Unlike much of mainstream media with a penchant to jump from one headline to another, and in the process leave what was a supposedly a critically important issue yesterday; languishing unresolved, I prefer to stick with the knitting – until it’s possible to get some idea of what is being produced.
In two recent blogs before 16 April;
WHO TO BLAME and IF GOD DEFENDS NEW ZEALAND; WHO DEFENDS CHINA?
I made a case for NZ to, “tread softly”, when dealing with China comes into the cross-hairs of Kiwis who want to blame COVID 19 on someone.
My note of caution, was predicated on the facts of trade stats – which unquestionably elevate China to; VERY IMPORTANT for the RESUCITATION of NZ ECONOMY.
Balance is important and in two other blogs; and this was my underlying message.
On 16 April, Hon Simon Bridges chaired a multi-party parliamentary committee on NZ’s Foreign Trade – Prospects Post COVID-19. And guess what? Yep! CHINA.
Matters addressed with some comments and conclusions included:
China takes significant percentages of New Zealand exports, as is shown by Statistics New Zealand data. For example:
Dairy – 33%
Meat – 41.9%
Logs – 58.3%
Wool – 46.5%
Seafood – 37.5%
Education – 28.5%
Tourism – 13.5%
These figures illustrate how dependent New Zealand is on exports to China, and how important New Zealand exports of agricultural products will be in the future. China will remain an important market for New Zealand, but New Zealand should not have all its eggs in the one basket.
New Zealand’s services sector had been “decimated” and that the tourism sector had collapsed completely. The latest WTO forecast for international trade made for grim reading. New Zealand was dependent on international trade.
Looking at the economic impact on the economies of the UK, EU and the US of the pandemic was so great that New Zealand’s relationships with these traditional key partners would be significantly affected.
I could go on. I won’t, other than to say: Time for many to put aside prejudice – which is ignorance- and face reality.
NZ needs to trade to survive. The above paints a pretty clear picture of where NZ must focus.
P.S. Enjoy the pseudo DOLE while it lasts.
Ross Meurant; a former high-ranking police officer, former Member of Parliament, formerly with commercial interests in Syria and Iran and currently Honorary Consul for an African state.
Yes we do want trade. What we don’t want are trade deals that smuggle tax havens and money laundering in through ISDS clauses.
Actually NZ imports nearly as much as they export from China. So the figures is completely misleading.
In addition there are always countries who need primary produce and NZ has failed in it’s domestic sales for years. Now when you go to the supermarkets increasingly there is less and less NZ food available to buy. From fruit and veg from OZ to frozen Chinese berries in NZ… ah oh…. NZ Milk is cheaper overseas than in NZ. We love to rip off NZer’s in NZ!
Latest figures show
The top export destinations of New Zealand are China ($8.79B), Australia ($5.61B), the United States ($3.61B), Japan ($2.39B) and South Korea ($1.14B).
The top import origins are China ($7.28B), Australia ($4.51B), the United States ($3.37B), Japan ($2.79B) and Germany ($1.88B).
https://oec.world/en/profile/country/nzl/
But when you work out that the companies exporting products are increasingly owned by overseas companies in particular Chinese and Australian companies that are increasingly importing in overseas workers to the tune of 300,000+ temp workers per year, that the NZ taxpayers support the health and well being of and then often give residency and the dole to. NZ is being sold a croc!
Then work out all the social and environmental harm coming from China, like Meth, PSA bacteria, Covid, Milk scandals, Mainzeal, the free water given away during droughts, the fake degrees, our increasingly dysfunctional society with constant crisis for workers and residents …
Is appeasing China more important than NZ’s public health, sovereignty and human rights?
Increasingly by NZ officials are prepared to sell our country out for the small price of a primary industries that increasingly are mostly owned by Chinese companies operating in NZ in the first place!
What is in store for us when the next Chinese scandal hits…
cos all the scandals seem to help China, and bankrupt their partners while China picks up the company on the cheap.
If the figures are accurate how can they be misleading??,,,
Let me put it this way ,,,, how do you turn milk into a I-phone or personal computer?.,,, the answer at present is Trade ,,, with China.
And your list of Chinese ‘scandals’ ,,, is strange to say the least,,, and I’ll deconstruct some of its hyperbolic non-sense.
Meth ,,, Its made all around the world ,,, if China did not exist New Zealands Meth market still would ,,, perhaps you would be happier if we imported a product which probably costs 50cents to manufacture but sells here for $500 ,,, from Mexico,,, or the usa ,,, or Australia,,, or Germany ,,, Spain ,,, South Africa etc etc etc….. https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/660/cpsprodpb/1094D/production/_108471976_95214ef6-d0b9-462c-98e9-9d0a86f2d135.jpg
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PSA Bacteria ,,,, This was a NZ bio security failure ,,,, National CUT the budget and resources for NZs bio security when last in Govt …. Also what was the name of ‘Kiwi fruit’ before marketing and advertising types from ‘Turners’ gave it the ‘Kiwi’ name ?? ,,,, “Chinese gooseberries” ,,, “Despite the name, kiwifruit are not native to New Zealand. Seeds were brought to New Zealand in 1904 by Mary Isabel Fraser, the principal of Wanganui Girls’ College, who had been visiting mission schools in China.”,,, So a country of origin having diseases is no different than England live-stock having foot&mouth disease ,, or Scrapie https://teara.govt.nz/en/photograph/17436/scrapie-scare
Covid ,,, blaming china for the nature of viruses is absurd ,,, blaming them for the failure of the usa, uk etc ,,or conditions of the impoverished third world ,,, is the cynical exploiting the ignorant ,,,, https://youtu.be/5x_pIgvDLcg?list=LLbE5hpEbiUutWYXzuWg0_TA
Milk Scandals ,,, Apart from Fonterra getting burnt after being involved in a milk scandal when Helen Clarke was PM ,,, apart from that, the lack of faith in Chinese dairy products is partly why NZ ones are in demand and exported to China ,,, ie their milk scandals makes our milk MORE valuable.
Mainzeal ,,,, A New Zealand company with Chinese directors like that ‘Jenny Wong Shipley’ ,,,, although a bent China man and white collar criminal was involved in Mainzeals Enron like behavior ,,, its a ultimately a NZ company governance and regulation failure.
NZ Water ,,, NZ regulatory and resource management failure.
Fake degrees ,,,, NZ fraud and corruption.
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The real problem for ‘ low- corruption’ New Zealand ,,, is that this is a myth.
Like Sky City we enable and help the most corrupt and worst that China, or the world, has to offer. We’ll take and wash their money.
We launder cash for the biggest crooks in the world.
And much of what is wrongly labeled as ‘investment’ into New Zealand ,,, including Chinese buying our farms or milk plants ,,,, is actually asset stripping. Using John Key of John Shewan type ‘creative accounting’,,, using all types of tricks ,,, the ‘investments’ are set up to always lose money, on paper ,,,, and never pay any tax.
Again this is regulatory failure on our part ,,,, making it illegal for bossiness based in tax haven to ‘invest’ in NZ ,,, or some other regulations would solve this
Reason who do you think now owns and in real terms runs, Silver Fern Farms, Convita, Wrightsons… in NZ
Who owns our forests?
Increasingly it’s not the Kiwi’s who profit from our own national resources…
Then all the scams…
The businessman and the stolen honey: Sheng Sun sentenced over 480kg mānuka heist
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12077932
Migrant worker speaks out against exploitation at rural Reporoa holiday park
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/118329341/migrant-worker-speaks-out-against-exploitation-at-rural-reporoa-holiday-park
Cigarette smuggling case: Defendants keep names secret to protect children, employees
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/115014183/cigarette-smuggling-case-defendants-keep-names-secret-to-protect-children-employees
Lawyers’ fees restrained by police after Auckland drug bust
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11842563
It ain’t the NZ shareholders profiting from the China relationships…
Poor Drug lords, they can’t get their Meth ingredients from Wuhan one of the biggest (state subsidised) manufacturers of it with all the disruption…
Coronavirus: ‘Cartels are scrambling’ as Covid-19 hits global drug trade
“Huge amounts of these mail-order components can be traced to a single, state-subsidised company in Wuhan that shut down after the outbreak earlier this year, said Louise Shelley, director of the Terrorism, Transnational Crime and Corruption Center at George Mason University, which monitors Chinese websites selling fentanyl.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/121121233/coronavirus-cartels-are-scrambling-as-covid19-hits-global-drug-trade“
Back to all the cheap food from China being sold in NZ supermarkets instead of domestic produce.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_safety_incidents_in_China
Cracking down on China’s dangerous fake food sector
World’s biggest producer and consumer a hotbed of industry fraud and malpractice and poses a threat to public health, says supply chain investigator Mitchell Weinberg
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/china-fake-food-sector-unlicensed-products-knock-offs-supply-chain-contamination-public-health-a7880341.html
There is zero accountability for China’s role in the horrific food scandals and viruses that regularly occur and now being exported to everyone else by pro Beijing companies around the world.
NZ supermarkets are importing in cheaper Chinese food that has a history of harmfulness… Chinese food is cheaper because corners are cut.
With Covid, everyone else is now paying the price around the world for China’s greedy and unregulated food scandals which used to only wipe out their own nationals which is disgusting, but now an international concern and being exported around the world by greedy pro Beijing supermarket chains and importers that don’t care about the supply chain and history of food scandals when they can sniff a cheaper product out.
There is a reason a product is cheaper from China.
I agree with a lot of what you write saveNZ ,,,, but feel you are China concentric as to the causes ,,,and that will only offer up the wrong solutions.,,, thats wrong solutions,,,, not wong solutions
There are plenty of crooked and corrupt Poms, Yanks, Germans, Dutch , Russians etc etc etc ,,,, who are all ready ripping us off ,,, or linking up with our home grown corrupt crowd ,,, they will gladly step in to any vacant spots should China depart.
Technically the Aussie banks are our biggest foreign land holders .. and probably the biggest money funnels for NZ wealth leaving the country ,, and they have the most capacity to ‘crash’ our economy.
Have a look at the top ten share-holders in things like our privatised electric power companys ,,, Last I checked names like Goldman Sachs and other usa speculators cropped up.
In other words, If we think of New Zealand as a prostitute ,,, you just seem to be moaning that we have to many Chinese customers.
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Pre- Covid, Corporations and manufacturers were talking of moving production away from Chinese sweat-shops ,,,, to places which were Cheaper ,,,, ie cheaper sweat-shops and even less regulations.
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The ‘Stuffed’ news article you linked to about drugs was a disgrace …
News Flash ,,,, ‘huge amount of lost income lowers discretionary spending on drugs ” ,,,,
And then it contained this Pure usa sick ‘Stuff’.
“Trump announced earlier this month that Navy ships were being moved toward Venezuela as part of a bid to beef up counter-narcotics operations in the Caribbean following a US drug indictment against Nicolas Maduro.”
Refuted from about the 4 minute mark in this video “US Treasury is running ‘mafia racket’ against Venezuela- Ex UN anti-narcotics chief & mob expert” https://youtu.be/ZwTKig34KEI
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Anyway speaking as part of the great new zealand prostitutes collective ,,, I say its OUR pimps which are the problem ,,, not just one segment of our ‘customer ‘ base.
Balance and not putting all eggs in one basket are two shining thoughts for illuminate the path for NZ. Good words Ross M.
Well said from a man of real experience instead of these morons in Government.
Thé changing Landscape od Media wasnt mentioned but important.
How we get our News.
This Is good commentary but thé Narrative og mainstream Journalism needs to change.
Our Wood products Are Shitte.
We need to include emmissions in all food materiál Exports.
Screw china, no more exports to them period full stop. No more election bribes for our politicians with CCP money, no more cheep badly made imports from them, frankly if i had Trumps ear id be advocating a full nuclear strike, fuk im up now before they hit first.
WWG1WGA
” frankly if i had Trumps ear id be advocating a full nuclear strike, fuk im up now before they hit first.”
Rickoshay sounds a few beers short of a six pack ,,,,
But at least he understands what a war with China means ,,, there have been some other posters who have a different vision of what war with China would entail ,,,, https://youtu.be/i1QfTOiH6Tg
Don’t blame rickoshay entirely reason, he/she was probably brought up playing call of duty or some other murrican crap where millions of innocent people are “collateral damage”. He/She would make a good partner for heather roy, who advocates murrican limited nuclear strikes??? Although to this day in her ignorance i think she was getting confused with the obscene depleted uranium munitions used by the spreaders of freedom and democracy in there invasion of Iraq.
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