Is it just me, or is the near total silence by the New Zealand mainstream media over the revelations that an alleged Chinese Spy inside the National Party bypassed official channels to set up a meeting for the Leader of the Opposition with the Head of the bloody Secret Police and then that Leader of the Opposition heaps praise upon China?
I mean, isn’t that kinda newsworthy?
When you add the extraordinary personal business relationships many National Party MPs have with Chinese businessmen, ON TOP of the direct donations from rich Chinese Businessmen to the Party, National looks less like a Political vehicle and more a front for Chinese Business interests.
Just imagine if a Labour MP was outed as a Russian spy, who then arranges for Jacinda to meet the head of the KGB and Jacinda then praised Russia.
Mike Hosking, the entire on air line up at ZB, the NZ Herald, John Armstrong, Matthew Hooton, right wing trolls, Colin the 67 year old brick layer from Christchurch, the bankers, the corporate farmers, fat bloke down pub and Christine Rankin would be openly demanding civl war to overthrow the Labour Government for Treason while printing Molotov cocktail recipes online alongside Cabinet Ministers home addresses.
Yet National do it, and the silence is deafening.
How is it that false sexual assault claims propagated by The Spinoff and Fairfax journalists can get never ending attention that damage Labour (despite being proven deceptive), yet National get a complete free pass on being a tool of a foreign power who is currently attempting to influence our entire region?
NZ is a client state of the US and China. Most of the economy is tied up with China, even if the US dominates our political and cultural institutions. So economics wins over politics and culture. Thus liberal democratic fig leaves are burn off exposing naked capitalism.
National acts in the ‘national interest’ of the national ruling class, hence the Chinese ruling class. Being allied to the agricultural sector it calls a spade a spade. Labour is lost with no purpose since it has spurned the workers and despite its most cringing efforts cannot win over the petty bourgeois parasites who live off workers wages.
Ultimately what happens to NZ depends in which class rules, the current ruling class servicing China, or a future working class in power that puts the survival of humanity and nature its goal creating a socialist future to rescue us from fire, flood and plague.
Martyn writes a couple of articles against the US attacks in Iraq, and so feels compelled to be fair and balanced and write a couple against China.
Martyn, one country is a long standing imperialist power, the other is not (imperialist, now or ever).
Both China and America have been experiencing ongoing transition since the financialization of the 80’s. We no longer identify people as mailman, factory worker, clerk, gas attendant, peasant, slum dog, and so on and so on. Increasingly people are identified as racist, bigot, fascist, transphob, elitist, greedy, rape apologist, and so on and so on.
That’s the problem with freedom of speech Mark. People are allowed to say what they think and believe, without fear of repercussions. Sometimes it’s the truth and it becomes undeniable (despite a few ham-fisted efforts by the CCP). I understand stuff like this is extremely embarrassing for China, which is why it goes to great lengths including kidnap, torture and murder to suppress it:
https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-a-million-people-are-jailed-at-china-s-gulags-i-escaped-here-s-what-goes-on-inside-1.7994216
If you’re so proud of Beijing and its “achievements”, why not move there? At least then you’d stop being a hypocrite who enjoys the freedom of (admittedly imperfect) Western democracy whilst spouting the joys of a murderous, totalitarian regime that has never allowed its people to vote, or have freedom of speech, in its entire “5000 year” history.
Democratizing China would tear a billion Chinese apart with identity politics. Beijing won’t tolerate that while locked in a trade war with Trump. Kiwi’s end up paying for increased tariffs because everyone has to retaliate. Our own exporters will have to raise prices so milk and butter and everything else will have to bare the burden of increased costs and competition.
We live in a clown world where big capitalists and dairy corporations lobby their friends The National Party, lying and case studies and lawyers, figuring out how to work out their arrangements and our job is to shut up and pay the price because that’s the system you and I live in.
You nailed it
I don’t believe that. Democratising Japan and South Korea worked just fine. Taiwan has that shown Han Chinese Mandarin speakers are perfectly capable of operating a vibrant democracy when given the chance. These 3 countries have some of the highest living standards in the world (for all their citizens, not just a well-connected few).
A democratic China could work perfectly well as an association of federated states that provides a high degree of autonomy to its minorities while still maintaining China’s territorial integrity. The population would always have a huge Han Chinese majority, so they’re always going to remain in charge. Japan has been governed by the same party (the LDP) for all but 3 years since 1948, and it’s likely China would be the same.
This would involve the CCP giving up its current complete control though, and that’s why the democratisation of China is unlikely to happen without the collapse of the CCP, or a people’s revolt (which is why China spends so much on propaganda and internal security). The CCP leadership won’t give up its power, mistresses and billions of dollars stashed Cayman Islands accounts without a fight.
simonm:
China has no such democratic traditions. China has its own story that is unique from western democracy so if they like something they’ll test it out. China has the greatest economic story in history. People believe that what is achieved will always be secure. I do not share that belief. I believe that once there is weak and ineffective government the whole progress will spiral down. Now the majority of China believe they have stability and unity so to will they have ideas about the Wests two party system.
Your argument is so transparent to Chinese that a first world economy must have a first world parliament with 2 first world parties so you can have 1.4 billion Chinese switch side when the other side does something that westerners find distressing. If ever China went down that road Id be very sorry for China.
5 million kiwis are so much more open and vulnerable to the influences of 1.4 billion Chinese that we must be even more open and vigilant to which ever forces are at work in our region. And we must save those forces for a rainy day whether it be foreign aid, investment, military partnership, trade, what ever. And when those forces are against us we must bring it all in and wait for it to pass.
When China comes to New Zealand for APEC to learn specific areas of management, NOT to learn about how we govern ourselves. China has its own ideas and concepts about how it will govern China but China finds us interesting for the way we have managed to keep our cities clean, to keep the people orderly, happy and with descent conditions and everybody have homes and food on their table and there for no anger or anxiety because people can’t find a home. It takes a life time to make a home which is a problem we have not solved yet we see fit to lecture others because we do not have a Ministry of Works where the government takes on the responsibility to Aquire sufficient land and finds every family a home at affordable prices.
Embarrassing my foot. The hullaboo about Xinjiang is simply propaganda put out by the US and its allies
Far more countries around the world support china’s actions in Xinjiang than oppose them, and many Muslim majority countries support China, while not one has come out and condemned China
So use your common sense. Who do you trust more? The views of Muslims themselves or the views of those who have murdered millions of Muslims these past couple of decades. Simply because your propaganda sources are white and western does not make them more valid than the opinions of brown, black, and yellow people.
Ahhh yeh right not like what your sayin don’t sound like bs Chinese propaganda, pull the fucken other one shill.
It’s just you, Wokester 😉 The only reason that Jian Young is still in No Zealand is because all of the No Zealand political parties are in the pocket of the Han Chinese dictatorship.
The idea that the Wage Slave Labour and No Zealand Groanz Parties are either remotely left-wing or good for the country is positively risible…
just keep tick-tocking until the underclass rises in violent fashion…
Factual news has been replaced by Vested Interest Opinion.
Guilt has been replaced in value and importance with “The perception of guilt”
If good kiwi folk are not prepared to play the game how National and their trolls play it, then we must in a big way call them out every time they put a foot out of line. Bullshit and dirty politics must be dragged out into the open and exposed for the festering turd that it is, even if that is just to educate all the trusting folk out there that believe all is above board and National Party politicians give a flying toss about our country and those that live here. They couldn’t possibly care less. I’m sure most of them go into the game wanting to do the right thing but power, greed and tribalism soon take over. It didn’t matter one jot that the farcical and alleged “Rock Star Economy” was total bullshit that was devastating NZ. All that really mattered was their greed and power ……. and of course “the perception” by some that there may be a “Rock Star Economy”. Quintessential National and False Economy. What it should really have read was “Epic Economy Mismanagement”
National and their supporters give each other high fives when they hear about a group of kiwis suffering via “news”. They couldn’t care less about their suffering. The desperate Nats celebrate it as they see their own chances of getting back into Government increase as a result. That mindset was previously seen as “treason”. Now, it’s called “The National Party”
Disgusting individuals, Hosking and Hooton etc etc etc are bigger enemies to NZ and the children of NZ than Kim Jong Un ever will be.
The Chinese takeover and infiltration of the National Party needs close analysis and attention and the CIA takeover of left wing advocacy groups associated with the Labour-Greens coalition does too.
Also, arguably, the takeover and infiltration and subversion going on at the local body level, in Christchurch and Rotarua and elsewhere, needs the same scrutiny.
Christchurch Mayors have been tied up with China since Tim Barnett. Moore was a big facilitator before Dalziel.
Money talks, if you annoy Beijing, then you don’t get the lollies.
Not just the MSM which are huge avoiders of real news but also dual nationals of China and often Hong Kong, seem to get special treatment in the NZ justice.
More controversial resources given to them in NZ, such as water rights signed off from the Greens,
more corporate welfare like $29m in compensation to Visy,
no interviewing of the driver who killed Carla Neems from work safe when a waste management truck (Chinese majority owned company) killed her near her own driveway,
The truck had no sensors due to cost (unlike other trucks), to alert known blind spots.
Their driver also found not guilty in judge only trial which work safe ‘investigation’ evidence was questioned. https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/112696703/inquest-hears-that-sensor-may-have-saved-girl-killed-by-rubbish-truck
examples – unusually light justice…
William Yan AKA Bill Liu to keep NZ citizenship despite money laundering conviction
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11905478
Queen St money remitter discharged after laundering Polish and Russian crime syndicate’s cash
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12260326
Chinese man who ‘tweaked’ boy’s penis blames ‘cultural mistake’, escapes criminal conviction
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12250317
Lawyers’ fees restrained by police after Auckland drug bust (Hong Kong nationals who somehow get permanent residency in NZ without ever having declared any income or paid any taxes to IRD in nearly 20 years while smuggling huge drugs into NZ)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11842563
This couple caught trying to fly out to China, got name suppression for ‘hardship’ while paying for a QC and having millions in cash in rubbish bags lying around and accused of a smuggling operation that avoided approximately $25 million in excise taxes over a three-year period.
– funny enough they get name suppression for ‘hardship’ for their kids and employees not to find out (presumably some of their employees are likely to be on temp visas and the police, immigration, not bother to investigate too carefully to find other crimes).
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/115014183/cigarette-smuggling-case-defendants-keep-names-secret-to-protect-children-employees
Chinese business man received $33,000 worth of stolen honey and was repackaging it, but only fined $17,500 – sounds like he was still $15,500 better off after being caught.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12077932
Likewise, Chinese buyers fined $847k after failing to get consent to buy $5m cliff-top Auckland mansion
(note they are still better off with their profit after being fined, so what message is that sending?)
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12011961
While other nationals are put in death camps in China https://www.news.com.au/world/asia/barbaric-torture-brainwashing-and-forced-organ-removals-inside-chinas-brutal-death-camps/news-story/d249c1daedbbf1aff02f1c92744e2d78,
in NZ – “We were truly shocked at the restaurant for their incredibly racist service.” over a coffee receipts in NZ … https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12202539
(note this example of a young waitnesses “shocking racism” sarcasm, even made UK news and has dozens of news stories about it, https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6689037/Restaurant-branded-racist-calling-group-customers-asians-receipt.html)
Meanwhile in Australia…
https://chinawatchcanada.blogspot.com/2019/10/chinese-to-take-over-tip-of-cape-york.html
We should know by now, it’s only newsworthy when Labour does it. So no surprise that msm are not doing anything with this issue, regardless of any threat it could pose to NZ sovereignty!
When it comes to challenging National, any objective msm journalism is non existent!
I’ll ask.again how much for the David Bennett National party advert that has been posted daily in the Herald? Does he get a discount having Nationals, Jonathon Youngs sister Audrey( Herald political reporter)on board. If their anymore transparent in their support for the National party, the Herald would be naked.
Corruption or a fund raising mission to China,either way Bridges is not fit for office.
The challenge with trying to sort this out is that it encompasses several main areas of concern, all of which impact on everyone in AO/ NZ, now and increasingly, into the future.
One area of concern is the NZ media.
– There is the question of ownership of our media, and the extent that we have, or lack, an independent media.
– Who are the foreign owners? Who are the corporate owners? What agendas are they running?
– What role do our media have in burying matters of interest to New Zealanders, particularly when these would have political ramifications?
– What spins do particular news outlets consistently put on the news?
– Among our media, who can we rely on for truly independent reporting?
– Are our news outlets accountable to the wider public, in terms of fair and honest reporting? If so, what protections are in place to secure this for the future? If not, how much transparency is there, regarding this?
Kheala all exceptional questions…the answer to one of them… the very rich and the very powerful who hold persuasion over right wing governments.
Stuff News is not too bad at the moment. They have a regular section on the Climate and environment, for example, and have done so for some time. My concern is that they (Stuff) may be bought up by the owners of one of the bigger money media groups.
Kheala – “Among our media, who can we rely on for truly independent reporting? ” Simon Collins NZH.
Ta Applewood.
Also Gordon Campbell of Scoop
Herald’s paywalling is a big problem to me. It is cutting out a section of our population from access to news. Not good at all!
Re the media.
The Christchurch Star a free rag that many of us get in our letterbox but that you can also pick up at your local supermarket, did not run any criticism of Dalziel during her campaign or since. Dalziel spent $30,000 advertising with them.
Another area of concern is, how much of our land, of the body of Aotearoa, do they own?
Is it really so difficult to keep some sort of register of this? And for that to be publicly available?
Vast amounts of our land are being sold continually (can get linked refs to show if needed) – usually in the name of “forestry” – often to companies based in Hong Kong. (There are other countries buying it up also of course.) Hong Kong, despite the protests there, is for all govt purposes, the same country as is snuggling up to Bridges et al.
WHY are we SELLING our land to them??? This seems utterly self-sabotaging to AO/ NZ as any sort of independent nation. We could lease the land out, for limited set times… We should not be doing anything more than that. It is not ours (the present gen. of adults) to sell! We are only the custodians, the guardians of the land. We cannot trade it, any more than we can trade body parts or living human organs.
It wouldn’t be very difficult at all to find that out (if there was a will to do so, which there isn’t). Land Information New Zealand has all of the information regarding the holders of titles of New Zealand land. This includes Overseas Investment Office information about all the foreigners who needed its permission to purchase land here. Much of that information will be hidden behind discretionary trusts of course, but this issue could be solved by requiring all trusts operating in New Zealand, or containing New Zealand assets, to publicly disclose their ultimate beneficiaries as a condition of being allowed to operate here.
All of the title records LINZ holds are now digitised so doing mass-data searches to find ownership information isn’t an issue. It would simply take the will to do it. I suspect the reason New Zealand has never started operating a foreign-owned land (and housing) register is because New Zealanders would be horrified to learn how much has gone into offshore ownership forever. This would be highly embarrassing for governments of both stripes, especially the blue team.
No it is not difficult to put together a register of land ownership in NZ, the databases are already there, just a matter of amalgamating them and requiring the beneficial owners of that land to register their interest.
10 million all up should put such a system in place. We can maintain a register of cars, after all, that is far greater and ever changing, than property.
Winnie campaigned on doing just this.
No political party wants the results to be known. That is the only reason we do not have a register.
“Winnie campaigned on doing just this.”
Yes, he did. I had forgotten. What happened, I wonder, to prevent it getting underway.
“Thank you Helen!”
Helen Clark has raised questions about this and Stuff has taken it up.
helen-clark-questions-national-mp-jian-yang-planning-simon-bridges-china-trip
Will any other news outlets follow this through?
By their responses, we may learn where they stand.
Except of course the Herald, which conveniently hides discussion of just about anything that would impact on the Nats behind their paywall.
Mickey Savage at The Standard has taken it up here:
thestandard.org.nz/simon-bridges-went-to-china/
Will any of the MSM break their code of silence? (Without paywalling it.)
Or is that demanding too much of their loyalties?
Stuff also link through to this earlier article (originally published in Newsroom).
bridges-opens-up-foreign-policy-divide-on-china
Excerpt:
“Few people, apart from the most hawkish of China watchers, are suggesting that we should cut ties entirely – but many foreign policy experts and politicians see cause for caution in how we interact with the Asian superpower, and striking a balance between economic gain and our national values.
“Whether out of naivety or deliberate strategy, National under Bridges appears to be taking a markedly different approach – and it is little wonder a foreign policy academic is expressing alarm at the chasm between the Government and the Opposition on how to handle China.”
Would it be possible to ask Prof Anne-Marie Brady to write a guest post on this topic? She knows more about it than just about anyone…
You left out David Farrar, Michelle Boag and Tova O’Brien.
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