Damien O’Conner ends up being an apologist to Chinese aggression…
Trade Minister Damien O’Connor’s ‘dumb diplomacy’ criticised for playing into China’s hand
Trade Minister Damien O’Connor’s diplomatic flub has been criticised as “dumb diplomacy” that plays into China’s desire to weaken alliances between New Zealand’s allies.
O’Connor on Tuesday sparked trans-Tasman tensions after saying Australia “should follow us and show respect” to China in a broadcast interview, weighing into a worsening rift between the two countries.
Strategic studies professor Robert Ayson, of Victoria University, said while there would be ministers and officials who think Australia has been a bit hard on China, “that doesn’t mean you say it”.
…there are 3 main domestic reasons for the desire to drop Australia in it with China.
Australia is America’s stooge & 5 Eye failure to warn: There is a deep feeling that Australia is simply America’s stooge, this reached crescendo in the Bush era and there is a deep suspicion that Australia would knife us in a second if America asked them. So any attempt to ratchet up conflict by Australia with China is viewed as coming from Washington. Add to this the deep anger many NZ Officials feel at the lack of 5 Eyes warning over the Covid and there is a feeling that Australia and America are arrogant arseholes whose friendship to us is as meaningless as honesty is to Trump.
501s & Treatment of Kiwis in Australia: The second class citizen treatment of Kiwis in Australia has always created deep tension, especially because we don’t treat them like that, but what has really soured things of late has been the forced repatriation of Australian Kiwis under the 501 law. This has seen an unprecedented culture change in the NZ gang scene with feral 501s using a level of violence the domestic Gangs in NZ never used previously. We now have almost 2000 dangerous and criminally violent expats being forced into our country and the tsunami of gun violence over the meth trade has lit a civil war on NZ streets.
Kiwi’s are woke cocks and economic cowards when it comes to criticising China: One thing in China’s favour with NZ is that we are economic cowards AND we are woke cocks. The activist woke see their own skills as globally transferable so protect migrant rights because they are their own economic rights meaning anyone critical of China is immediately racist. This inane micro aggression policing to protect one of the largest abusers of human rights in the world would be hilarious if it weren’t so fucking stupid. When you see everything through the identity politics lens, you lose the far bigger picture. At the beginning of the pandemic, many NZ woke were screaming anyone complaining about China were racist, this at the time when China were lying about the virus, were secretly buying up all the PPE and were still allowing their sick and infected to travel to the West.
So there are 3 main friction points between NZ and Australia when it comes to China, but if a negotiation with Australia over the 501s can be established, maybe NZ should be standing up with our neighbour against Chinese AND American hegemony.
China: The fear of domestic insurrection is driving China’s antagonistic Wolf Diplomacy. China needs to quell internal dissent by establishing Nationalistic fervour. Xi is warning his people about an upcoming event, China is refusing to recognise British passports and are preparing for war in the South China Sea to establish their territorial lies. Whether we like it or not, China is gearing up for conflict, now we don’t want to get involved in any crazy military confrontation with Beijing, but China’s aggression can’t be appeased. NZ needs to think more about a united front with Australia because Australia is FAR preferable to us as a regime than China ever will be. Economically decoupling from China and getting closer to Australia is our only way forward if China is gong to start military aggression in the South China Sea.
Facebook & Google (America): Australia is threatening to tax Google and Facebook, ring fence that tax and redistribute it for journalism It’s the argument I’ve been making that we need to do in NZ to reset our media landscape and regulate it. Facebook and Google are retaliating by threatening to cut connections to Australia, and we should be again standing shoulder to shoulder with Australia and pledge the exact same tax and work alongside them to implement it because fuck Google and fuck Facebook.
The turning point I think for NZ will be any information that concludes Covid was accidentally leaked from a Chinese lab, then and only then will the woke be forced to shut up and that information going public would probably force China to respond aggressively.
Facebook has already shown itself to do little more than inflame extremism and Google is a digital monopoly – both need to be broken up.
NZs desire to be an independent voice amongst a sea of Titans is admirable, but I fear events themselves are going to force our hand.
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Damien O’Connor wins the dumb fuck lickspittle award for 2021, that’s for sure. What a toadying embarrassment. And that is quite an achievement given Labour’s talent pool is rather shallow.
About now we should be actively weaning ourselves off China because doing business with them is not unlike that of a stereotypical international drug cartel. You havecto turn a blind eye to do business there and you never know when the big black Cadillac full of thugs is about to pull up outside and end it all.
Australia on the other has dived in my estimations. Them exporting homegrown criminals back here like we are their rubbish tip kind of makes one despise them and their culture. It sums up Australia’s arrogance and indifference toward NZ. The last place I want to go to be fair.
So tough call. But moving away from the reliance on both countries would be a very good thing.
And O’Connor, whose thinking belongs to a past generation, needs to go, like yesterday!
On the contrary Bomber,
Charity starts at home – same with Humanitarianism.
No China trade – no economic engine – in Australia where the consequences of being an American poodle are manifest.
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/former-dfat-boss-urges-government-to-adopt-more-nuance-in-china-dealings-20210129-p56xvt.html
Same will apply in NZ.
Damien is a pragmatic politican.https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/01/29/guest-blog-ross-meurant-in-my-opinion/
Saving humanity around the world may be a commendable cream – but reality is: NZ needs trade and China is critical.
America do not step into the void and take up the slack.
As for Facebook inspired policy for followers?
Goggle does not pay tax in NZ.
Companies with contracts to trade, do pay tax.
These same companies employ Kiwis – who pay tax,
Government pay the unemployed and etc – with tax money the tax money it collects.
Real Time or Day Dream Time?
We can’t effect regime change in China even if we knew what regime they should be under. So joining the US economic, political and morality campaign against them is self destructive,ignorant and hypocritical given the injustice perpetrated by our allies all over the world.
We should be controlling our own economy and our own immigration and ownership more sensibly which China would respect even if they complained; they look after their own. But there is no need to tell them how they should be running their country .
D J S
“they (China) look after their own”
Sure they do:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/12/uighur-xinjiang-re-education-camp-china-gulbahar-haitiwaji
Not a popular position you’re taking there Bomber but one I completely agree with.
We are always in danger of being fucked over by bigger players so let’s at least have our principles straight.
My take is that NZ should pursue the most independent foreign policy possible, and seek mutually beneficial bilateral trade and cultural arrangements with other countries–particularly smaller ones. The Helen Clark FTA with China has bitten us on the rear for years. China is an authoritarian country with many internal issues for sure, which the Chinese working class have to resolve at some point. How many off shore imperialist wars and invasions has the PRC initiated since formation in 1949 compared to the USA? eff all is how many, whereas it takes about a minute to scroll through the list of American invasions and attacks since WWII.
The USA is a failing state no longer worthy of much respect–reactionary groups violently attacked the country’s own Congress building, and it was essentially luck and a few brave individuals that saved the likes of Alexandria Ocasio Cortez from being murdered. It will take years to repair the Trump damage, if it is possible to do so with the population being so divided anyway. Trump cut NZ off, don’t expect the yanks to save NZ from anything in the 21st Century–self sufficiency is the new strategy.
Australia should be shamed, and despised by NZers on its own behaviour, never mind Chinese associations! ANZAC has been in tatters for years with the way NZ is treated, along with residents that do not have full rights, and regularly get exiled back here. Indigenous people are treated at least as badly as American indigenous peoples, and the forced labour imported African slaves, and how asylum seekers are put in concentration camps and tortured pyschologically and physicaly is a crime against humanity. Australia can sod off, they are indeed playing geo politics as US Imperialism’s South Pacific Deputy Dog.
Who are our “mates” Martyn ?
Please leave me out of it if you are suggesting our 5 Eyes partners and their wet dreams of hanging on to an Anglosphere domination of the world.
So disappointing to have this Alex Jones anti-science covid conspiracy spewed up yet again
NZ is importing nearly as much from China as they export (but media don’t mention this). The canny Chinese then buy up waste management companies to profit from landfill pollution.
NZ now very Chinese owned and our oceans are apparently just another cow/human toilet for their PRC outpost in NZ.
“Oceania Dairy is claiming a proposed 7.5-kilometre long pipeline to the Pacific Ocean will have “minimal” effects on marine life and would be an improvement its current method of discharging wastewater.
The company, which is owned by the Inner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co Ltd, wants to build the pipeline from its factory at Glenavy, about 58km south of Timaru, to discharge up to 10 million litres of treated wastewater daily into the ocean. ” https://www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/117581382/oceania-dairy-claims-minimal-marine-effects-of-wastewater-pipeline
Spoiler nner Mongolia Yili Industrial Group Co Ltd – they got their consent to do this and now able to pollute the public sea in NZ!
Water bottling shows ‘complete disregard’ for Māori rights, rūnanga says
https://www.stuff.co.nz/pou-tiaki/123712773/water-bottling-shows-complete-disregard-for-mori-rights-rnanga-says
No work safe prosecution for Chinese owned Wastemanagement Giants.
Carla Neems, 6, never got to tell her mum and dad she was the class ‘kid of the day’
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/112696703/inquest-hears-that-sensor-may-have-saved-girl-killed-by-rubbish-truck
Money laundering and other crimes are ok for Chinese nationals with NZ residency here they are discharged!
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
Second attempt to post what is not fashionable -note woke but “wake up”.
Damien was right on the mark https://thedailyblog.co.nz/2021/01/29/guest-blog-ross-meurant-in-my-opinion/
A politician who understand real time – not dream time.
A position Australia now seem to recognize https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/former-dfat-boss-urges-government-to-adopt-more-nuance-in-china-dealings-20210129-p56xvt.html
Being Americas poodle – means pain which America does not step up to take ownership of the grief its causes – ie does not take our ANZAC product sold to China.
Policy promulgated via Facebook Google inc who dont pay taxation is one thing.
Policy promulgated by Damien who understands that without trade (and like it or not China =trade for NZ big time) companies have less commercial activity and that is less tax paid.
That also means that the myopic concern of some about humanitarian issues abroad, ignores the reality of humanitarian issues at home.
Without trade companies dont have jobs for those who want to work – and the less in the work force means less tax paid to govt.
Less tax paid means government has less money to pay those who dont or wont work.
Damien is real time. Not dream time.
@ Ross, “myopic concern of some about humanitarian issues abroad”…. hmm you mean the equivalent of Nazi camps operating today and people disappearing over night like the Nazi’s did, while the world turns a blind eye and trades with the perpetrators…..
Two points:
(1) OF COURSE we should follow the Oz example, and require Google & Co. to pay for news that, as of now, they simple hoover up from our journalists for free. Hard to think of big Oz as a David, but alongside the Goliath of Google & Co., they surely are. I hope Oz calls their bluff (and btw, Google & Co. do have an agreement with France to provide some recompense for their media, so they are capable of folding).
(2) We can’t blame Oz for wanting to get rid of undesirable Kiwi crims, and of course this policy goes down well with their electorate, so there’ll never be any change. As for those who say many of them went there as children, and Oz caused them to become criminals, and so they should keep them. Wrong! It’s their PARENTS, who were (presumably) Kiwis who moved to Oz, and who were primarily responsible for how their offspring turned out. Blaming Oz for the parents’ failures does not go down well in Oz. Which is not at all to say I welcome them here — I certainly don’t. But I can see the Oz point of view.
Disclosure: I lived in Oz for 15 years some time ago (in the days where there was open entry to NZers, and you only had to live there 2 years to qualify for citizenship, which in fact I do have).
Mark Why do you ALWAYS quote statistics from Chinese economists as reported in Chinese Investment supporters such as Bloomberg, the New York Times or The South China Morning Post?
If you have ever lived in China you will know that official statistical information is propaganda. For example; When I visited Shandong in 1997 officials told me that for the last ten years there had been record breaking catches recorded every year by expert Chinese fishers because of the careful Chinese management of fisheries.
Because of this success there was no need to limit the fishery.
Two years later the fishery collapsed and 500 boats were ordered to cease operations. It was at this stage revealed government officials had falsfied records for propaganda purposes.
I could give you a dozen instances from my personal experience that show the figures reported officially(deaths in industrial accidents, re-forestation, provisions of pensions, wage levels) is utter nonsense the figures for GDP will be the same. I know it, you know it, your bosses know it.
As you said previously ‘ I can’t really think’ so stop doing it and your brain will stop hurting.
Mark your statements always seem to come to: China is big and strong so obey us or suffer the consequences.
Is that not bullying?
This is your cue to scream on about what other countries do wrong.
I understand there is a Chinese proverb ‘ defending the empty city.’ When you do not have defence make a lot of noise.
Long live the Dalai Lame. Strength to the Uighyurs.
Yep, exactly. Nothing more to add.
Brilliant B Dog
Trading and partnership with China was based on them being a law abiding and responsible global citizen. They have turned into anything but. China has turned into a highly dangerous international criminal, with state sanctioned systemic – bribery, corruption, blackmail, manipulation of governments, propaganda, concentration camps, ethnic cleansing, torture, murder, rape, drug trafficking, human trafficking money laundering, food poisoning, mass surveillance, pathological lying, enriching the CCP elite, starving it’s peoples, threaten other countries, espionage, brainwashing, perveyor of fake news, mass censorship, mass surveillance, medical expermentation on humans, repression of it’s peoples, theft, cyber attacks, cyber theft, development of weapons of mass killing of living organisms only, depletion of oceans fish stocks, illegal weapons trading, deliberately spreading harmful viruses then blaming other countries, debt trapping poor countries and undermining their sovereignty, destruction of true Chinese culture and perverting other cultures, fake gold, profiteering from the pandemic, sending defective medical supplies, manipulating foreign government elections, world wide extortion, persecution of religious minorities, counterfeiting, illegal fishing activities, flooding US and other countries with deadly Fentonal and other drugs, animal cruelty, illegal animal product trading, corporate crime, destruction of animal species, claim territories as theirs that aren’t theirs, massive environmental destruction, and probably the most disturbing and morally repugnant of all- live human organ harvesting for profit.
Latest in – live cremation of virus infected patients
We shouldn’t be trading with them – period.
Kiwis will throw anyone under the bus to make more money. Look at house prices. Poor young people sacrificed everything for the older population during lock down and then were savagely kicked to the kerb as a thankyou when the rich bought up all the properties. The landlords then put up rents further locking the poor and young out of any hope of owning a home. Kiwis are Judases who pretend to be nice but would sell their own grandmother to Hitler if they could make a profit. The kiwis are turning their backs on the other members of the 5 eyes and think that they have got a special relationship with Xi. Naive traitors. The allies need to cut NZ off now because they cannot be trusted anymore. They are a CCP satellite.
speak for yourself clown
I wouldn’t sell my Grandmother to anyone .
No Mark it is how manipulated YOU are.
Not how manipulated ‘we’ are.
Anyone who keeps supporting Chinese interference in New Zealand’s affairs is not part of ‘we’ but belongs to ‘them’. The ‘them’ being your bosses at the Chinese Communist Party.
‘stuck between a rock and a hard place.’ What a cliche!
When are you going to come up with something original?
Mark, everyone has the right to be stupid but you abuse the privilege!
You keep repeating the same worn out crap.
silly wangbadan
‘Problem is white people like you can’t stand for the rise of a non-white power. That’s the true source of your angst.’
When did the Chinese become ‘non-white’?
Having lived for years among the Chinese and having heard their constant racism in regards to black people( even on television programmes they are called ‘heigui’ -black devils) having seen the care people go to not get their skin darkened( particularly women), I am amzed you call them non-whites. Does this have the backing of the Chinese community as a whole? Have you consulted them?
Possible alternatives you could use are ‘non-European’, ‘non-occidential’ or ‘non-western’.
I believe these terms would be more accurate but seriously Mark you cannot expect me to keep helping you out.
Maybe you should spend a bit longer at school.
Since when have australians been our mates? Australians despise New Zealanders. Australians who despair of australia live in other countries, quitethis.this.t a few of them in NZ.
Surely you can write better than this. Do some fact checking before writing WW1 british imperial army bs about australian and new zealand army corps.
ANZAC was , and is a propaganda war term. We did not have reporters at Gallipoli.
Australians had reporters in the northern hemisphere, they never mentioned NZ in their reports.
We should rename anzac day as ” wake up day.
Since when has oz been our mate? forget anzac. that was british imperial bs.
Texans look quite civilised compared to australians.
We have finally signed the updated FTA with China. This will provide some quick improvements to our exporters in terms of timely access into their market.
And the response of the Chinese media and then government to O’Connors advice to those in Oz effectively guarantees us that they will not move to restict our access to their market simply because we disagree on stuff from time to time. Because we are able to do in more civlised/diplomartic language. For once the Aussies have their use (making those not knuckle draggers look good).
Securing the gains of the FTA with China seems to me to have been a good days work by the Minister – and that is why no one in National or ACT said a word against it. To do so, would have undermined their position as someone open to receiving business donations.
Such security to our economy allows us to move more on global warming action and on proverty (increasingly around affordable housing/homelssness) and strengthening helath and education.
Ayson is a security academic ANU, siding with the Five Eyes insiders and the woke liberals on Stuff is not sharp thinking. When they agree, walk away.
This all comes at a time when the Americans have madly claimed that what China is doing in the NW to Uighurs is genocide. Patently untrue – it’s the fake news Trump’s team left that Biden’s crew have unwisely carried on to prove they are not in bed with China. There is no evidence of murder – incarceration, slavery and cultural suppression, sure. They did it it less aggressively in Tibet. Turkey does the suppression to Kurds, Israel to West Bank Palestinians and India is starting at it in Kashmir.
Not going along with the lie, is not just being diplomatic, it is retaining credibility as an honest player.
From the American Resistance:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCzsCtckPLc
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