Nothing profound about this statement of fact – to they who read history and absorb what they read.
From Rome to Recent. No Power, however great thou art, lasts forever. Empires Die.
In our time (you and me and other current readers); Dunkirk and Singapore saw the beginning of a rapid end to the British Empire.
And, in spite of the, New Napoleon’s delusional self-promotion as a decision make for the World, (Macron is worse than President Trump in my view), Nazi Germany, Dien Bien Phu in Vietnam and Algeria, spelt the end of France.
Like it or not, America too is on the way out.
Like it or not, China is on the way in.
Bomber appears to have made it clear that he thinks China are on a loser.
I disagree.
As former Aussie PM, Paul Keating sagaciously foretold:
“Glug, glug, glug” – that’s the sound a sinking battleship makes, according to Paul Keating, who deployed the sound effect to devastating effect on Wednesday to underline his argument that the United States could not expect to dominate China in the South China Sea.
With Russia recently demonstrating a quantum leap ahead of American military, with their hypersonic missile, potentially their preferred means of maintaining their position on the ladder, China has demonstrated to Australia in recent weeks, that rather than the barrel of a gun, they prefer – trade as a weapon.
China v Australia is the current focus of this, ‘trade war’.
There are heaps of stuff out there which we can all devour, but the bottom line for all but the most addlepated, is that Australia are in deep crap. From wine exports to crayfish: grain and minerals.
Put aside the bullshit and jellybeans about South China Sea expansion.
America has been serving up the same dish of bullshit – all my life: From the Korean War to Vietnam. Throughout South America and the Middle East. America has sought to expand its control over every corner of the globe. Delivering democracy has been the clarion call – but those who read history and absorb what they read, recognise that the motive for creating chaos around the globe, was always – OIL and LOANS which subjugated devastated states to American banks.
OK Uncle Sam did not invade ANZAC. But guess who got suckered into America’s war in Korea and then Vietnam and now Afghanistan – none of which America won – and leaving its allies with the adverse outcomes. i.e. war crimes in each and every one of these crusades to deliver democracy.
Don’t get side tracked over outrage about a caricature. The issue is war crimes by Aussie SAS and in my view, whether NZ SAS activities should be revisited in light of these determinations of war crimes.
So, why all the paranoia about China coming in with a cheque book?
Better than bazookas?
“But China will control out country?”
Who controls it now? Who owns “our” banks? And who is real piper calling the tune for NZ to take a position against China in the current dispute?
QUESTION FOR US ALL
Is it really a good idea to kick sand in the face of a country which we desperately need as an export destination to sustain our primary sector and as a source of students to sustain or education sector?
Feel free to kick the shit out of me in comments below. But I’ve made up my mind which Emperor is best for NZ to pay respects.
Ross Meurant, graduate in politics both at university and as Member of Parliament; formerly police inspector in charge of Auckland police spies; currently Honorary consul for an African state; Trustee and CEO of Russian owned commercial assets in NZ and has international business interests.
Hey Ross
Did you read what the Yanks organised for that Iranian nuclear physicist Mohsen Fakhrizadeh?
I suppose you check under your car each morning?
Mr Meurant
It does seem that Australia have got themselves into a trade war because they have supported America.
I suppose it’s possible for a shooting war to be the next step, especially if President Trump wants to leave his mark.
So, If ANZACs are going to isolate ourselves from China because of America or get into another war because of we support America,
What will America do for us?
As you said in your blog the Storm https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/12/01/guest-blog-ross-meurant-the-storm/
“Perhaps America can take all Aussie exports previously destined for China?
Afterall! What are mates for?”
Cobaka: “I suppose it’s possible for a shooting war to be the next step, especially if President Trump wants to leave his mark.”
I doubt it. And not just because Trump is the first US president in around 40 years not to have started another shooting war. Even the Washington Establishment must realise that they cannot start a rumble with China: they’d lose for sure, and they cannot risk that.
You hit the nail on the head. There is no choice. Its either a lower standard of living or solidarity with nations that don’t give 2 fucks about NZ. This is realpolitik 101 and the reality of the situation is that we need a Parker or like on point here not an idiot that doesn’t even know how to work her phone.
The Blairite will need to do a lot of heavy lifting in FA over the next 6 months.
Maybe better to grow a pair and stop being sucking up to some boss like a child behind a skirt – British, American or Chinese.
No nation should expect to be a productive economy supporting a growing population as a commodity exporter. Our future is in added value and diversification – and there will be enough of a market in the TPP and RCEP nations, sans China, for our resource exports if we realise that.
Do you seriously see us thriving, selling out our values just to export pine wood and milk powder to China as our population reaches 10M?
‘Our future is in added value and diversification – and there will be enough of a market in the TPP and RCEP nations, sans China, for our resource exports if we realise that.’
Actually, our future is one of declining energy availability and an increasingly inhospitable climate that will, in combination, render most current economic activities unviable. In all likelihood, the collapse of fiat currencies based on the US dollar will precede energetic and environmental collapse.
Whereas the future you suggested is purely an opinion or is aspirational and has no scientific basis, the future I have indicated is founded on the best scientific evidence and analysis.
The timescale is difficult to establish since there are unknowns, like the speed at which self-reinforcing feedbacks cause runaway overheating.
This dismal outlook is almost entirely due to the crazy infinite-growth-on-a-finite-planet and no-accounting-for-energy theories of mainstream economists and bankers. And idiotic politicians who adhere to the flawed theories of economists like barnacles to a rock.
No kicking from me Ross, LOL. I’ve been watching a bit of footage of China landing on the moon, this is where rocket power should always have been directed, into exploration and understanding our universe. Only savages would use this technology to harm or even put all of humanity at risk.
,,,but not as frequently as democracies and ruling elites, eh No Zealand 😉
Sly as snakes, Sukarno and Suharto were,.. and one of them at least played nations off one against the other. And so should we. Trade deals with Europe and in particular, Russia. And other minor trade deals with other nations. Africa, South America. South East Asia. In fact a veritable spiders network of trade deals,.. whereby we can say to the Chinese ‘ we have others’,… and to the Americans,…” your asking a little too much for us to do you’re spying for you”…
”If you want us?,.. come and get us”,… but do treat us nicely or we could lean more to the other rather than you”.
There are many ways to skin a cat, and many ways to stay out of other peoples wars.
But the question is : do our politicians want to?
Why don’t we ask World War one and two’s, Koreas, Vietnams dead if such a thing was possible?
Ask them if it was all worth it.
I dare say they’d shake their heads in sheer incredulousness.
It’s not even a matter of choosing an empire. Its just quite simply arrogant hypocrisy that got Australia into trouble. How is it possible to commit war crimes on the level of the Aus SAS, support wars of aggression in Iraq, Afghanistan etc and then target China over Hong Kong where zero protesters died from govt security and police forces, go on and on about Uighur concentration camps that are demonstrably provable to be the fevered imaginations of a fundamentalist Christian on a self identified mission to destroy communist China? I mean get real! China will quite happily trade with a nation that does all these things but to do them and then make up fairy tales about the evil of the nation that is buying all your goods?? It just beggars belief.
Spikeyboy: “….then target China over Hong Kong where zero protesters died from govt security and police forces, go on and on about Uighur concentration camps that are demonstrably provable to be the fevered imaginations of a fundamentalist Christian on a self identified mission to destroy communist China?”
My impression is that, with regard to Australia, the last straw for China was the Australian government shouting about the coronavirus, and accusing China of a cover-up. Or something…. I think that’s the point, more or less, at which China started imposing trade restrictions.
Then when the evidence about SAS war crimes emerged, China seized the moment.
It is indeed a bit rich for the Australians to be whining about cartoons criticising actual SAS behaviour, when it has been having a go at China over largely illusory issues: HK part of China, not a democracy after the Brits stole it, now the subject of western-backed protests; Uighur concentration camps? Bollocks, as you say. And claiming that the coronavirus jumped species in a wet market – which isn’t the way biology or natural selection works – and accusing China of a cover-up.
Well. China’s hitting back via trade and cartoons. What on earth did Australia expect?
Our government ought to stay out of the whole imbroglio, while at the same time quietly making further enquiries into our own SAS’ behaviour in the ME and elsewhere. Criticising China’s cartoons is just dumb, in my view.
Agreed D’Esterre
Don’t have to pay respects to China
Or America
Just have respect for ourselves.
We shouldn’t need to fight other’s wars to get a beef deal (Muldoon did beef export deal for Vietnam troops)
We shouldn’t have to like Chinese to do business with them.
All we got to do is produce and deliver the goods and take their payment.
Not quite correct. It was Keith Holyoake who did the deal with Lyndon Johnson for what was at that point 1 days beef consumption in the US 78 thousand tonnes if I remember correctly in 1965?
In return we sent our artillery regiment to Viet Nam with 105mm howitzers
Up side, we still hold that quota today. Down side, the threat to take it away to the next skirmish is always there
1966 probably the deal was done
“One significant issue that divided National and Labour in the 1966 elections was the question of New Zealand’s participation in the Vietnam War. Under National, New Zealand contributed a small number of troops, which Holyoake strongly defended during the election campaign. Labour, by contrast, made the recall of troops one of its key policies; former Labour leader Walter Nash was a particularly strong critic of the war. ” wiki
In December 1966 LBJ rocked up in NZ – I was a police recruit at the time – and seconded to guard the American president. As a country boy just out of the bush, I was mesmerised by the weapons carried by LBJ’s close protection unit (Americans) and the suitcase – small but potent – so we were told as it carried the “BB” button.
Road: “….1966 probably the deal was done”
Yeah, you’re right: 1966. I was a student in Wgtn, and in my second year. So it cannot have been 1965.
Clifford J: “It was Keith Holyoake who did the deal with Lyndon Johnson for what was at that point 1 days beef consumption in the US 78 thousand tonnes if I remember correctly in 1965?
In return we sent our artillery regiment to Viet Nam with 105mm howitzers”
Yup. That’s as I recall it. As does a relative who was working in that arena at the time.
With the added twist that LBJ strong-armed a sceptical Holyoake by threatening to block trade, unless Holyoake agreed to commit troops to Vietnam.
The compromise was that Holyoake would allow only volunteers and only from the defence forces. No civilians. That’s how my relative remembers it as well.
So where are we as NZ in the context of Empires come and Empires die Ross?
We are a child of the British Empire that took us to the Boer War, the First and Second World war. Why? Seddon, Massey and Savage, in turn knew full well that because we were dependant on Britain to take our produce, pay our bills there were “dues to pay”. As Savage said ” where she goes we go”
Moving along Britain abandoned the “Empire” to join the EU
Holyoake looked for a new protector, payer of bills he found it in LB Johnson and US. Payback was Viet Nam Afghanistan Iraq. Et el
Now where are we now?
Dependant not on Britain, not on the US but on China “to pay the bills” so are we about to join / align with the new Chinese Empire for mercenary reasons? Or do we stand with the old US Empire? OR will Boris, the self believing reincarnation of Winston Churchill, post Brexit recreate the new British Empire by turning the Commonwealth in the a greatest trading block the world has yet seen?
In the end NZ is forced to run with the hand that feeds!!
So where are we as NZ in the context of Empires come and Empires die Ross?
We are a child of the British Empire that took us to the Boer War, the First and Second World war. Why? Seddon, Massey and Savage, in turn knew full well that because we were dependant on Britain to take our produce, pay our bills there were “dues to pay”. As Savage said ” where she goes we go”
Moving along Britain abandoned the “Empire” to join the EU
Holyoake looked for a new protector, payer of bills he found it in LB Johnson and US. Payback was Viet Nam Afghanistan Iraq. Et el
Now where are we now?
Dependant not on Britain, not on the US but on China “to pay the bills” so are we about to join / align with the new Chinese Empire for mercenary reasons? Or do we stand with the old US Empire? OR will Boris, the self believing reincarnation of Winston Churchill, post Brexit recreate the new British Empire by turning the Commonwealth in the a greatest trading block the world has yet seen?
In the end NZ is forced to run with the hand that feeds!!
Clifford
I endeavour to be objective.
I merely present facts.
Emanating from facts in this blog, other chapters in our past, emerge.
Illuminating when juxtaposed the question you pose: “where to next?”
But as you ask: If I was running this ship, I’d steer as neutral a path as possible.
In my view, if we blindly support America- and get “sanctioned” by China, Uncle Sam will not come to our aid and buy our primary exports and supply students to fund our education.
And if there is a hot war: America win not win – as Paul Keating said – see above blog link.
NZ is irrelevant as a military ‘power’. We would simply be more ‘collateral damage’ of America’s decline as an Empire.
In my view.
I have no problem with trading with the Chinese.
Sure, the Chinese may have dubious human rights issues but then so do we.
We have child ( And adult ) poverty on a rich land who’s farmers , it’s alleged, can feed 40 million people annually.
One might then wonder where that food goes and for what price because I can guarantee you this, it isn’t into our farmer’s pockets.
Trading is a way of maintaining peace and harmony between countries with diverse and different cultural practices so why would anyone want to sabotage that?
And what’s more chilling perhaps is that our politicians will KNOW that.
So why are they avoiding the blindingly obvious? What’s really going on? What set up are they drafting us in to?
To me, this is just another indication that we AO/NZ’er’s are no longer in control of our own country.
On a soon to be boiling and dying biosphere our AO/NZ will be the last place left to be. Aye Boys?
Whats going on is that some people got a taste for running the natives off their land. Twas a plague out of Europe spurred on by a jealous god that required the sacrifice of ever more converts. This became an insatiable lust that was justified in the name of doing gods work. Gods work now involves the UK, USA, France and Saudi Arabia (who have so much money they must be on gods side) laying down a siege on perhaps the poorest nation in the world, Yemen. A siege that gives us the slightly (must only be slightly since no one really gives a rats arse) uncomfortable experience of looking at photos of barely alive 5 year old skeletons. There is no fictional monster that even comes close to this sort of depravity. And on top of all this we have to take seriously people who are complicit in aiding and abetting this depravity when they try to project their own motives and methods on to China.
“One myth I think really that needs to be dispelled is that somehow China is aiming to replace America and going to run the world, and it’s not,” said Chinese venture capitalist and social scientist Eric Li in the John Pilger documentary The Coming War on China. “First of all, the Chinese are not that stupid. The west, with its Christian roots, are about converting other people into their beliefs. The Chinese are not about that. It’s just that–again, I’m not degrading the western culture, I’m just pointing out the inherent nature, the DNA of two different cultures–the Chinese two thousand years ago built the Great Wall to keep the barbarians out, not to invade them.”
https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/12/05/so-were-already-at-the-chinese-super-soldiers-part-of-the-propaganda-campaign/
It’s not just the corrupt and phony American Empire that is dying. The whole fraudulent economic system, foisted on us by the British and the Americans, is on its deathbed.
Unfortunately that fraudulent economic system is ‘killing the Earth’ (our life-support systems) as it dies.
Therefore, the sooner it dies, the better.
At least your are consistent, Mr Meurant.
https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2020/04/07/guest-blog-ross-meurant-if-god-defends-new-zealand-who-defends-china/
Although China shouts and bullies a lot, it is really quite weak.
> Its economy would collapse without trade with the West.
> It has no allies. None. Its bully tactics in the region have secured the enmity of all its neighbouring states
> Covid 19 was a wake up call in the West. Western aligned states are now slowly restructuring their trade to avoid reliance on China. Morrison was a bit outspoken and has gotten himself into a bit of a mess but the intent is clear.
> Businesses are looking hard at their sales and making concerted attempts to diversify away from China because they don’t want to be held hostage.
> President Xi has broken the unwritten rule of their upper echelon – he’s arrested and put to death one of his own colleagues and imprisoned several more. You can bet that there is a target painted on his back now.
Thats funny. Im sure I’ve seen a picture somewhere of Putin and Xi shaking hands… An article about Russian and Chinese military training together… China helping Venezuela…. Belt and road through a fair chunk of Asia… Must have been mistaken since they don’t have any allies according to world reknowned political analyst Andrew.
An interesting take on the reasons for Morrisons response to the Aus SAS caricature. Posits the view that Morrison knew exactly what he was doing and what the result would be.
https://johnmenadue.com/morrison-pitching-babies-into-hot-bathwater/#more-59349
Perhaps it makes a little more sense when coupled with the latest projected bipartisan attitudes to China now forming in the US.
joint statement by the acting chairman Rubio and deputy chairman Warner (Republican and Democrat) of the Intelligence Committee of the US Senate on 4 December, attacking China. It is couched in terms of support for an opinion piece in the (Murdoch) Wall Street Journal on 3 Decemberby the Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe.
https://johnmenadue.com/dennis-argall-the-approaching-crunch-in-us-policy-towards-china/
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