HOW SHOULD NEW ZEALAND make its way out of the Covid-19 crisis? More and more powerful and influential players are lining-up to answer that question. At stake is considerably more than the nation’s physical and economic health. Domestic policy choices cannot avoid having foreign policy consequences. Covid-19 has further deranged what little remained of the US-led post-Soviet world order. Faith in the American hegemon is faltering and the OECD Club’s fear of China is increasing by the day. Aware of the pivotal role the Chinese play in maintaining the global economy – not to mention their own – America’s European and Australasian allies find themselves torn between the equally urgent demands of their US patron and their own populations.
The situation in Australasia is particularly fraught. A major regional player, Australia stands resolutely alongside its American “mate”, dutifully repeating all of the United States’ foreign policy and defence lines. That China absorbs at least a third of all Australian exports is known by Canberra’s elites, but somehow this central economic fact of the country’s economic life is simply excluded from its diplomatic and military calculations. At some point – and perhaps quite soon – this central contradiction at the heart of Australian foreign policy will become critical. If Canberra chooses Washington over Beijing, then the Australian economy will tank. If it chooses Beijing over Washington, then Australia will be plunged into a profound identity crisis.
New Zealand’s economic wellbeing, like Australia’s, is dependent upon its exporters’ access to the Chinese market. Unlike Australia, however, New Zealand’s foreign policy establishment has so far managed to avoid taking a side in the growing stand-off between Washington and Beijing. Wellington is neither as diplomatically nor militarily committed to the United States as Canberra. As a consequence, it has substantially more room for diplomatic manoeuvre between the two great powers. In the present, highly volatile strategic environment, that confers a considerable advantage.
In Washington and Canberra, however, Wellington’s diplomatic manoeuvrability has become a source of considerable aggravation. It would suit the Americans and the Australians much better to have New Zealand safely and securely in the “ANZUS” tent. In geostrategic terms, a US-aligned Australasia is crucial to Washington’s new “Indo-Pacific” plan for containing China’s ambitious “Belt and Road” project. It has become a matter of some urgency, therefore, to facilitate a decisive shift in New Zealand foreign policy towards Washington and away from Beijing.
In conformity with the maxim that it is shameful to let a good crisis go to waste, the pro-Washington faction within New Zealand’s foreign policy establishment has persuaded the University of Canterbury to oversee a “pop-up” think tank dedicated to assisting the New Zealand Government “devise a resilience strategy that will ensure New Zealand’s independence and sovereignty are protected during the Covid-19 pandemic and after.”
The think tank has been “popped-up” by SSANSE (presumably pronounced “sanes”) an international research institute dedicated to exploring the challenges facing “Small States and the New Security Environment” (i.e. the world since Russia and China stopped playing nice). Based in Iceland, with funding from NATO, the institute would likely have passed without notice in this part of the world had it not been for the prominent role played in SSANSE’s activities by our very own Professor Anne-Marie Brady.
Professor Brady is, of course, the academic face of the campaign to reorient (if you’ll pardon the pun) New Zealand foreign policy away from Beijing and towards Washington. Alongside her fellow SSANSE directors and co-directors, Professor Margarete Šešelgytė, Professor Baldur Thorhallsson and Professor Alan Tidwell, Brady composes the “Editorial Board” of the new think tank. Its pitch is nothing if not portentous:
“The global environment has not been so challenging for New Zealand since 1942 when British forces in Singapore, who were New Zealand’s shield, fell to the advance of the Japanese. New Zealand must now face up to the national security risk of the Covid-19 outbreak. The current situation poses a risk not only to New Zealand, but collectively, for our Pacific, Five Eyes and NATO partners, as well as like-minded states who uphold the international rules-based order.”
With the Chinese clearly taking the place of the Japanese in this grim geostrategic scenario, and the “One Belt, One Road” project standing in for Imperial Japan’s “Great East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere”? If New Zealand’s economic survival wasn’t at stake, this sort of re-heated Cold War rhetoric would be laughable.
Professor Brady is not, however, without powerful friends in high places. Not the least of whom is New Zealand’s Foreign Minister, Winston Peters. Since his in/famous “Georgetown Speech” of 15 December 2018, Peters has made it clear that he, too, favours redirecting New Zealand’s diplomatic effort away from the nation that takes the lion’s share of this country’s exports and back towards its traditional friends and allies – who don’t. The Foreign Minister referred to this reorientation as “The Pacific Reset”:
“The Pacific Reset […] reflects New Zealand’s response to the increasingly contested strategic environment in the Pacific in which more external actors are competing for influence. This calls for close cooperation with Pacific Island countries, Australia, the United States, and other partners with historic links in the region–countries such as Japan, the EU, UK and France–to uphold values that we share and want to promote in the region; values like democracy, good governance, greater women’s participation, and above all the rules based systems on which the region relies.”
There they are again, those “rules”. The same ones, no doubt, that sanctioned the illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003!
Was it just one of those incredible coincidences that the man who heads up the Center for Australian, New Zealand & Pacific Studies at Georgetown University (which hosted Peters’ visit) is none other than Professor Alan Tidwell, SSANSE Co-director and Professor Brady’s associate on the editorial board of the University of Canterbury’s pop-up think tank? No greater coincidence, I’m sure, than Professor Brady following Foreign Minister Peters on “Newshub Nation” last Saturday morning. If you missed it, Peters used the occasion to voice his support for Australia’s call for an inquiry into China’s mishandling of the Wuhan outbreak of the novel coronavirus we now know as Covid-19.
Australia is about to pay a high price for once again shouldering the burdens of America’s “Deputy-Sheriff”; and unless the growing influence of the pro-Washington faction of our foreign policy establishment is stopped in its tracks – so will we.
Covid-19 Timeline.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6oHncQaSaBU
Let’s face it, the main reasons the US was able to achieve worldwide dominance after WW2 were:
1. It was never devastated by high explosives the way Britain, France, Germany, Italy, the USSR, Japan, China etc. were.
2. It wasn’t bankrupted the way most European and some Asian nations were. Britain was so weakened by the war it had to eat humble lie at Bretton Woods in 1944 and accept the dethronement of the Pound as the global reserve currency. Indeed, the US grew richer out of selling weaponry and chemicals to other participants and making loans to other participants in the war, the most notorious being that made at an outrageously high interest rate to Britain shortly after the end of WW2 after Churchill went on a begging mission to American financiers, who had refused to support the newly-elected socialist government; it was only the prospect of a communist government eventually taking charge in Britain that swayed the American financiers.
3. It still had large stocks of unfelled timber (despite centuries of deforestation), and still had a lot of highly productive farmland, despite poor farm practices that had lead to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s. The Ogallala Aquifer was intact.
4. It was the biggest extractor of oil in the world.
Well, by 1971 its convention oil extraction had peaked and was in decline, leading to desperation attempts to prop up the flow via drilling in Alaska, and off shore, and in more recent times fracturing of rocks beneath the surface (fracking) to extract the last pockets of oil and gas available.
It was around that time that the US government was getting so seriously into debt (Vietnam War) that France asked for payment in gold, which led to the closing of the ‘gold window’ and decoupling of the money ‘printing press’ from anything tangible. From shortly after that America began ‘printing its way out of trouble’ with the certain knowledge that there would always be demand for US dollars, since all oil traded internationally was traded in dollars. That was until fairly recently, when several nations decided they could trade in other currencies and the US found itself unable to clobber them the way it had clobbered Iraq for the same ‘transgression’.
The cheap oil that flowed from America’s wells in the early part of the twentieth century incentivised the mechanization of farming, and deep ploughing that led to severe soil loss became standard practice, along with heavy dosing with pesticides and herbicides that killed off much of the soil life, and great dependence on artificial fertilisers. Overproduction of cheap grains led to factory farming of animals in confined spaces, and that led to proliferation of diseases that were (are) controlled by large doses of antibiotics.
The flow of cheap oil also facilitated the construction of vast regions of suburbia and distant from places of work, and to the terrible strip malls that characterise the American urban landscape.
Cheap carbohydrates (courtesy of farm subsidies) led to an ‘epidemic’ of obesity and other poor-diet-related conditions like diabetes.
For-profit healthcare has resulted in America spending the highest per capita in the world whilst generating some of the worst outcomes. It is similar in the education sector, where high levels of spending result in generally low levels of achievement. America is so backward it couldn’t even cope with adopting the metric system of measurement (adopted by most of the world by the late 1970s).
Trees are dying across America, partly because of increased stress, as temperatures fluctuate like never before and severe inundations are followed by severe droughts. And the severe droughts lead to unprecedented fires.
The American military has been backward in its thinking (aircraft carriers) and new weaponry is more about the continuing bloated profits of corporations that the actual performance of the machine or weapon. Thus, the Americans are secretly terrified of the high-velocity, super-accurate missiles the Russians (and subsequently Chinese, Iranians and Indians) have developed, as they languish at sea in their overpriced, archaic Covid-19 incubators.
Who won the war? Well as far as actual battles and real sacrifices are concerned, the answer is, of course, the USSR, with is 27 million or so casualties (versus 350,000 or so American, the largest portion of which were killed attempting to carpet bomb Germany in daylight).
Why would any nation want to align itself with the fragmented collection of states that is in severe decline because of a plethora of bad choices and an essentially corrupt political system, whereby whoever has the most money to spend and is prepared to tell the biggest lies gets to be elected?
Well put together AFKTT.
I am familiar with some of the phrasing so well found I think.
The US has changed since WWII and not for the better.
During WWII the US used NZ as a base for marines sent out to the Pacific, and for recuperation of marines withdrawn and repair of vehicles.
One thing was plain to Kiwis close to both these camps and the Pacific theatre, was the the US had little regard for the lives or welfare of their young marines. They had plenty more to replace them.
Racism was rife among the Marines and their command. A family friend working at the McKay Crossing camp saw a “Black” marine kicked to death for using a non black urinal. The MPs took no action but were nearby.
In a landing exercise off the Paekakariki coast young Marines from inland states were sent ashore in over six feet of water in full battle dress complete with weapons, to drown as many could not swim. The camp was closed to Kiwis that day as the exercise was on, but open to Kiwi workers the next day. The drownings were official secrets for years but Kiwis picked it up from surviving and grieving friends of the drowned lads.
You missed that two nuclear bombs were dropped on Japan after terms of Japanese surrender were negotiated but not agreed to by the USA. After the bombs were dropped the US agreed to those earlier terms of surrender.
The lies we hear today is that the bombs brought about the Japanese surrender.
Strategist see the bombs were dropped as a warning to the Soviet ally who had played the biggest part in Germany’s defeat at great cost. The US had designs on “Russia” hence the cold war instigated by the USA / UK command, that still stands in a different guise..
Now it is China that is the new target and the USA will have a second go at China after being kicked out after WWII.
Thank you for the anecdotes, John.
Indeed, towards the end of WW2 Japan was desperately short of fuel for aircraft and ships, as its nearest source was the then Dutch East Indies and few, if any tankers got through the American submarine blockade. Unable import food and unable to obtain much from the surrounding seas (the US had near-total control of the air), the population was slowly starving and would have collapsed in a matter of months.
The USSR had defeated Nazi Germany and overrun half of it, having taken the capitol. It was ready to turn its attention to Japan
Having spent a vast amount of resource producing atomic bombs, the US was keen to test their effect of detonating them on buildings and people. Several cities had been spared the firebombing that Tokyo experienced so that they could be used as targets for ‘the experiment’.
Although still officially an ally of the USSR, the US was eager to demonstrate to the USSR what would be in store for Russian cities if the USSR refused to play the game the way America wanted (much as the British had done with Dresden to demonstrate to the Russians what the RAF was capable of).
Yes, the ‘wrong kind’ of Chinese emerged as the winners of the ongoing civil war that was interrupted by the Japanese invasion of China. The so-called Nationalist stole the gold, hightailed to Taiwan, killed the Taiwanese who resisted, and took over. Hence the unstinting US support for Taiwan for decades and the demonization of China until it suited the US to exploit the cheap labour and resources China had to offer.
We should also note that the ‘wrong kind’ Italians took control of their own country at the end of WW2 (and had to be deposed), just as the ‘wrong kind’ of Greeks formed the first government and had to be deposed (in that case by the British) and the ‘wrong kind’ of Koreans formed the first government there and ‘had to be deposed’ by the US, which rushed troops from occupied Japan to depose the socialist government and install the right kind of puppets.
And let’s not forget Iran, which had been a passive ally through WW2 but elected the ‘wrong kind of government’ (socialist) in the early 1950s, and which demanded renegotiation of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company (forerunner of BP) deal that amounted to looting of Iran: Britain and America conspired to take down the Mossadegh government and installed the vicious dictator Sha Palavi to ensure the oil flowed in the right direction at the right price.
The overthrow of the Shah and the disastrous American intervention in 1979 put Iran in the permanent ‘rogue state’ category, when, of course ,it is the US that is the rogue state, having toppled an almost uncountable number of governments, having invaded an almost uncountable number of sovereign states and refused to participate in numerous humanitarian agendas -from banning landmines to refusing to acknowledge to International War Crimes Court to refusing to participate in carbon-reduction agendas.
As far as the Americans were concerned, WW2 wasn’t about defeating fascism but about deciding which group of fascist would rule the world.
The take over of state banks being another target.
“The first victim of war is truth” Winston Churchill
The UN Secretary General has called for an international ceasefire to deal with the corona virus pandemic.
But the UN Secretary General’s call for an international ceasefire apparently does not apply to the US Superpower and the UK ally.
As with the war in Iraq which was based on a lie that weapons of mass destruction were being held in Iraq. Both the US and UK governments claimed that the existence of WMDs in Iraq was confirmed by both countries intelligence communities. Which was also a lie.
Now both Britain and the US are making similar claims against China.
The US and UK government’s are alleging that the Chinese Government deliberately created the corona virus Covid-19 in a lab. Without any evidence this conspiracy theory has now been raised to the level of fact.
The inference of this conspiracy theory, now publicly promoted to fact, by Mike Pompea, is that the Chinese Government knowingly released this bio-weapon onto their own people to let it spread to the US to ruin China’s main military and trade rival.
https://www.dailydot.com/debug/coronavirus-china-lab-origin-theory/
https://www.nydailynews.com/coronavirus/ny-coronavirus-mike-pompeo-alleges-wuhan-lab-started-pandemic-20200503-h75edzbadbcgzlzezhtgifyky4-story.html
While this new world war may initially be a trade war, (at least for now), the New Zealand economy which is heavily reliant on trade with China, may be the second victim of war after truth.
It is not so much whether China intentionally or unintentionally created the virus. China has a responsibility to do it’s best to stop a pandemic from spreading. They didn’t.
China arrested the doctors who first sounded the alarms! They should be internationally disciplined for both human rights abuses and destroying the world’s economies as well as compensate the world for their inactions that led to so many deaths.
Wuhan virus was not the first virus coming from China. They had Sars and others which are linked to ‘wet’ markets and often black market trade in wild animals. The world did not learn a lesson last time and now we are all paying for it. China is very well known for it’s appalling food safety standards to add to it’s appalling human rights standards which the woke lefties LOVE to ignore. So easy to focus on the easy and not stand up to a superpower that rewards those that spread propaganda and threatens those that stand up to them.
WHO were late in calling the pandemic apparently because rumours are that they were that they were frightened of offending China, and thus having cosy meetings with President Xi Jinping during the crisis when it was downplayed initially.
AKA this link shows on 28 January WHO was having meetings with President Xi Jinping and downplaying the pandemic while at the same time, link number 2 shows China was stockpiling billions of PPE from other countries which is very dishonest when they are down playing the disease to other nationals and WHO concurrently.
WHO, China leaders discuss next steps in battle against coronavirus outbreak
https://www.who.int/news-room/detail/28-01-2020-who-china-leaders-discuss-next-steps-in-battle-against-coronavirus-outbreak
The problem is, that many countries wait for the ‘pandemic’ signal from WHO that was left too late and thus countries were unprepared and many more deaths can occur.
Once the pandemic signal hit, it turns out that medical equipment and supplies were being sent back to China from countries like Australia and stockpiled.
China stockpiled more than 2 billion surgical masks and essential medical supplies, many of them from Australia, in a global panic buy.
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/revealed-china-stockpiled-2-billion-face-masks-and-25m-medical-items/news-story/5304e5a5080bd4087e4a9be9de210b97
Second company sent ‘90 tonnes’ of Australian medical supplies to China
Exclusive video shows surgical masks at Perth airport being airfreighted to China last month during the peak of the country’s outbreak.
https://www.news.com.au/finance/business/second-company-sent-90-tonnes-of-australian-medical-supplies-to-china/news-story/be74b7679d7c8cb910d0f34713b2f008
They then used their influence to avoid responsibility by making up reports of racism that is being used around the world as propaganda for China. (Notice our MSM are full of it this morning to make out china to be such victims!)
EU ‘watered down’ report on Chinese disinformation about Covid-19
Foreign policy chief urged to explain claims that report was altered under pressure from Beijing
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/27/eu-watered-down-report-on-chinese-disinformation-about-covid-19
“Groothuis told the Guardian that the EU appeared to have “caved in on substance”, as he said an earlier version of the report had provided details of false Chinese government claims. For instance, he said, it reported untrue claims from China that 80 French politicians had signed a statement using a racist slur to denigrate the head of the World Health Organization.”
“China should be internationally disciplined” What a laugh that statement bought to me. Sounds like the US state department has a voice on TDB. They’re a super power now – it won’t happen.
It’s funny how having watched this saga unfold it has not been my impression that China withheld any information . The local authorities sanctioned the doctor who first raised the alarm that there might be a new virus involved with some or one of his patients , but once the central government got onto it they centured the local authorities.
The way the Chinese government then addressed the problem , which was well reported on, was all anyone could possibly ask for in terms of a warning. In fact I thought at the time and I still suspect that they deliberately and very publicly over reacted with the deliberate intentions first of demonstrating to the world their capability of responding to such a crisis ; building a 1000 bed hospital in less than a fortnight and closing dow a massive city overnight, and the reports of monitoring people in place was impressive . And the rest of the world sat and watched and did basically nothing until cases started turning up elsewhere. And in the second case to spook a reaction in the US which they knew the US couldn’t handle and that their economy was a stack of cards waiting to collapse , and that trying to emulate China’s response to the virus would trigger that collapse. All as part of the trade war Donald Trump has entered into with that country.
Can any one identify just what it was they knew and kept secret from the rest of the world?
D J S
” It is not so much whether China intentionally or unintentionally created the virus ”
I would add America into the mix here.
They seem hellbent on accessing the labs in Wuhan and they have been known too test their created viruses on their own soldiers.
Not into conspiracy theories but…this COVID19 is not behaving like a natural virus.
Just a thought.
You’ve drunk the MSM narrative, which is a diversion. The problem is not China, but the reaction of most govts and the lockdowns. We have 250k global deaths so far. Even if that doubles (unlikely), that is less than the number of annual flu deaths in a bad flu year (up to 600k). I have some questions about the role of Bill Gates in all of this, which our negligent media won’t answer or investigate. He is the second largest donor to the WHO after the US and the largest private donor to Imperial College UK (aka forecasters of 500k UK deaths and 2m US deaths without lockdown and architects of the lockdowns). Not plausible, given Sweden’s approach showing a better per capita result than lockdown UK. He has major shareholdings in vaccine producers and is applauding the lockdowns, etc. So, why is a non-govt person with clear conflicts of interest dictating global health policy? Kind of makes the Iraq WMD fraud pale in comparison. If someone in the private sector corrupted regulators they would be charged and possibly jailed. Gates is obviously above this. Something stinks about this and China is the convenient scapegoat.
The Chinese conspiracy theory where US military sports teams trained at a mothballed US germ warfare base before participating at the world military games in Wuhan in November is more plausible. In this scenario the teams were staying at a hotel only a few hundred metres from the wet market. The teams infected the hotel staff who then passed this on at the wet market. Interestingly there were more cases at the hotel than the market. This also fits with teams attending the games being from subsequent hot spots such as Italy and Iran and the outbreak of a new type of pneumonia noticed in Italy and several other countries in November. All in all a much more exciting story and explains why the US is trying so hard to blame the Chinese. Most likely explanation though is poor hygiene at a market selling exotic animals with diseases that would not normally be considered fit for human consumption.
Your 50 cents is in the post Sir!
Yep it’s WAY more complex than the American propaganda, support by our own prostitute media (Presstitutes) make out.
The USA refuses to allow international access to their closed Bio lab (due to leaks), that as you say then sent a team to Wuhan etc.
Plus the USA via Dr Fauci (the present USA darling) paying China to research Bat Covid virus and HOW TO MAKE it more transmissible to humans (re: Gain of function research) !!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6y8dlhoMpo&t=2162s
…..not much in the media about these sort of claims.
Totally disagree, it’s stupid dichotomy thinking aka China or US as NZ’s only options!
For a start the world has 193 other countries for NZ to trade with and trade is not the by all and end all, especially when increasingly profits going out of NZ are NZ’s biggest exports.
In addition the type of businesses that are being promoted in NZ are polluters (aka construction, dairy, air/cruise travel, or socially poor businesses, liquor stores, dairies, cigarettes, retail stores whose products end up in landfills within a year, takeaways and fast food for our 1 in 3 obese to expand).
Increasingly businesses in NZ don’t employ Kiwis at very high wages, or at all, but expect the country to keep providing support for 300,000 new workers per year for them to throw onto the state to support when things go wrong (which they do constantly), and thus creating massive costs and risks born by the state for other nationals businesses to prop up their often non taxable residents profits.
The more that NZ gets in with China and US as their only options the worse off and more dependant we get.
NZ should look towards Australia, the Pacific and other allies (aka Britain, Canada) and EU which are more closely aligned in terms of values of a social democracy without major racial tensions and genocides and corruption levels and who have a social welfare system and free health care to turn to.
In addition NZ visa/welfare/trade conditions should be reciprocal to the other nations for it to work. Aka NZ needs to amend it’s OZ residency to reflect OZ changes to NZ, especially after Tarrent. You can’t have NZ supporting OZ welfare while OZ does not support NZ welfare and encouraging OZ’s poorer/messed up nationals here to inflict their fantasies while taking up NZ housing, health care and welfare while they do it.
Likewise recent asian pensioners are supported even if they pay no/little NZ taxes and just come to NZ to receive the generous welfare, free retirement care, winter payments, free public travel and free health care, to them here for circa 30 years, not available to Kiwis in China/India/ Anywhere else retiring there or even there own nationals. Poor NZ Nationals could do with the welfare we currently give away. Gosh I wonder why there is an explosion of Asian pensioners in NZ?
NZ has become a disaster of supporting other nationals for nothing who don’t need or deserve it, while throwing it’s own nationals under the bus into massive poverty – poverty that we have never seen before in our entire history.
Before Rogernomics and neoliberalism there was little unemployment and no homelessness in nz.
Neoliberalism and our reliance of China/Asia has created a massive risk going forward and you get the feeling NZ’s governments from the last 30 years will go down in history as being one of the most greedy, naive, totalitarian and stupid with the decisions they are making, removing human rights, removing freedom of speech, reducing educational rigour, giving away NZ citizenship and residency in massive levels to people who are likely to be a burden on NZ for the rest of their lives and exploit others going forward which seems encouraged in NZ, giving foreign/local businesses a blank check and think trickle down will work. Hasn’t worked so far in NZ in 30+ years!
“Totally disagree, it’s stupid dichotomy thinking aka China or US as NZ’s only options!”
Exactly what I was thinking as I read through that article. We do not have to be either / or. We can be neutral and carry on as we see fit for the moment. Like a south seas Switzerland.
Political neutrality with treaties negotiated with many countries globally but not compromising our neutrality nor sovereignty.
We defied the thugs with our nuclear testing opposition then declaring a nuclear free zone. Both worked well in gaining new friends and distancing the perpetrators of war.
100% correct well said SaveNZ
“The world is my oyster” so wake up to those who fear Chinese bullying.
Concur 100% with your sentiments saveNZ. Cheers.
I agree that we should trade mutually with other nations but that still leaves the problem of what we do about China and US. For a start we should reverse the enormous increase in our recent military budgets because such increases are provocative. The military purchases will nearly all come from the US. What is China to make of this? We really need a foreign policy of strict neutrality and accept that New Zealand has no realistic hope of defending itself from either the US or China and no-one will come to our aid to stand against the two super-powers.
Nothing about our mosquito military spending is provocative. Kaiser Wilhelm was provocative.
SNZ
Right with you on most of that but never let a bit of enthusiasm blunt a story.
Good stuff overall. Thanks
I’ve long suspected Professor Brady’s academic integrity. Yesterday she was wheeled out once again to drum up hatred of China and promote Taiwan particularly as a bubble partner
Good luck with that
China saved our butt after the 2008 GFC, bulk buying our milk powder.
The vilification of China is being used as a coverup for imcompetency and to advance the geopolitical aims of a dying US Empire
Interesting also to see that France has recently reexamined the samples of a pneumonia victim as early as Dec 27 ,2019 and found that person to have died of Covid 19
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/04/french-hospital-discovers-covid-19-case-december-retested
Read the article
At present no obvious links with China
Western consumerism should be an expensive past time but it’s not because people are being taken advantage of elsewhere. In New Zealand alone we purchase half a billion dollars of cheap Chinese made plastic trinkets every month and throw it away in half the time. The west is extremely inefficient and wasteful. So we do have to put in place closed circuit economic scaling and what is closed circuit systems? Well it’s any commercial industry with the only emissions being heat and water vapour and dust.
Right on Sam and with all products recyclable with low energy use.
We don’t need landfill material.
Commercial construction waste is the majority of landfill bulk. We are running out of landfills.
@francesca – you have an impaired memory and I guess the 6 dead babies and 54,000 hospitalised babies are collateral damage? 2008 Chinese milk scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_milk_scandal
Fonterra doing so well in NZ…sarcasm!
Fonterra posts $605m loss, turns business upside down https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12271028
Low dairy payouts drove Westland Milk to sell to China’s Yili – chair
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12214051
OK so deaths of babies, hospitalisation of babies, record losses and forced sales has been good for NZ farmers and consumers, when the nationals that have the biggest milk scandals and food risks somehow seem to be taking over the world’s supply of milk and other foods from idiots like NZ that fall into their trap of businesses partnerships that are more part takeover to bankruptcy to full takeover.
China made millions after buying our milk at rock bottom prices just like when Muldoon pleaded to
Russia to buy our butter during the slump after the late 1970’s do you remember that?.
So you love Russia too for that reason also?
Yes the USSR supplied us with rugged little Lada cars.
Also motors and transmissions for our NZ grown Trekka, when all other motor manufacturers refused to help Trekka.
I’ve long suspected that Professor Brady is a closet racist. OK sure, her husband is Chinese and her children are half Chinese, but I think they’re probably just window dressing to aid her deep cover as a secret CIA plant with a mission to embarrass China and hurt the feelings of the Chinese people.
Can see your point de view.
Fran, I find it is usually enlightening to research the history of any mouth piece such as Brady. and their associations.
The Brady Bunch! Orf with her head! If theyre linked to Winston & NZF. I think NZ voters will need to set them adrift …
Lets see how much traction this will get between Aust. & NZ.
China is in this up to their neck and it smells to high heaven. All the major intelligence agencies are finally coming out with the Wuhan Lab accident/non accident version of the outbreak and also the main fact – China and the WHO covered it up which directly led to the pandemic. This will soon become official and all number of countries ain’t gonna be happy bout that. What a shit thing to do. Fuck China, I don’t care how important they think they are or how much trade we do with them. Worldwide business has prostituted itself with China trade to make the extra profits and I think a major redirection of manufacturing is coming and possibly even war.
I have believed right from the start this a China cover up, ever since Italian doctors discovered Wuhan people were infected in mid November and freely traveled to Italy in large numbers. Again, Fuck China.
Do you mean all the major intelligence agencies that brought us the bogus stories about Saddam Hussein’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’?
@aom, if you are referring to America and Britain then yes I suppose it’s the same Intelligence agencies – CIA and MI6. Australia and New Zealand support investigating this outbreak i.e The Wuhan Lab. Italy was the first to point the finger at China, they were being decimated by Covid19 and needed to know how this happened. Italian Doctors were blaming Wuhan travellers in November, were infecting the population.
A Professor Epidemiologist did an article stating exactly that. China didn’t close off travellers to Italy and elsewhere for like 6 weeks. I think this will all come out very soon and effected countries will make the same call. Lets just watch.
Hang on – Italy knew about it in mid-November? Why is there no fuss about Italy not providing research for WHO, or containing or eliminating the virus instead of exporting it throughout Europe and presumably the US? Also, was it China’s obligation to stop people travelling to Italy when they may at that stage have had no understanding of the nature of the virus, or was it Italy’s obligation to warn the world to close down borders since they were seemingly up with the play before WHO? Sorry, your logic and evidence of ‘facts’ is just a bit elusive.
No aom – China new about it in November and did sweet fuck all. Italian doctors worked out what had happened in the midst of there onslaught.
I wish I’d kept the article, it was on MSN when Italy case numbers were sky rocketing up to 10,000 and everyone’s going WTF? Like I said, lets see what comes out.
That is beginning to sound a bit more grown-up than your original ‘Fuck China’ diatribe.
One thing about this issue is that China will be pragmatic. She needs our milk powder , or at least wants it, and will continue to buy it in the long term even if she stops and starts a bit to apply pressure. She also understands that we are a tiny country at a huge disadvantage when it comes to defying our huge traditional “friends”. So I think as long as we are not stupidly antagonistic towards them we will be able to work with them.
On the other hand what is happening to America ? The “Rules Based order” is something the US constantly and comprehensively treats with scorn and contempt. Almost none of US foreign policy actions come within any recognised rules that the rest of the world respects, and the result is that the US is rapidly gaining the contempt of the rest of the world. At the same time as it is hollowing out it’s own economy with the colossal expenditure on it’s murderous wars all over the world. While it’s own population and it’s own infrastructure as becoming third world in standing.
We should sit on the fence as politely as possible and see how the cooky crumbles which it is about to do.
D J S
Hear hear
So what exactly are you saying Chris? That we should fall under the umbrella of China? A country that is run by a thug regime that, as I write has over a million of it’s citizens in concentration camps because they prefer their religion to communist diktats.
Are you the sort of person, who in a previous era, was an apologist for Stalin or Pol Pot?
My view is that this virus is an opportunity to prompt us into recognizing who our friends really are. I would happily forgo the Chinese made offerings in the Warehouse in order to join an informal union of liberal democracies including Australia, Japan, the UK, USA as well as rising SE Asian countries that are also liberal capitalist democracies.
I have no objection to NZ trading with China but there must be recognition that their products are made with a form of slave labour. My friends and I will be carefully reading the label on any products we buy in future and are prepared to pay a few dollars more for manufacture elsewhere. It doesn’t need government action – we can just shun them as individuals.
Oh and we must block further purchase of land or fixed assets by the communist Chinese in NZ.
Shit Andrew, well said. Totally agree.
No Andrew. That we should create a South Pacific Trade, Finance, Customs, Defence and Security/Police Union out of the bones of the Pacific Leaders Forum.
It’s fools gold to try and go back to globalization when Trump has destroyed any hope of the U.S ever being the global cop. So we are going to have to do more unilateral trade deals.
I’m no fan of Blair’s and Obama’s globalization!
I’m all for international trade but it’s obvious the Communist Chinese leadership have been gaming the system these last 20 years.
What the fuck “gaming?” You have no idea about that word! When I see hotel stocks up while at the same time tourism is dead Yknow 100% the game is rigged. If you truly want to gamble then play the stock markets. What China does is super annoying because it’s with in the rules and the rules are rigged and now that you China can play the game you want to flip the board and well sun shine you just go right ahead with your small little plans.
Of course the USA isn’t run by thugs, is it Andrew? Mike Pompeo is the very image of an intelligent and refined statesman who bears not the slightest resemblance to a Mafia Don. And how could we forget that political paragon in the White House: President Donald Trump? A man who wouldn’t know what being bitch-slapped by Russian oligarchs even meant – let alone felt like. Then there’s the US prison system – full to bursting – which bears no comparison at all with the prisons of Xinjiang. Oh, Andrew, the things a girl has to do to keep her pimp happy!
Spot on !!!
I have been trying to remember who he reminds me of! It’s Tony Soprano of course! Only Tony was quite likeable in a villainous way wasn’t he.
D J S
This is called ‘whataboutism’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism
Sure the USA is far from perfect, but it’s not a one party state that runs concentration camps and harvests organs from its prisoners.
+1 Andrew, also brings up good questions, what happened to our trade with Japan, at one stage a big export market to NZ. They love quality food in Japan, not the cheapest. Although I do not approve of the Japanese whaling, it’s better than stealing organs https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-forcefully-harvests-organs-detainees-tribunal-concludes-n1018646 and forced labour camps for the Uygur. I’m not buying the not so cheery Xmas cards https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/dec/23/inside-chinese-qingpu-prison-forced-labour-claims-tesco-christmas-card
Seriously tell me with all the human rights abuses, even before the entire world is in lockdown, why do the woke love and defend China! Stockholm syndrome, blinded by the money too or really believe propaganda that the organ harvesting, human disappearances, Uygur, pollution, milk/food/lead/asbestos scandals are just racism against the poor superpower and therefore justify their constant adoration, letting off responsibility and support?
+100 SaveNZ. Reminds me of the defenders of Mao and Stalin – look how those guys turned out!
Andrew you surprise me.
Slave labour? Where
Perhaps in NZ as well.
While putting together any important information on the China / NZ relationship, may aspects need to be given balance and perspective.
“over a million of it’s citizens in concentration camps because they prefer their religion to communist diktats.”
Where did you get that from,
Very similar to disproved reports from US agents used as propaganda. There are two main Muslim groups in China and one is linked up with middle east “terrorist” groups armed and sponsored by the good old USA while the other larger group with Muslim traditions (Hui) mix in with the Han population. Muslims have been in China for over 1000 years.
The USA has a million and a half prisoners incarcerated while having a total population of less than a quarter of China’s population. NZ imprisons more than China on a per capita basis.
There is always more to it than what reporters write.
Quite some time ago i started to question the motives of Anne-Marie Brady. As i have stated before i hold no particular brief for China, but do try to understand from where my propaganda is being fed. As Anne-Marie Brady has been Martyn’s go to for anti China statements for a number of years now, i attempted to search her affiliations.
The main one would appear to be the wilson centre, an american organisation based just down the road from the white house. Unfortunately i cannot lay my hands on it at the moment, but am sure that in my searches i found that at different times, various cia directors etc. have been members of the centre. Anne-Marie Brady as part of her wilson centre affiliations is a member of the kissinger institute on China and the United states, that name alone should send chills up the spine
It would appear that the “we don’t need China” brigade are very soon going to find out if we do.
But hey don’t worry, our bestest buddies the usa will take up the slack and allow our imports in.
Anne-Marie Brady may or may not be aligned with western quasi-agencies/influence centres, but it doesn’t necessarily negate what she is saying. NZ’ers need to get real – all great powers play exactly the sort of games she has been writing and speaking about. China is just better organised and effective at it at the moment, as the West is desperate to take their money and running scared of upsetting them as a consequence.
It has an eerie parallel with the zionist governments in Israel. They spend loads of money to influence world opinion, including covert operations around the world (even spying on their erstwhile funders, the USA) to shape opinion so they can keep oppressing the Palestinians and steal their land.
This is the sort of dirty shit bad governments do. China and Israel do not operate nice governments – just look at their human rights records. It’s inevitable that people with such poor morals will stoop to exactly the things Ms Brady is pointing out. If you believe otherwise, you are exceptionally naive.
GAP
Yeah right!
But don’t hold your breathe unless our sovereignty is signed away with a TPP.
Perhaps some of the Chinese Communist Party’s valiant defenders on this site would like to explain to this: As we now know, the highest levels of the Chinese government (up to and including President Xi) were aware by at least January 14th 2020 that Covid-19 was both transmissible between humans and highly contagious:
https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/409795/no-need-for-travel-restrictions-china-s-ambassador-to-nz
Given that she made these statements over one month later on FEBRUARY 18th 2020, I look forward to an apology from China’s ambassador to New Zealand, Wu Xi. She can apologise to both PM Jacinda Ardern, who she unfairly chastised for closing the border, and to the people of New Zealand for the vast economic and social damage China’s cover-ups and obfucsation about Covid-19 have caused to this country and the rest of world.
It’s the rule of the jungle. Other than those willing to sell out their fellow man for a few bucks, we pretty much all know where we want to be: Free healthcare, free life education, sovereignty, rule of law, peace, welfare safety net (not bottle), public transport, clean environment, etc. The question is how to get there – especially when more powerful parties would rather take the wealth required to create that society and keep if for themselves (internal and external). It’s a real challenge. What is the leverage that external parties use? Oil, Play Stations, the threat of liberation, state sponsored terrorism. I fear that for a country as small as New Zealand the only ultimate protection is an effective (submarine) nuclear deterrent. I can’t imagine the left going for that.
Unfortunately that doesn’t work on de-stabalising influences within the country, e.g. the MSM. State control (not necessarily funding) of the media is obviously off the cards. Perhaps the best thing is to play one side off against the other. That is essentially what happened after the war (for Western Europe). The powerful allowed the workers to share in the wealth because each side (mainly the Americans) knew there was an alternative. By the end of the 1970s the USSR was no longer an alternative and the gifts (welfare, education, democracy, unions) were taken off the table.
As bad as the Chinese are, at least they tend to (because they have to) give something in exchange for what they take, e.g. in Africa they build a road, dam or hospital. The Europeans just use to take it (usually at the end of a weapon).
It’s a tricky one. Perhaps it will just have to go full circle like before. We had social democracy because of the war and soviets, we had the war because of the depression and the destruction of unions, we had that because of globalization. My fear is that the next war will make the second world war look like a game of tiddly winks. After that there will be only one choice – survive.
I believe Einstein said, I don’t know what WW# will be fought with, but WW4 will be sticks and stones.
Thank God we survived the TraitorKey period.
LOL John Souker, “the threat of liberation” or the spreading of freedom and democracy!! Agree 100% with your reply.
The only security environment we should be in is one driven BY New Zealand FOR New Zealand.
Not for China. Not for the United States. Not for anyone else.
Of course that will come across to many as purely idealistic thinking. But we have a few indisputable factors working in our favour. The first is our geography – from China or the U.S. to Auckland is a good several hours at 40,000ft. The second is our neighbours. Whilst the Pacific Island nations are small and easy pickings for China or the U.S., if we invest in them properly and see their well being as integral to OUR well being, that along with our geographical location and understanding of these little countries, will help cement our relations with our immediate neighbours.
And then there is Australia. We need them and they need us. That shores up the Tasman Sea.
Where we need to do more work is with Canada, Taiwan, South Korea, Chile and Singapore. Whilst we are on good terms with all of them and Canada and Singapore have additional Commonwealth links, those relations will only continue if New Zealand sees them as an INVESTMENT and not an item for the EXPENDITURE column.
We have become too close to China. How we get Beijing’s many tentacles back to an acceptable location, I am not sure, but Beijing, like Washington needs to be kept at arms length.
Environmentally the US and Chinese businesses operating in NZ both seem bad. The sooner we are rid of these kinds of businesses and business owners – the better.
From illegally-constructed dams helping make our rarest bird extinct, illegally constructed on public land by the Tara Iti golf course development company associated with US billionaire Ric Kayne. The company also has consent to take up to 146,000 cubic metres of water – the equivalent of 58.4 olympic-sized swimming pools – from the stream each year until 2034.
https://www.newsroom.co.nz/2019/12/19/953508/dam-delays-half-soon-half-later-maybe
No problem more is in the pipeline!
Mr Kayne was last week granted Overseas Investment Office (OIO) consent to acquire 169 hectares of “sensitive land” at Te Arai South for almost $3.5million. https://localmatters.co.nz/news/38142-golf-mecca-planned-te-arai.html?fbclid=IwAR3MVYR9bQIvUBJn2xIXLbDv5Kqn2G-N3vTfL6h-t9ca9X7bfIGxV8dRjkU
Crime pays if you are a billionaire in NZ with the OIA, councils and environment court giving polluters the green light to do whatever they want in NZ!
Another blunder by the Greens!
Not to be outdone, the Chinese pretty much are scooping up as many agricultural companies to create mega intensive farming and use the public waterways and coasts as their cow toilet and applying for occupying public coast marine area for 35 years while they do it.
Wonder why our oceans and water is declining in quality! Why pay when you can just occupy and fill public areas with your private profit waste and if anything goes wrong well, too bad NZ! That profit for overseas profiters is more important than the publics and long term environmental risks.
Oceania Dairy wants to discharge 10 million litres a day of treated wastewater into Pacific Ocean
https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/117493826/oceania-dairy-wants-to-discharge-10-million-litres-a-day-of-treated-wastewater-into-pacific-ocean?rm=a
Luckily Chinese owned Tegal failed in their bid to stink out an entire town (for now).
“Once the development is finished there will be 40 tonnes a day of litter, excrement and dead birds burnt on the site and this will discharge a constant stream of toxic contaminants through two chimneys towards our marae and the surrounding environment,” the statement said.”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/auckland/104516436/northland-marae-takes-on-tegels-chicken-farm-proposal
Bankupting Mainzeal and stealing from subcontractors..
Mainzeal’s Yan says NZ laws don’t apply in China, won’t pay back $18m
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12271022
And of course we all know that if you are a billiionaire in NZ the NZ justice system will just drop all charges against you if you fail to show up in court. It’s not just the US and Chinese citizens, it’s the Russian’s too.
Russian billionaire Mikhail Khimich’s drink-driving charges dismissed
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/crime/120396897/russian-billionaire-mikhail-khimichs-drinkdriving-charges-dismissed?fbclid=IwAR3iWIfC3Obp5nTBB5vKqD_0Lc0owr6zs4DQID_4pPAqv0oE7qN6G1G_qv8
Take local businesses like Waiwera from the community for years as you fail to do anything with and wreck once thriving business here https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/108098450/waiwera-pools-in-hot-water-as-owners-repossess-property.
Maybe it’s time NZ stopped hero worshipping other nationals, many who are so entitled, they seem to spit on NZ and do anything they like here once gaining residency, while doing the opposite they claim when applying by bankrupting local business, and polluting our environment, making our native extinct, to make huge profits here.
NZ needs to get a grip, support our own nationals, and cancel any new residents and citizens who fails to behave responsibly to the NZ community at any level, while living or operating here. There should be a higher standards expected for foreign nationals living here, not zero standards and a free ride off the backs of our country.
It’s time to play the music, it’s time to light the lights, it’s time to meet the muppet on the Muppet Show tonight. . .
Whenever we see the cutesy academic next door Anne-Marie Brady, wheeled out on MSM all dressed up in front of the bright lights with her makeup on, you know it’s time for the Demonisation Of China Show.
A show brought to you by Washington, starring a shill for the US deep state Anne-Marie Brady. Brady is nothing less than a CIA asset – bought and paid for NATO apologist and propagandist pig dog. No amount of lipstick on the pig can hide the evil agenda she is pushing & represents.
I wonder what a hot war with China would be like? End of Humanity?
I wonder what a cataclysmic asteroid strike on Washington, and all her military bases around the world would be like? A gift to Humanity?
Where do I donate for the asteroid.
Vaughan M: Nah. Anne-Marie Brady’s contribution has been to make us read about how the PRC government works to influence NZ’s politics and media and to control those things among the Chinese-New Zealand diaspora.
I think a lot of New Zealanders would be glad to see us reduce our exposure to the PRC. We’re a tiny state. Create strategic alliances. The worst place we can be is where everyone imagines we’re stuck between the PRC and the US. That’s a colossal failure of imagination. But a significant part of our political and business elite are sucking the PRC lolly.
A colony in search of a coloniser.
Increasingly the PRC are buying up NZ assets so the ‘NZ’ political and business elite are not just sucking the PRC lolly they are the PRC recruiters and propogander suppliers. They tend to keep a few Kiwis around to run the pro PRC rhetoric aka Jenny Shipley types. (And didn’t work out too well for Jenny trusting Richard Yan)
PRC look like they have iwi in their sights. Notice NZ of the year Lance O’Sullivan who had a ‘China Trip’ was quick to dismiss the Covid virus and told everyone they were being hysterical https://www.nzherald.co.nz/northern-advocate/news/article.cfm?c_id=1503450&objectid=12303228 then had to make a u turn https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/02/coronavirus-lance-o-sullivan-admits-he-got-it-wrong-in-playing-down-fears-says-thousands-could-die-here.html next minute abusing his own community in the lockdown https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/120746934/coronavirus-dr-lance-osullivan-says-lockdown-in-kaitaia-a-joke but then gets caught out himself https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/04/i-ve-been-a-dick-dr-lance-o-sullivan-admits-coronavirus-lockdown-breach-hypocrisy.html
Something about those visits to China seem to seriously impair Kiwi’s judgement and make them dismissive of their own people while becoming more hypocritical…. so iwi beware there is not such thing as free trips and money from China… deals and partnerships go wrong aka Fonterra… you lose integrity and ability to keep an open mind – Lance O’Sullivan….. you support a regime that has no human rights for it’s people who disagree with them…
Anyone who thinks America (or China, for that matter) can print its way out of the current troubles better think again:
‘The situation is dire for US Federal Government finances. It says it needs to raise US$3 tln in the current quarter by selling bonds. It is a level that will likely overwhelm markets and can only be achieved by the US Fed being a major buyer with QE money. And in the third quarter it indicated it will need to borrow another US$677 bln in Q3. (It borrowed $500 bln in Q1.) By any measure, this is panic borrowing. Already US Federal debt exceeds US$23 tln – and they are probably only now just getting started.’
https://www.interest.co.nz/news/104860/dairy-prices-slip-us-retail-sales-shrink-us-exports-fall-us-govt-financing-situation
Of course, the entire global financial system is predicated on continuous economic growth [on a finite planet] and the world is in a phase of global economic contraction which it is unlikely to ever escape from (thank goodness), since the almost every aspect of the energetic-economic-political system has reached the point of diminishing returns, yet the largely invisible pollution that poses the greatest threat of all continues to accumulate.
An interesting commentary thread. Clearly, the old anti-Chinese environment is still going strong! Equally clearly, many readers are happy to be manipulated by the USA and its “assets”, but are outraged when China attempts to do the same.
Sadly, I see little evidence of economic realism among all this sinophobia. Who else is going to buy our primary produce? The United States? A forlorn hope. Uncle Sam wants to keep us in line, but he has no intention of keeping us in the manner to which we have (thanks to those dastardly Chinese communists) become accustomed.
We have every right to be suspicious of China – people have little freedom there and have a tendency of disappearing if they question anything – is that the type of society you want for us? – as one of the peasants who works for a living I am tired of being lectured too by supposed academics about the benevolent dictatorship that rules China and how everything will be just fine and dandy if we let them dominate our society – over my lifetime ( I am close to retirement) I have seen a myriad of factories close and jobs and trade skills lost as the elite chase greater profits – are we as a nation better off – the answer is clearly no – we can thank the US for our freedom since WW11 – something you clearly take for granted yet another Quisling in our midst
Super Powers as in nations with both coercive and inticingly aluring dominance has never ever been fun to play with precicly because to be a super power is to achieve military over match or at least parity with your nearest rival.
For the past 40 years the west have enjoyed themselves as the dominant intellectuals, academics, businesspeople and corporations, and now we must make room for Chinese domain new and there ain’t a single thing we can do to stop the rise of China.
+1 In Wenger we trust
IWWT
Yes in WWII NZ was a convenient spot to assemble marines and convalesce the wounded as well as repair vehicles during its Pacific campaign. US ships reprovisioned here gave training to their marines.
NZ was grateful for the US using our country but let that not be a blindfold to seeing what the US has done since.
We have been roped into 5 eyes without public backing and TPP would have seen our sovereignty stripped away by private off shore companies.
The US has no loyalty and uses countries for its own purposes.
Indeed, Mr. Trotter, your article is apparently falling on some deaf ears. I don’t think China can be blamed for the neoliberal proclivities of previous New Zealand administrations but I’m no expert on that. It seems to me that it has been very necessary for countries which have respect for their own populations to join together, and sadly the US is demonstrating it has lost that capability as it struggles to deal with the current crisis. And ‘my way or the highway’ is a shameful tactic for any large power to employ, which I say residing as I do in the heart of the beast. I’m just hoping the world will set a better example, and I’m sad to hear of the foreign minister’s prejudice – the US, sadly, is currently not abiding by international rule of law. That should have consequences.
@ Chris Trotter – “the manner to which we have (thanks to those dastardly Chinese communists) become accustomed.”
Hopefully not! Some of us expect better aka before the free trade agreements with China that help the 1% and gradually everyone else is falling behind….
Auckland City Mission has its greatest ever demand for food parcels
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2019/01/auckland-city-mission-has-its-greatest-ever-demand-for-food-parcels.html
Kate Hawkesby: Hidden in plain sight – the alarming rise of the working poor
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12043315
Asian drug links reach south with meth deals
https://www.scmp.com/article/724511/asian-drug-links-reach-south-meth-deals
Sewage in Wellington marine reserve 43-times worse than acceptable levels
https://www.stuff.co.nz/dominion-post/news/118890119/sewage-in-wellington-marine-reserve-43times-worse-than-acceptable-levels
Waihi runs out of water, council distributing water bottles
https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2020/02/waihi-runs-out-of-water-council-distributing-water-bottles.html
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
Auckland finance director sentenced for laundering dirty multi-national drug money
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=12116319
https://www.stuff.co.nz/business/117551892/death-of-a-migrant-under-the-table-workers-building-aucklands-multimillion-dollar-homes
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
Lawyers’ fees restrained by police after Auckland drug bust
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11842563
@ Chris Trotter Who else is going to buy our primary produce? – the other 200+ countries including Australia our 2nd biggest partner and Japan our 4th biggest partner… NZ actually imports 20% of goods from China and they seem to be profiting in NZ from our imported waste, that ends up in landfill, by buying up our waste management systems with Auckland council paying them corporate welfare https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12137606 and about to expand in Auckland into fragile unstable areas, proposed landfill stormwater to drain into the Hoteo which if gets contaminated will have its resident longfin eels, freshwater crayfish, and mullet suffer, – and so would the snapper at its mouth in the Kaipara, as well as the rats effects on the area’s native birds. (Have not even got into landfill would add 300 return trips by waste trucks and 150 by service vehicles to SH1 one of NZ’s deadly roads). https://www.stuff.co.nz/environment/113228228/aucklands-proposed-dome-valley-landfill-could-spark-rahui.
I hope after Covid people start thinking about what is important in life, because in Auckland it seems all about expanding congestion, landfill, sewerage and I’m not sure what we are getting in exchange, more Meth, dodgy takeouts and diplomas?
@ Chris Trotter – the industry I am associated with is construction – it has been inundated with substandard / fraudulent building materials that will cause huge problems for the new owners – a lot of the building work is being carried out by migrant labour from China – who checks their credentials? – builders here have to be registered as with other trades so that quality is assured – no-one says anything because the race card gets played by people like you – you need to get out more mate and see what the real world is all about
We can save our selves 86 mill right here https://www.unanz.org.nz/learn/nz-and-the-un/
Do you really think China (CCP) can win a war against not only the U.S. but everybody else?
Roll Tanks from India and Russia, air strikes from Japan, Korea and the U.S. in South China sea, Tactical nukes from all the above.
No they wont stand a snowballs chance in hell and they know it, remember that happens when you appease Fascist dictators WW11?
Not only that but their own ppl will be more than happy to participate in taking out their oppressors, i doubt that nukes will even be needed.
Freedom, Justice and liberty for all, is what they want, its what we all want but seldom get.
Destruction of civil liberty and Destruction of Human Rights is the price of doing business with communist dictators as we have all seen in our own country.
Q Army WWG1WGA
“Roll Tanks from India and Russia” In what parallel universe Rickoshay do you envisage Russia and India joining an american invasion of China?
Dear me, Rickoshay, where have you been for the last 75 years? Have you not heard of the new super-weapon called the “Atomic Bomb”. Your friends in the American “deep state” organised the creation of the A-Bomb – and used it against Japan in August of 1945. Thanks to an excellent espionage operation, the Soviet Union got theirs in 1949. Britain and France weren’t far behind. The Chinese have had their own nuclear arsenal since 1964-67.
So, all those tanks rolling from Russia (China’s ally BTW) and India wouldn’t get very far before being vaporised and/or fatally irradiated in the manner of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The rest of us, sadly, wouldn’t be far behind.
Never mind, you deserve our thanks for demonstrating the extraordinary historical, military and geopolitical vacuity of the Q-Anon conspiracy theorists.
That’s all – you can return to the Dark Net now and boast to your comrades about how you socked-it to those commies at The Daily Blog.
No one can get away from the fact that if you were writing in China, Chris Trotter, if you offended the government you would be arrested and silenced. I don’t like Trump or his cronies any more than you do and yes, China is an important trading partner. Being against a totalitarian government is not racist. New Zealand is in a difficult position of dodging the giants – both are led by power hungry and narcissistic leaders, but in one country you can still get away from criticism and can try and vote them out!
Yes, it is the old sinophobe tune played by a new orchestra
…..some still fragmented thoughts related to the subject.
Sorry, where are we?
Our perception (mental mapping) on location, ‘remoteness’ and size of AO/NZ is usually dominated by a sort of ‘standard world map’ that we know from our class-rooms, bookshops and airline magazines.
If we change mapping parameters and put Auckland in the centre of the map, things look very much different:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_the_world_with_auckland_at_the_center.png
Now we better see AO/NZ located in relative proximity to Antarctica, with a huge hinter-land (better ‘hinter-sea’) of sparsely populated Oceania, and in a sort of crossroads-position between Indian Ocean, Southern Ocean and the Pacific Ocean.
For a wide range of different reasons (impacts of climate change, potential for resource/mineral exploitation, population patterns, de-jure and de-facto legal no man’s land/seas, others) we can assume that this part of our Globe will shift into the focus of world-wide economic forces, speak capitalism.
As a matter of fact, it happened already. And is going on in this very minute.
Pacific. The last frontier.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CPz7eWfpCY
(Side note on Peter Thiel, venture capitalist: he describes ‘seasteading’ as “one of the few technological frontiers that has the promise to create a new space for human freedom.” Watch him.)
AO/NZ is by no means so small of size as many people seem to imagine. A comparison with central Europe and the US:
https://i.redd.it/r9a0xyi9h1yz.png
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/graphics/areacomparison/NZ_area.jpg
Strategic outlook 1:
The USA is under immense pressure to maintain and enhance capital’s accumulation process (US political priority).
Strategic outlook 2:
The PRC is under immense pressure to maintain and improve livelihood conditions of its huge population (CPC political priority).
Baseline:
The PRC is much better prepared for climate change mitigation and adaption than the USA, both in short-term and medium-term potentials (human resources, scientific capacity, technology transfer, political manifestations).
There is a large group of nations under the movements of non-aligned states who are looking for different ways, and constructive leadership, to escape US (or other) domination:
https://www.euractiv.com/section/azerbaijan/opinion/non-aligned-movement-is-united-against-covid-19/
As member of BRICS, the PRC maintains interesting economic and political possibilities outside the home market.
https://infobrics.org/
Barriers:
There is an enormous lack of understanding of China (and Asia in general) in the public of AO/NZ. Intellectual potential within the PRC is so far hardly tapped by the Kiwi.
This includes the NZ Left, especially. Critical solidarity is anticipated on a number of globally important issues where the PRC may not have sufficient experience to handle the matter and fully understand the negative implications , e.g. related to the Belt-Road-Initiative.
For future excursions:
https://www.china-mike.com/chinese-culture/confucius/
Methodology:
By discussing AO/NZ options we may ever operate with different possible scenarios, polarizing around two main alternatives,
a) within the next 30-50 years capitalism will not survive impacts of climate change because of in-built antagonism with planetary ecology, or
b) within the next 30-50 years capitalism will somehow find new ways of resource exploitation that allows the accumulation process to continue under different conditions.
Conclusions:
– Certain is that the era of the US rulers speaking with forked tongue is coming to an end. Or not?
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/trump-scheme-sell-moon-200421085841018.html
– Certain is that the dynamics of the PRC development path is widely under-estimated and opinions in the public are often heavily biased.
– If we must make a choice, at least it should be clear with what we would NOT want to be aligned.
Disclaimer… so or so, the fate of human species may already be determined otherwise because of accelerating climate processes that cannot be mitigated on time.
Interesting and useful information in those links, Manfred.
We need not worry about ‘mining the Moon’. The energy and resources required to overcome the Earth’s gravity preclude transport of anything other than tiny payloads to the Moon. And the diminishing returns aspect means that no large payload will ever be transported from the Moon back to Earth. Indeed, the whole space exploration by humans narrative is entirely the product of science fiction. And the entire genre of space travel movies is pure fantasy.
This is what it took to get 3 astronauts and their short-term life-support systems away the most ‘intense’ gravitational zone of the Earth
https://www.space.com/38720-nasa-saturn-v-rocket-surprising-facts.html
into the region where the Earth’s gravity was much, much less (gravity being subject to an inverse square law, i.e. one quarter as strong at twice the distance, one sixteenth as strong at four times the distance).
‘The rocket’s development was led by Wernher von Braun, a German-born engineer’ who was cited as a war criminal associated with the working to death of concentration camp occupants but was whisked away and given immunity to prosecution (instead of meeting the fate of many of his associates at the Nuremberg Trials) by the Americans, under ‘Operation Paperclip’, because he was a valuable ‘asset’ to them, the Americans being so far behind the Soviets in rocket development they were shit scared.
As I commented before, WW2 wasn’t about defeating fascism but about deciding which group of fascists would rule the world -subjugation of the Philippines, murderous activities of United Fruit, War is a Racket etc. -Smedley Butler and all that:
‘In 1933, he became involved in a controversy known as the Business Plot, when he told a congressional committee that a group of wealthy industrialists were planning a military coup to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Butler selected to lead a march of veterans to become dictator, similar to Fascist regimes at that time. The individuals involved all denied the existence of a plot and the media ridiculed the allegations, but a final report by a special House of Representatives Committee confirmed some of Butler’s testimony.
In 1935, Butler wrote a book titled War Is a Racket, where he described and criticized the workings of the United States in its foreign actions and wars, such as those in which he had been involved, including the American corporations and other imperialist motivations behind them. After retiring from service, he became a popular advocate, speaking at meetings organized by veterans, pacifists, and church groups in the 1930s.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smedley_Butler
War is a racket….
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=292y679blWc
Thank you, @Afewknowthetruth, for feedback. Intriguing interpretation of some driving forces for WWII, indeed….and for other ‘operations’.
Smedley Butler and his engagements, more than an authentic witness of US imperialism. Thanks for referencing him.
Important insights to gain from those times.
Too many racketeers around, still.
https://archive.org/details/war_is_a_racket_1903_librivox/warisaracket_01_butler_128kb.mp3
Mining minerals from the moon is nonsense as is colonising the Moon, Mars or any other planets.
We do not have enough resources on earth to make any of that possible in the short term let alone survive there after we have polluted and ravaged the Earth so comprehensibly that humans living her is no longer possible.
And that is if the human body could withstand the different gravitational forces which appear to be something we have not evolved withstand.
But the myth gives hope to some while the destruction of Earth continues and corporate investors turn resources pollutants and making cash using human labour.
I thought I made a comment on this article at Bowalley Rd but maybe I didn’t press ‘post comment’.
My argument involved most of China’s neighbours being against her if it came down to it. All for China finding her own place in the sun, but not pressing others out of it. Dead against the economic power she tries to exert to keep us quiet. Is the Dalai Lama a good guy or not? Do anything you like but don’t step on our toes — democracy, reason and free speech.
Hong Kong nationals and Taiwan don’t seem to be very keen to be under China’s thumb.
Sounds like Taiwan who did very well with stopping Covid, was blocked from WHO from China. (Maybe Taiwan’s lack of membership of WHO which seems increasingly under Chinese influence, and Taiwan’s lack of trust of China saved them, who knows).
1 million people were killed in Tibet and replaced by Chinese nationals.
China’s expansion has not been peaceful or bloodless, and many of their ‘conquests’ seem to be fighting it, in modern day aka Hong Kong.
Do try to take into account the US bodies in HK that are renown for their pro us anti China efforts with leaders who are in UK and the US.
The same organisations were used in Ukraine and many other disrupted states.
Pro democracy in HK. Under the UK there was no democracy or voting for representation.
Now under China there is.
This very important fact seems to conveniently over looked in the anti China comments.
‘The British Colonial Government ruled Hong Kong with an iron hand. They treated the local Chinese as 3rd class people behind the Indians they imported from India to help them to control the local people.
During the 2 Riots by the workers in the 50 and 60’s, the Police were given orders to shoot anyone who broke the curfew. Many people were murdered by the Colonial Government forces during those two riots.
After WW2, the Hong Kong Government put in a ‘Legislative Council’ to pass Legislations but the British appointed Colonial Governor who is Omnipotent and could veto any legislation he did not like. All government department heads, all Englishmen, no local people, were Members of this Legislative Council plus a few appointed local “Bananas” who were alway beholden to the Colonialists anyway so they always outnumbered the few elected ones.
No, there were no democracy under the British rule whatsoever.”
Fuck America
Comments are closed.