The geopolitics of the Pacific have all heated up over the last few weeks in ways that demand attention.
Chinese spy balloons:
I don’t think this is a serious attempt by China to invade American air space, it is far more likely a cock up. Interestingly enough the person in charge of China’s weather balloons was removed once this became public.
It’s not China’s MO to pull brazen stunts like this that could be seen as a direct challenge to America. The following balloons shot down are far more likely to be US Forces focusing on balloons as opposed to a sneak attack by Chinese spy balloons.
What is most interesting is the way America keeps ratcheting up the offence which looks purely political in its agenda as opposed to existential threat too America
Māori Party neutrality:
While all this was happening, the Māori Party released a fascinating proposal for neutrality.
“In 1987 Aotearoa declared that we were nuclear free. Te Pāti Māori now declares that Aotearoa must be militarily neutral, a Switzerland of the South Pacific” said Rawiri Waititi.
“We must asset our Rangatiratanga and Mana Māori Motuhake. In doing that, we must assert our own Foreign Policy and Military requirements. We will no longer have our sovereignty determined by others, whether it is in Canberra, London, Washington, Beijing or Moscow.
“We will no longer be a political football in the wars of imperial powers. We will no longer act as a Pacific spy base for the Five-Eyes Alliance”
This is an intelligent proposal and alongside our independent foreign policy should be the bindings of a strong national identity.
The most incredible part of this is that the mainstream media totally ignored the Māori Party release and killed the debate off before it was even allowed to happen!
3% GDP military budget:
We need to increase Military GDP spending to 3%. Interestingly Labour have quietly ratcheted GDP military spending from just over 1% to just under 2%.
I believe that the climate crisis means we need a vastly larger military to cope with civil disasters and if we are attempting to distance ourselves from China and America, we need to make a decision to dramatically lift what we spend on the military for purely defensive capacity.
How would we go about defending the realm of NZ and all our economic exclusive zone?
Australia as China’s Ukraine:
The recent attempt to paint Australia out as China’s Ukraine is absurd.
The argument is US will use Australia as a military conflict proxy with China they way they are doing to Russia in the Ukraine.
This is nonsense because the Ukrainian conflict came about because Russia invaded the Ukraine.
What is Former Australia diplomat John Lander suggesting by inviting this comparison? That China intends to invade Australia?
American military are already promising a war with China in 2 years, but I don’t believe China wants conflict any more than we do.
We must escape this notion that war is inevitable and challenge those wanting to push us into a war.
The geopolitics of 3 Waters:
To date the entire 3 Waters debate has been dominated by ‘da maris is stealing da water’ level of sophistication, yet no one has considered the geopolitical ramifications.
In 2017, Infrastructure NZ led a delegation of 33 senior New Zealand public and private representatives to the UK. The purpose of the all expenses paid delegation was to investigate Scotland’s infrastructure innovations since devolution, especially their water system which ended up being the structural basis for 3 Waters.
Criticism of the financial structure of 3 Waters raises serious questions about the ease with which a failing water entity could be privatized.
Under the current 3 Waters legislation, the new water entities cannot be ‘bailed’ out by their council ‘owners’, and the entities are also empowered to sell assets if they can retain the capacity to exercise their duties functions and powers. The ‘owners’ can’t prevent this, nor can the Regional Representative Group or the appointment board.
Infrastructure NZ comprises of the China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China and the Bank of China. These are the domestic pimps for China’s Belt and Road project, why are we allowing Chinese interests to influence our infrastructure?
Wouldn’t it be a tad outrageous for Chinese Business interests to push our officials into adopting a water infrastructure system that could lead to privatization which those Chinese Business interests might ultimately be the benefactor of?
I ask, because that is what has happened and no one seems to have noticed!
The question politically is would any Iwi attempt to maximise the new powers they’ve gained under 3 Waters to cut deals with Chinese water interests instead of local interests because that would be seen by many Kiwis as treason.
The romanticisation of Māori Capitalism is that it is less venal than Pakeha Capitalism, but that romanticism is a double edged sword, because if Māori are using The Te Mana o Te Wai statements, (these are buried buried deep within the Water Services Entities Bill), they gain a veto power no one else has, and with that veto power they could choose to not work with NZ, they could work with Chinese water interests and that would generate a backlash explosion of anger far greater than ‘da Māoris is stealing da water’.
Interestingly the preamble of 3 Waters is all about the obligation of the State to protect Iwi expressing their interest in water – which includes their ‘right’ to sell their interests to who they want.
Ultimately if China Construction Bank, Industrial and Commercial Bank of China or the Bank of China offer to fund 3 Waters, a system they influenced, should we accept?
We have been so easily distracted by ‘da Māoris is stealing da water’ we have not realised the corporate Chinese banking interests who are actually directing our infrastructure plans!
Conclusion:
NZ must be friend to all, enemy to none.
A military neutrality is a responsibility that demands a larger spend on the military which we need for climate disasters and protecting The Realm of New Zealand, which comprises New Zealand and our economic zone, Tokelau, the Ross Dependency and the self-governing states of the Cook Islands and Niue
We must not allow ourselves to be dragged into any war while ensuring our sovereignty is not compromised economically by China or America.
Extreme Climate events are forcing us into an age of consequences and that has enormous impacts on the geopolitics of the Pacific.
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North China Sea or bust. Save the pangolin!
“…why are we allowing Chinese interests to influence our infrastructure?” Just the infrastructure? *crickets chirping*
Te Pāti Māori have got it totally correct, some of us old school leftists say “Neither Washington, Moscow or Beijing”–working class internationalism and solidarity is the way to go.
The two additions in TPM’s statement, Canberra and London, make sense for our country. How about Ottawa too? I am not being facetious here, Canada is too often under the radar, but they are a full 5 Eyes member.
As nice as the Maori Party neutrality proposal sounds, I don’t think anyone is under any illusions as to what would happen if they actually implemented it. A U.S. regime change operation would be coming to town — there is no way the Americans are going to risk the NSA second-party base (Ironsand Station in Waihopai) being shut down.
We should be friends with China and also friendly with the Americans, but as a weak vassal nation, that just isn’t going to be allowed to happen during the coming War On China — the final showdown for U.S. global primacy, as the neocons attempt to save the Wolfowitz Doctrine from total collapse.
The Chinese could easily rebuild the crumbling local infrastructure and backward productive machinery — after all, they’re busy rolling out high speed rail all over the world.
If by some miracle it was allowed to happen, it could be structured so that local state enterprises or investors must own 50% — essentially the same foreign investment policy used within China itself.
The US has nothing to offer but death and rape, which is all their ‘military’ exists to do (apart from being a bigger polluter than all but the top 30 countries in the world).
Independence wouldn’t be that expensive at all. We would need to fire all the scum in the GCSB and SIS and the diplomatic protection side of Police, as they’re all traitors to this country who work for America, and set up an intelligence agency to control people like Anne-Marie Brady who are directly on the payroll of CIA spinoffs like the NED and who might be part of a colour revolution.
To defend against American and Australian intrusions, we simply need anti-ship missiles to sink their ships and anti-air to keep their aircraft away from the anti-ship launching platforms. Not dirt cheap, but easy to get from any of the independent powers- Russia, Iran, China, etc.
It will be more expensive to rebuild the national security assets that aren’t weaponry that neoliberal governments have already allowed to be destroyed, like our oil refinery that taxpayers paid for under Muldoon, than to build up the self-defence forces to guard them.
CC is Green Wash’n. A Marketing PR banding grift. Need to move on from that.
The mowree party need to be sent on a junket to the Russian front!
“The most incredible part of this is that the mainstream media totally ignored the Māori Party release and killed the debate off before it was even allowed to happen!”
Why you may ask? Because theyre fuck’n pathetic!
Eee Orr needs to crack out the other $100b bazooka! Pronto! So labour can bribe kiwi to vote for them. Thats all they have left.
Disguise it as another Crisis! A Cyclone Fund for the Clean Up! And Bring Back the MoW’s to do it! $100b would create a lot of jobs forever!
Turn the NZ Defence Forces into a Engineers Corp for the reconstruction of the entire country!
how do unmanned chinese balloons navigate, do they have little engines or like the ww2 japanese ones just lauched into the trade winds and cross your fingers….not a very good option if you want to spy on specific objects.
The Maori Party are just a voice at the table .They deserve to be heard but their opinion is only that their opinion they do not speak for the vast majority . The same applies to water I have heard a couple of the Maori leaders say they should be listened to because they are more at one with nature and know more than the pakeha because the water was not polluted when they lived here before being colonialized .They did a lot of damage by burning trees down and hurting moa to extinction so it was only the small population and their basic way of live that meant they did not have a great effect on the land.
I read a lot of blog posts, but I never heard a topic like this.