John Key’s ‘All our cows in one Beijing paddock’ strategy he pushed during his decade in power has back fired spectacularly on NZ as geopolitical tensions grow.
All that money we sunk into intensive irrigation so that parched plains could yield grass for intensive dairy has led us into an economic relationship that is very bad for us…
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- New Zealand’s dairy exports to China are worth more than $5 billion annually
- Farmers say the country is a “major player” and losing that business would have a “massive impact” on their lives
- Experts say New Zealand is “significantly exposed” to China on trade and is mindful of any reprisals
…put aside the climate crisis causing gases this intensification causes, put aside the water it steals and pollutes, put aside all that – we have an intense economic relationship with an authoritarian regime that treats human rights like they are optional and who is backing Russia’s terrible war in the Ukraine.
Farmers screamed that Jacinda was a socialist, seeing as Xi is paying their bills and propping up their farms so much, who is the real Red under the Bed here?
When China is putting $5billion into Dairy Farmers pockets annually, I think it’s important of us to ask, ‘who’s your daddy’?
This economic friction will only intensify. Putin has upended the rule based global system and this war in Ukraine with all its ramifications are barely calculated, but China and Russia are bound in this conflict as the first nascent kick of a new power block against the West.
That puts us squarely on the chopping block for geopolitical retaliation in the months and years to come as this new world order pushes back and China encroaches deeper into the Pacific.
Add the economic stress from China’s zero tolerance approach to Covid which keeps crushing supply chains and we have a perfect gravity of economic stress and geopolitical interests combining to create a double punch to the NZ economy.
On top of this is the unacknowledged impact of Chinese tourists coming to NZ to scout for property sales and we have a perfect storm of rising interest rates (predictions are two 50 point raises in a row), supply chain crunches, and falling house prices.
Being a world leading producer of the best food in the world means nothing if you can’t afford to eat any of it at home.
When the middle classes start seeing their house valuations declining, watch the venal nature of their political demands then.
Middle class Landlords are about to sound as self interested as Dairy Farmers.
If Winston starts a negative campaign against China, watch NZ First soar over the 5% threshold as those who don’t benefit from Dairy or rentals seek a new political home as National and Labour prepare to bend over backwards for them.
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It was Clark and Goff that signed the Free Slave Agreement with the racist, lebensraum-seeking PRC dictatorship.
Signing a trade deal and dairy intensification are two separate things. I don’t think it’s just milk powder the Chinese buy.
Exactly. They have bought a fuck tonne of lebensraum in No Zealand, and quite a few business, thought and political leaders.
Yes Mr Castro.
This is Helen Clark’s “free” trade legacy.
Key just pulled harder on the levers.
Martyn gets it right at the end though where he says both major parties are craven to China.
Yes, that’s how we show ourselves to be just as thick as people already think of us overseas. The dairy intensification had nothing to do with the FTA with China. That was part of the schedule Key was planted here to effect. The profligate destruction of our ecology, and the hollowness out of any manufacturing base worth a small tin of goatshit for the sake of Chinese land bankers, that left NZ with nothing to compete with the propert market was John Keys baby, and to be trying still, to attempt to shift blame for that shows a dangerous level of ignorance. Even the Australians understand that better than you’ve shown here. How embarrassing is that?
Stefan for a person who thinks they are vastly superior to everyone else, you have an immature, bordering on child-like understanding of how the world works.
John Key was a plant and Chinese land banking had nothing to do with the FTA?
OK champ.
Grifter Key has a lot to answer for.
Sorry, I mean Sir Grifter Key.
Drove through the Mackenzie basin yesterday.
It’s fucking disgusting the irrigation that was allowed there in fragile habitat, under Key.
Key never did the deal?
You fucking bet he did!
Oops Bert is rewriting history.
It’s one of those “sounds like a good idea at the time” things, not that Jacinda & Co have shown any backbone with regards to China.
Anyway, times change and a trading alliance away from China, despite the hyperbolic headline, is not something we should be afraid of confronting. Same thing happened, at a time of far fewer alternatives, when Britain joined the European common market.
India, South and North America, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, South East Asia, the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and of course Australia are all in the same boat with regards to China but, more importantly, represent huge opportunities for our (relatively small volume of) exports. These economic, trading, political and military alliances will shape the foreseeable future. We shouldn’t be afraid to stand up to China, they’re really only as strong as we think they are.
Yes. We forget that China at the time seemed on course towards liberalization and we were part of something exciting. We know now we’ve been duped of course. We can only learn from experience – to invest in trading with like minded nations.
Not quite sure what Martyn’s trying to prove here. Yes we are too reliant on China but look at why we got so involved with China. For years we were getting fucked over by Britain and the EC. We looked at China as a massive developing market and did our best to get a piece of it. Yes it was over kill but Key at least did something to try and improve our trading and financial situation. Who does the Left think we should be trading with. Not many countries have a morally clean sheet including us. As a pimple on the bum of the world we’re not really spoilt for choices are we.
“Who does the left think we should be trading with”. Well clearly China as they signed the deal. Probably the UK and the countries in the Trans Pacific agreement which “ the left” signed too.
Again that doesn’t have to be just about dairy which, as KCC pointed out, comes at quite an existing and future cost in its current approach.
Agreed, although Britain is a bit more of a pal trade wise now it’s out of the ECM. Gagarin is right with his comment also. All the tanks and crap we demand isn’t just bought from those on the right, it the lot of us. Sustainable dairy will come but at the moment the value of product sold to China and elsewhere can’t be ignored.
if we want our shiney new urban tanks and fashionable geegaws we have to be ‘mates’ with china if we’re prepared to radically change our lives and consumption we don’t need to but my guess is we’ll stick with the cheap mobys we all crave.
It was Clark who signed the free trade deal with China.
The saddest part of all this is one certain fact. If National got back in, it would be more of the same……with bells on.
They have a ready made excuse after all the Covid related expenditure to create another farcical “Rock star economy”. We must cut benefits. We must lower the minimum wage for x number of years. We must give tax cuts to benefit the wealthy. We must remove tenant protections in tenancy law as they eat into the profits of National Part supporters etc etc etc etc.
All the while National are telling and forcing you to tighten your belts, they and their ilk will be creaming it. Never was that better illustrated than the man who knew exactly what our finances looked like. Bill English. That didn’t stop him double dipping on his Wellington property. Nobody knows how to rort the system better than National Party MP’s.
They only have one love language……$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.
The Chinese know this only too well and what do they have lots of? …$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$
A Russell Brand must-watch. Not what you might assume. Essential viewing alert! Neoliberalism unpacked. Fucking brilliant stuff.
“Will Smith has resigned from the Academy after slapping Chris Rock at the Oscars – but why are people still talking about it and what is this latest culture war distracting us from?”
https://youtu.be/l8gauWZpIsQ
The Labour Government at the time did the deal now it’s John Key’s fault?
James Shaw says we do not have too many dairy cows so it must be ok the Greens only tell the truth.
If most of you above were gifted a brain it would be lonely indeed!–you seem to buy into the current narrative of 5 Eyes vs. Choyna–as Winston says it.
Joining the Non Aligned Movement of nations, and leaving 5 Eyes is really where it should be at for Aotearoa NZ in this era of climate disaster and COVID collapsed supply lines. Bilateral trade and cultural agreements will be a practical way to have relations with other countries outside of imperialist blocs manipulation.
Intensifying dairy farming did not preclude or disadvantage other industries from developing their exports – did it?
What other countries should we have developed trading relations with, and don’t those other countries like say Australia and the US also have China as their largest trading partner, lol?
The Chinese Marshall Plan seems to be working well.
Russia and China and their 140 trading partners are doing fine and will continue to do so.
That is more than half of the worlds population.
The US and EU are crumbling and this proxy War in the Ukraine will bring them to their knees.
We need some of that Chinese Marshall Plan.