NZ should not buy into Trump’s tech war with China

65
1146

Most New Zealanders don’t trust Donald Trump.  By and large they oppose his “America First” stance, which is making effective cooperation between nations very difficult.

Why then are so many people fooled by Trump’s attacks on China’s most advanced technology companies, like Huawei and TikTok?   Surely, we can see that in banning TikTok and trying to strangle Huawei, Trump is trying to ensure that America’s “big tech” companies (like Microsoft, Google and Facebook) dominate the global landscape.

Why do we buy Trump’s cover story that it is about “national security” and protecting our privacy?   Surely, we’ve learnt by now, following the revelations by US National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, that the main threat to the privacy of citizens around the world is the NSA itself.  Few of our communications are out of reach of its global collection system, which far exceeds any current Chinese capability.  Of course, this doesn’t mean we take any potential breaches of our privacy from China lightly.  After all, domestically, the Beijing government runs a pretty tight surveillance state.

If we are worried about social media companies intruding on our privacy, then Facebook should be a bigger target than TikTok.   Facebook’s business model requires it to hoover up masses of information to target advertising and to on-sell to third parties.

We’re told that Huawei and TikTok will hand over private information to the Chinese government.  Maybe they will, but there is no evidence they have so far.  Their corporate self-interest is also at play.  As global companies, Huawei and TikTok are well aware they would lose many millions of customers outside China if they were proven to be a tool of the Beijing government.

What we do know, however,  is that American social media and telecommunications companies regularly respond to secret requests from the FBI and other US agencies.  This has become public as a consequence of the Edward Snowden revelations.

Accusing Chinese firms of doing the bidding of Beijing somewhat hypocritical when the Trump administration is repeatedly forcing American companies to do its own bidding. Trump is issuing Presidential edict after Presidential edict forbidding US tech firms from doing business with the likes of Huawei.   US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has launched a Clean Network campaign to exclude all Chinese telecom firms from the United States.

To the extent that this is successful, it will only divide the telecommunications world up into two spheres of influence, one American, the other Chinese.  This would not be good for global communications, common IT standards, and an effective and open internet.

TDB Recommends NewzEngine.com

Trump’s efforts are also counterproductive.  In the short-term they will weaken Huawei but they will also speed up China’s efforts to become technologically self-sufficient.

In addition, US firms are taking a big hit from the sanctions on US firms supplying Huawei.  Roger Entner, from Recon Analytics, has estimated that Huawei accounts for a quarter of US annual semi-conductor exports, about $32 billion out of $120 billion.  But the loss of sales will go beyond the China market.  SEMI, a semi-conductor industry association with 2,400 members, is worried that other non-US customers will perceive the supply of US semi-conductors as “unreliable” and “design-out of US technology”.  These non-US customers could include Kiwi tech firms now supplying the Chinese market who now have an incentive to use non-US software or components in their products.

Sadly, the US moves against Chinese technology serve to strengthen, not weaken, the grip of China’s authoritarian leaders.  Because they are so obviously aimed at slowing China’s technological advance, they stir up nationalist sentiments among ordinary Chinese people, which the regime then uses to its advantage, by presenting itself as defender of the nation.

New Zealand has an additional reason for not buying into the American campaign. China is our biggest trading partner.  The Trump administration’s talk of “de-coupling” from China makes no sense in New Zealand’s case.  Yet this is the road that our Government Communications Security Bureau has started to move down.  Some time ago the GCSB turned down a Spark/Huawei proposal to build a 5G network here.  More recently it asked parliamentary staff to delete the TikTok app from their phones on the grounds that it might be used to access private information.   Of course, our privacy is eroded by many social media apps, and in particular, Facebook.  But by singling out TikTok the GCSB demonstrated once again its loyalty to the US administration, and Donald Trump. If we are talking about threats to our national security, we should start with the threat from the GCSB which in so accommodating the United States, really does threaten our security.

Of course, we should do everything we can to protect our privacy and to optimise New Zealand’s cyber defenses.  Such measures include closing any “back-doors” into our communications networks, storing data locally, and making sure Kiwi managers are in charge of critical infrastructure.  We can do this without buying into Trump’s war on Chinese technology. NZ

65 COMMENTS

  1. “After all, domestically, the Beijing government runs a pretty tight surveillance state.” Yeah, so did Nazi Germany…

  2. Finally common sense on the issue, it is so obvious that the reason Trump is so against Chinese technology is that it removes the US ability to use that tech to spy on us. While there are good & bad features of both countries we should try to be as independent as possible, given the economic links there will be some compromises involved but by keeping as much information as possible in the open we can hopefully get to choose our future.

  3. We’re not comparing apples with apples

    The Chinese Communist Party is operating concentration camps with reportedly over a million of its own citizens inside, being brainwashed and tortured. It operates an organ harvesting industry using prisoners as donors. It regularly arrests, tortures and murders its own citizens. It is the world’s largest thug state.

    This is also not about Trump, although he’s done well by standing up to them. China is a bully state that threatens all its neighbours: Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia and others.

    Australia has belatedly recognized the threat too and it taking action to prevent Communist Chinese strategic acquisitions in the country as well as intellectual theft and influence in academia.

    New Zealand ultimately has a choice – which side to be on? We can’t sit on the fence forever.

  4. Andrew, did you have an original thought or are you just passing on someone else’s narrative. If it’s the later,
    your following the script like a good woolly sheep baaah..It’s a shame people don’t think for themselves these days. If you want to compare apples with apples, let me know how many millions of people the US has been responsible for killing over the last 50 years…I’m waiting…?

    • My bet is denbypokai is either Chinese or at the very least wants to be . . couldn’t fault anything Andrew wrote and China is the Nazi Germany of our times.

      • James I would not defend Germany but they did not declare war, it was Britain that declared war.
        Things may have turned out very differently if Germany was allowed access to the free port of Danzig that was taken from them after WWI as a part of the rushed treaty of Versailles to which Germany had no say.
        Danzig was Ice free which allowed Germany to export by sea during Winter.
        Britain was an industrial competitor.
        The winners of war write the history but at the time there was vigorous discussion between Kiwis about the declaration of war by Britain.

    • Keith Locke is, of course, still around. he is probably no less concerned about Tibet, Palestine or human rights issues elsewhere for that matter. His concerns in no way detract from his well expressed views on Trump’s tech wars or the disconcerting GCSB adherence to the US party line.

        • The problem with that is Australia has partnered with the USA against China.

          Now the USA wants to form a treaty organisation with India, Australia and others in the South Asia / Oceania including NZ to work together similarly to Nato and confine China.
          We would be stupid to go along with that. Oceania is not the USAs region and it is an entirely aggressive move against our relatively peaceful trading partner China.
          What we do need to enact is laws preventing foreign ownership of land in NZ and ownership of land by non residents and non citizens.

  5. You would be naive to believe that the current action being taken by the US against China is driven by Trump- the US has internally noted security concerns relating to various Chinese entities – including Hauwei- when Trump was just another reality TV guy. Refer to the recently released “Pentagon list” which was compiled in 1999 but only recently made public.

    Suggest also looking into the data leak issues of the African Union which seems to point towards Huawei as being the conduit to the Beijing.

  6. Lets be clear, the US is an evil empire and always have been.
    However, if China attain the same level of ascendancy as the US have, we will all wish like fuck we had sidled up to the US a lot more.
    Furthermore, the level of influence the CCP has on its companies makes it untenable to put any trust in them at all.

  7. If the GCSB was worried about national security, then they would warn all Microsoft users that Windows operating systems have a back door and any computer running M$ Windows while on the net can be examined and tracked. This includes our Government, defense department al most business users.
    In the USA the defense department, CIA, and various branches of Govt and security won’t use Windows but use a Linux based operating system which is open and transparent so no back doors are possible..

    On the other hand Huawei offer an open system where all code is transparent unlike Microsoft where code is not open and transparent but under tight constraint by Microsoft which is a private company.
    GCSB is working for the USA.

  8. Yes, James Brown, I do have an issue with sheep like you who blindly follow what ever anyone tells you to think..But you seem to have a problem with anything Chinese..I wait with baited breath (pun intended!)
    what intelligent discourse to bring to the discussion…baaah

    • Yes I do have a problem with China actually denbypokai (authoritarian regimes hell-bent on repressing first their own people and then those in surrounding countries given half a chance can have that effect on some people).
      Also re this weird thing for sheep that you have going on – you aren’t also one of those ‘unique individuals’ who take their sex dolls out on dates by any chance?
      I have seen that this is a thing in China and between the two of us you seem the type.

      • James I am puzzled by your remark
        “(authoritarian regimes hell-bent on repressing first their own people and then those in surrounding countries given half a chance can have that effect on some people)”

        This applies more to the USA than China.
        China does not have 800+ military bases around the globe nor does China have rival countries surrounded with missiles.
        China has not been at war continuously since 1945 nor does it have increasing poverty in fact it has the opposite.
        China has not committed illegal war on countries for their resources and murdered million in the process. China has not imposed illegal sanctions on foreign states while the USA has dozens of countries suffering under sanctions and attempts to change elected governments.
        Which countries is China repressing.

          • JohnW is in for the big kill. In the same way in housing, in terms of the benefits, outweigh any social concerns to regulate against China/America.

            It’s such a tricky issue when The Labour Party is for big deficit budgets they won’t be into taxing property for the right to buy vegan cars and picking winners so we are trying to row the boat and steer the boat.

            We have to allow the business to decide what they trade and who they trade with and after they’ve had more freedom to decide, more freedom to price, and then you look to see how the books are looking but with more vigorous regulation rather than regulators trying to second guess so lets row and steer.

            That’s the space that I think foreign policy regulators should be in. Package up all the infrastructure projects and get the superannuation funds in and there should be more electrification of the bicycle and the scouter those are just right there, obviously, get done, and to do this we will have to have access to the Asian markets.

            The only issue is the Asian markets won’t give governance or corporate governance assurances and we just need our superannuation money to be big players in those investment points of view with emphases on Asset allocation and the question of being competent about asset allocation.

            Once we have a good good idea about our territory, how far business want to range and spread out, interact with the rest of the world post corona and the money starts flowing, then we will know 100% how much money can be spent on defence theory (and by the theory I don’t mean saying words to make myself sound smart, what I mean is this is where we are and this is where we are likely to go) with capabilities of our own.

          • That is fair enough James.
            I have read extensively about Tibet over several decades and it has been a pawn in both power plays and domination from several invaders including from parts of China, India, Russia, Britain and Nepal with the USA /CIA becoming involved during the 1950s onwards.
            The present situation is described from several perspectives and the most common one in the Western world is the US propaganda line.
            China was actually invited to fill a void and create stability at one stage
            Tibet and China have had a long relationship, fraught with difficulty and change.
            At times, the two nations have worked closely together. At other times, they have been at war.
            Currently China has Tibet as an autonomous region with China providing billions to create infrastructure.

            Today, the nation of Tibet does not exist; not one foreign government officially recognizes the Tibetan government-in-exile.

            https://thediplomat.com/2020/08/the-tangled-history-of-the-tibet-card/

  9. Haha James Brown is that the best you can come up with? Your intellect and insightful mind is a wonder to be hold haha, What a maze of dead end synapses in your brain going nowhere..opinions not your own..thoughts not your own..feelings somebody else’s borrowed from who knows where in your dim deep past baaah

  10. Hello,
    As a manager with 25 years experience in telecoms, based in the UK I am very surprised to see this line of argument in a developed country like New Zealand. Maybe 3 years ago when the risks of Huawei were not well known, or more widely, the risks of the CCP were not well understood, then sure, the above commentary might have been more relevant.
    In 2012 two US Congressmen, Mike Rogers and Dutch Ruppersberger compiled a report for the House Intelligence committee on the risks posed by Chinese designed and manufactured telecommunications equipment. It was unequivocal in its findings that a nation that held tight control over the entire supply chain could install exploits at Will – and many of in the industry suspect that Huawei has done exactly that. Means, Motive and opportunity.
    Now that China has declared its hand and is openly challenging the US for dominance in many areas, we would all be best to have a look at its model of governance A) to see if its better than ours and if we have anything to learn from them (we do), and B) what is the likely outcome for us if they do become the dominant power in the world. I would suggest that the answer to B) is nothing short of psychopathic. Look at what they are doing to the Uighurs, the Tibetans and most recently the Inner Mongolians. It is nothing short of cultural genocide. It cannot be reasonably argued otherwise. Now if that is what they do to their own ethnic minorities, how much less compunction would they have in treating us the same (or worse). And telecommunications is the way they will accomplish this. No need for bombs and bullets, if you have control of a nations critical infrastructure you have captured the nation. Huawei was the vehicle to deliver exactly that. They say they didn’t spy – I actually believe them there, they would be extremely stupid to do so. That does not however stop them from knowing every component in a telecommunications network that they are a vendor in. That’s how it works. They pass this onto their various government entities – the MSS, PLA army units 61398 and 61426 and other APT groups and you have an instant leg up on everyone else. Those guys DO spy, and they pose an incredible risk to national infrastructure, one that China would employ in a major contingency.
    So it comes down to who’s side we are on. As David P Goldman wrote recently in the Asia Times “you can never be a friend of China” – I would encourage anyone reading this to read that article – the takeaway point is that China will be friendly to your face until it is more expedient to stick a knife in your back. Hell they have just been caught red-handed plundering North Korea’s territorial fishing waters. They’re supposed to be “as close as lips and teeth”.
    I’m not suggesting that we don’t do business with them, but we need to be very aware of the risks, and where the risks are unacceptable then we keep well away. Telecommunications is an absolute no go area. The risks are indeed catastrophic. And they are not our friends.

      • Great post Cletus and yes the naivety (at best) or acquiescence (at worst) here is something to behold (look that word again denbypokai).
        I personally wrote a politics thesis on China 20 years ago now (a study of their political and military make up and aspirations) and if I was alarmed then I am much more so now.

        • “of their political and military make up and aspirations”

          Is one of these aspirations to have 800 military bases around the world?

    • Oh dear.Huawei is a baddy. Is it because Huawei is Chinese.
      Huawei has made an open offer to supply all code and upgrades along with its gear so security concerns can be examined and alleviated.
      I agree we should not rely on one system albeit from China. USA, UK or anywhere but Huawei has the most transparent offer at this stage.
      You should also be highly concerned about the US giant Microsoft which has secret proprietary code on all its windows systems with backdoors for Microsoft / NSA to monitor all M$ systems online.
      US defense won’t use Microsoft nor the CIA.
      So where is the security concern there for NZ.

    • Well Cletus you have several hearsay quotes and opinions to frame your conclusions around and many not from unbiased sources so hang on a minute.
      “Now that China has declared its hand and is openly challenging the US for dominance in many areas”

      Oh I am curious as to which areas China has openly challenged the US.

      It appears to be the US that is challenging China across a raft of areas.

      “Telecommunications is an absolute no go area. The risks are indeed catastrophic. And they are not our friends.”
      That I take it conforms with a UK viewpoint regarding 5G.
      Would the USA be trusted with proprietary secret code in 5G installation once they can develop them. Perhaps with 5 eyes and the NSA nothing is nor can be secret anymore so the USA has won the battle by being dishonest and getting that accepted by compliant customers.

      • One of Cletus’s friends here. He asked me to comment as I work near the security space and am a little better placed to comment than he.
        As for telecommunications being a no go area. In 2018, half of the 4G network of one operator (of 4 in total) went down for a total of 18 hours. One half was Ericsson, the other half Nokia. It was due to an expired certificate in a part of the network called the MME (mobility management entity if you’re interested) – thats one half of one third (you have 2G, 3G and 4G) of one network in the UK – for 18 hours. It caused a meltdown. Now you can imagine that the security forces – GCHQ and MI6 – were all over it, wanting to know what happened. It wasn’t malicious, it was a simple security certificate that had expired, and the component stopped working. They got it back up and running, and a couple of lawsuits later it was quietly shelved and everyone forgot about it and life went on.
        Except that the disruptive potential didn’t go unnoticed by any of the 5 eyes security establishments. In raw numbers it was around 4% of the total UK mobile network taken offline.
        Now the US may be many things to many people, but they are our friends, and things would have to go seriously wrong for them to want to sabotage the networks of a friendly country – China on the other hand has been very clear that they will use whatever means at their disposal to make nations unobstructive to their intentions. You all cite that China hasn’t started wars and doesn’t go around killing people – let me assure you that that is far from the case. They do, and they are doing so with ever more frequency, and with blatant disregard for the consequences.
        Telecommunications is one way that, to quote Sun Tzu, they can win the war without firing a shot – and Huawei is the tool they had to do it. They did pour in over USD100Billion to make Huawei what it is today, they do undercut the rivals on any bid they want to win, they do finance the operators to buy their equipment on terms that no other company can match, usually 115% of the cost price, zero interest at 30 year terms, give or take. Imagine if Ericsson or Nokia tried to do that – the investors would leave them in droves.
        Now to the risks. Cletus said telecoms is a no go area when selecting kit from potential adversaries. He undercooked that goose. And not by a small amount. There is a maxim in the industry that you are only ever one patch away from a fully compromised system. Now place that system into the control and/or support of a hostile power – NZ and China have a trading relationship – they are not friends or allies. If China become involved in a war, could they call on NZ to help? No. Not under any circumstances would NZ do so. If the US was involved in a war could they call on NZ to help – yes – both in the past, and in the present. So dont try and misrepresent the relationship as being anything other than a trading partner. They are nothing more. The downside risks are as explained above – the presence of Huawei, ZTE, Datang, Sunwave or any of their other vendors gives China quiet leverage. And they use this to every extent possible.
        Finally to your point about NSA and secrets – that has nothing to do with radio networks sorry. Radio networks are the LAST place any intelligence organization would use to covertly spy. They OVERTLY spy – and it is all quite legal, in fact it is built into every mobile network specification. It is called CALEA, and it saves a lot of time and effort. No – it is only extreme edge cases where that would be used – the most famous being the “Athens affair” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCU47bJoLho&t=25s – something a friend of mine was involved with. That was a directed exploit against an individual in a foreign country using a 1970’s programming language – there are probably about 5 people in the world who could do that. I digress – spying involves hoovering up everything – that means trunk links – fiber optics and undersea cables, and BGP spoofing to redirect traffic.
        https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&ved=2ahUKEwjTvNfap9zrAhVPOBoKHUUND7sQFjABegQIJBAB&url=https%3A%2F%2Fscholarcommons.usf.edu%2Fcgi%2Fviewcontent.cgi%3Farticle%3D1050%26context%3Dmca&usg=AOvVaw0PQzPrWyCN6h7ZeOAseQA3
        This describes China’s history in such exploits. Its long and storied.
        So – no one can be trusted. But do you want to unload your current ally and jump on boards with an altogether more troublesome one who doesn’t share any of your values and will use their networks as both overt and covert leverage against you – and it has nothing to do with spying – as that is not how spying works – they are in this game primarily for one reason and one reason alone – control.

        • Apologies if I skim read your comment because there is no point I crying over spilt milk now. What I mean by that is Telecom, New Zealand formerly publicly-owned communications provider got the sold and privatised which means National Security is not the primary concern of Telco Boards and shareholders but that’s okay.

          In this new area of big power games where China is strong and everyone else is weak, it is not enough to place a policy on the table and say to everyone look, we are better than the Chinese. As far as Defence Theory and Defence Practices goes in the twenty-first century, it doesn’t matter who the representative is, it could male patriarchy, it could be fembots, LGBT+ all the feminist hysteria, robots, whatever. All that matters is (and the primary word here is) “access” to housing security, water security, job security, and that will take economic growth, and for that, we will require access to the Asian markets and it is as simple as that.

        • Boris I appreciate you laying out you perspective but several points need examining.
          The USA and NZ have an independent relationship although diplomatic and fiscal strings are pulled to take that away from us.

          The assumption that China is aggressive and the USA is not is seriously flawed.
          You would need some fairly comprehensive evidence for that proposition to be considered.

          • John – I don’t want to labour any point, and to be clear I am neither qualified nor experienced to comment on the particulars of NZ foreign policy.
            The point I make is thus: have a look at the last 10 minutes of the Athens affair YouTube link I put up above. Understand what an actor that has full access to your mobile networks can do, extrapolate forward to see the leverage it can give, and then understand that this is precisely what Huawei gives China.
            Who needs violence when you can shut down a countries infrastructure at will. Every nation with said vendor becomes a vassal. Instantly.

            • And we are not a vassal of the USA/UK, helping fight their wars for gains coverted by their elite.
              Boer war, WWI, WWII, American war in Korea, Malaysian war skirmish, American wars in Vietnam. Laos and Cambodia, Iraqi bombing and looting of oil combined with Afganistan invasion together casting close to 1.5 million lives, and now calls to have us backing. NATO.
              NZ should never oppose China on behalf of the USA/UK.
              Our foreign policy supposedly is one of independence.
              We are indeed a vassal puppet.

  11. Clitoris the clown, I could reverse all you said about China and say exactly the same things about the US.
    Language like them and us, picking sides, what of it? Don’t we all come from the same family of being human?
    I am you and you are me..did you get that..Its a long held affirmation that we may eventually learn the real lessons of why we live here on this planet, but sadly history has shown that we are not even close to realising this. I believe everyday we get the choice to change our futures and it starts with the thinking (the mind)
    ‘As a man thinks so is he’ and by that affirmation his actions reflect his thoughts. They are not in conflict with each other but work in harmonious balance and the key is non violence in thought and action.
    We live in a dream world where everything just happens, we don’t choose, only the conscious man has a choice. We live our lives governed by outside influences that keep us like a flock of sheep blindly being led over a cliff. Sadly there is no hope for the flock but sometimes the odd sheep realises that he is not a sheep,
    he is a lion..Shakespeare could not have put it better when he quoted ‘All the world is a stage,and all the men and women merely players,they have their exits and entrances’ just my opinion that’ s all baaah

    • Seriously, did they mix up your medicine or did they get the dose rather wrong??
      Someone fucked up there.
      Go on, I’ll be polite. Have another shot.

  12. “I would suggest that the answer to B) is nothing short of psychopathic. Look at what they are doing to the Uighurs, the Tibetans and most recently the Inner Mongolians. It is nothing short of cultural genocide.”

    The Chinese have been accused of genocide, physical or cultural for well night on 70 years now. If it is true they are pretty inefficient at it, particularly given the fact that minority populations have actually grown since 1949. Indeed China has encouraged minorities to have more children than Han, excluding them from the one-child policy.

    Anyone visiting Inner Mongolia, Tibet, Xinjiang, will see local cultures thriving and local languages thriving compared to that of any indigenous group colonized by Anglo Saxons. The fact that you hear of Inner Mongolians being ‘forced’ to learn Chinese of course means that up until now at least they were not required to and were hitherto educated in their own language! All the Chinese government is doing is saying everyone in the country has to learn the lingua franca Mandarin, just like indigenous peoples in Western countries like NZ have to learn English etc. That is not to say they cannot continue with Mongolian or Tibetan etc,,,it means that the language of instruction has to be mandarin.

    • I suggest you look up the story of Sayragul Sauytbay for a first hand retelling of what goes on in Xinjiang. While you are at it, you can download free of charge a book called “Bloody Harvest” from Seraphim publications, detailing the organ harvesting, where family members of the Doctors involved are interviewed.
      And no, the only 2 genocides the Chinese leadership is/has been accused of that which took place in the Great Leap Forward, and that which is taking place and spreading now.
      You hear the latest one – Xi wants Mao’s title of Chairman! He can really brew up a decent fart in the face of fear that man. Respect.

      • Oh FFS, paid CIA assets and Western provocateurs?

        As for the GLF ‘genocide’, shows how completely uninformed you are.
        Mao actually saved more lives than any other political figure in history.
        Do some basic math

        • Evidence?
          Jesus you’re as bad as Huawei. Makes crazy claims and backs it up with nonsensical arguments.
          Just to get back on subject for a second here what if I told you that Huawei was the architect of its own demise. Not sure if you saw it but at the mobile world congress in Barcelona in 2019, Guo Ping made his famous “Prism Prism on the wall” gag – a statement so egregious given the state of Chinese state hacking that the State Department from that moment placed a target on Huawei’s back. One of their rotating chairmans was in fact the architect of their demise.
          Let’s try and keep on subject from now on. I will, you can.

        • During Mao’s leadership the population of China doubled as did the life expectancy. Check it rather than take my word.

          • Yes thats True. Once the ravages of the great leap forward were done and 50 million people died, a slightly more effective set of policies were enacted at did substantially improve life expectancy. to be clear the life expectancy in 1960 of the average Chinese person was 43. For contrast the developed world was on average about 70. Look at the world bank data and you will see a substantial rise from about 1962 onwards – right around the time the Great Leap Forward ended and a more pragmatic set of policies was put into place.

            • Your figure of 50 million is a much inflate US guesstimate.
              The great leap forward did play a part in the unpreparedness for the floods and seasons of poor rice crops but the crude census after that setback showed there were deaths by starvation but not in the 10s of millions. There were multiple causes and events.

              “Three Years of Natural Disasters”.
              “There is certainly some truth in this claim. In mid-1959, the Yellow River (or Huang Ho) flooded, causing thousands of drownings and ruined crops. According to government reports, more than 40 million hectares (almost 100 million acres) of agricultural land were rendered useless.

              These floods were followed by a wave of further disasters: droughts, severe heat, more floods, typhoons, disease and insect infestations.

              In 1959, drought caused significant crop failures in Shaanxi (where output declined by more than 50 per cent) and Hubei (where it fell by 25 per cent). The following year Shanxi, Hebei, Shandong and Henan provinces suffered prolonged droughts, their production falling by more than half.

              China’s southern and coastal provinces also endured 11 major typhoons. In 1961, the northern provinces again suffered months of drought, while those in the south endured more flooding.”

              Watch out for US propaganda which has raged on for decades since the US was kicked out of China.

              • A tale of 2 narratives. You can cite your sources if you like.
                And don’t just say “oh everyone knows this” – it makes you look like a dick.

      • Organ harvesting??
        That was the cry of the Falun Gong in the CIA backed website The Epoch Times.

        Now organ harvesting is being leveled to affect several ethic groups. US / CIA Propaganda.

        China does harvest some healthy organs from deceased as we do in NZ, but in China any person given the death penalty can become a donor as a way of paying back to society.

  13. James Brown, its a shame you didn’t do a thesis on US political and military 20 years ago as well..You might have a valid case to substantiate your views..but since you didn’t it shows your biased western view of the world doesn’t it?

  14. Denbypokai – Can you please finally clairify if you are indeed Chinese and where you live (i.e. NZ or PRC) . . some pretty pro-Chinese bias going on here and would help to clarify exactly who we are dealing with.

  15. As a Tibetan American, I suggest that you stop support China not because of Trump, but because of the its gross human right violation of Tibetans, Ugyhurs and other ethnic minorities controlled and monitored by Chinese communist government.

    If New Zealand consider China its trading partner, then it is complicit in their human right abuse and had vested interest keeping this brutal Chinese Communist Party alive.

  16. As a Tibetan American, I suggest that you stop support China not because of Trump, but because of the its gross human right violation of Tibetans, Ugyhurs and other ethnic minorities controlled and monitored by Chinese communist government.

    If New Zealand consider China its trading partner, then it is complicit in their human right abuse and had vested interest keeping this brutal Chinese Communist Party alive.

    • Tenzin
      If we trade with the USA what are we complicit with in terms of human rights and open warfare on sovereign states.

      • And if we trade with China we tactile in support of its own covert warfare on the west.
        I suggest you read “Unrestricted Warfare” by Qiao Liang and Wang Xiangsui – 2 PLA Colonels. This was written in 1999 and contains almost to the letter the unconventional warfare doctrine of the Propaganda and Intelligence Wing of the PLA’s General staff department.
        General Qiao (retired – as he is now in 2020) even went on the record a month or so back to denounce Xi’s wolf warrior diplomacy is seriously counterproductive and without any benefit. Zhao Lijian and Hua Chunying don’t appear to have noticed though, and even Wang Yi buckled after initially trying to be nice in Europe. Attacking Vystricil in the way that he did united Europe against him.

        • The USA has been in a state of almost continuous warfare since 1945, raiding Central and South American sovereign states, Asian States, European adventurism for resources, middle east wars in 5 different countries killing millions, Venezuela, Ukraine, and others plus has over 800 military bases off shore and a ring of allegedly NATO missile sites surrounding Russia and China.

          I can quote you books from many authors but the current state of US aggression globally is outstanding and you would have to be willfully blind not to see it.

          So if we trade with the USA are we complicit with these wars and abuse of humans rights was my question you side stepped.

Comments are closed.