going to be a fizzer why is it that the head of Huawei was arrested in Canada and why is it that the USA is so intent on stopping huawei in its tracks? Maybe the people linked to in 1 are the font of all technological wisdom but then again maybe they are just ignorant or maybe just trying to defuse the whole China USA thing in their own way.
The Uk has been working with Huawei gear for a long time now and has no problems with their hardware and Huawei is happily supplying the code used in the software. If the UK is happy then GCHQ must still be able intercept data at will so 2 is not right either. It doesn’t matter who supplies the hardware and the software code is shared so everyone’s spies can still do what they have always done.
The USA simply objects to China getting technologically ahead and losing the business that goes with that but it is very short sighted of them and will only shoot them in the foot. China will at a minimum get 5G in their own country and the ability to trial all the self drive and other applications that Martin thinks are overrated before anyone else. In the end, the big money from the internet didn’t come from building the infrastructure but from the applications like google and facebook and amazon etc.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/02/us-efforts-to-block-huawei-gives-china-an-advantage.html#more
Fuck 5G. Simon Mouter needs to stop singing its praises or Telecom/Spark will finally FINALLY kill itself by association with it. Can see why he’d think 5G can help their hopeless tech but really if you can’t do a basic portal for customers well you have no future.
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