Another week and another Matt Nippert article in the Herald updating us on the Prime Minister’s continued refusal to be interviewed substantively on the government’s approach to the People’s Republic of China.
A Herald request filed in May to discuss the Government’s China policy with Ardern was this week again rejected, with possible windows for an interview now pushed into early next year.
Perhaps it – refusal to be interviewed by a serious journalist on a major public policy issue – might not matter as much if our MPs were not, apparently, all in thrall to the PRC, such that there is no questioning in Parliament of the government’s approach on this really important issue. But Parliament is useless – and worse – and the Prime Minister simply avoids (refuses to face) sustained media questioning. Not, it seems, that many try, but to their credit the Herald has.
Cheap virtue-signalling is apparently fine: the Prime Minister was reported as (to her credit) having refused to travel in a Maserati at APEC. But that’s only PNG, and hardly anyone here (well, perhaps a few MFAT diplomats) will question her small stand against such excess.
But she is not willing to engage seriously on the activities, including those in our own country and own political system, of a great (if evil) power.
Fortunately, an occasional journalist does still manage to ask the odd question. But they are typically short interviews, and rarely focus in on things she is directly responsible for, and so she gets away with what can only be described as “blather”. There was an excellent example on Radio New Zealand’s Morning Report yesterday when she was interviewed by Guyon Espiner.
It was a consistent attempt at minimising any issues, relativising everything, and never ever calling out China on anything. It was actually pretty fundamentally dishonest to the New Zealand public, in attempting to imply that all that is really going on is a trade dispute. Then again, I thought she was given a pretty easy run by the interviewer.
Thus, we were told that there was “significant consensus” around the APEC communique and that the issues were only a few words. But she knows as well as anyone that most such communiques are just bumpf anyway, and the real issues always resolve around a few critical words. It matters a lot – tells us a lot – that neither the US nor China decided that it was in their interests to compromise on this specific point, which could almost certainly easily have been drafted around (and the results spun by each side) had there been a will to do so. (“Unfair trade practices – of course we disapprove of those, but our country doesn’t have any, just standard national security provisions”. That sort of thing.)
She stated that both sides should “step back and de-escalate”, without addressing the substance of the issues at all. But she must know that her consistent refusal to say anything of substance plays into the hands of the People’s Republic. You might think – as I do – that Trump’s initial focus on bilateral trade deficits is pretty flakey, but it doesn’t detract from the wider issues around theft of intellectual property, market access, and so on. The PRC remains one of the least open markets in the world. And the US by contrast, for all its many faults, is one of the most open.
The government seems to see itself as having some sort of role as a ‘bridge” between the US and China. Questioning drew on a comment to that effect over the weekend from the Trade Minister, David Parker. The Prime Minister attempted to minimise this, talking of some specifics around WTO governance. But perhaps the interviewer could have pushed her rather more on what it is that the government disagrees with in the recent combined (ie not just the US) EU, Japanese, and US approach
On November 12, the United States, European Union, and Japan will submit a package of proposals to the World Trade Organization’s Council on Trade in Goods that would significantly help curb China’s practices of heavily subsidizing its state-owned enterprises. They are also discussing ways to prevent China from forcing Western companies to transfer technology to Chinese firms.
The Prime Minister was asked why we wanted to be a “bridge”, to which her response was to burble on about a “values-based approach”, an independent foreign policy, and not picking sides. Surely in any sort of values-based approach – one where life is more than deal and political donations – you would be found on the side opposing the greater evil? But, of course, there was none of this from the Prime Minister, just the suggestion that somehow being neutral was better, for its own sake. To believe her, for example, you’d have to believe that Michael Joseph Savage and Peter Fraser were forced into World War Two against their better judgement, rather than as leaders of an independent country deciding to act together with other countries that shared our values, and the attitude to the presenting evil.
It is the sort of answer that wins praise from the largely taxpayer-funded propagandists for all things PRC. It shouldn’t be acceptable to decent New Zealanders, not compromised by deals or donations.
The interviewer tried again, asking if she was really saying we (well, she) was as aligned with the PRC as with the United States (with whom, as he pointed out, we are in a longstanding intelligence relationship). Even there she couldn’t manage a straight answer, burbling on about how “we align ourselves with a set of principles and values. Some of these things are not black and white”. But even then she seemed to be trying to reduce everything to technical details about a trade dispute. No sense, for example, that imprisoning a million people in Xinjiang, for being who they are, qualifies as pretty unconditionally “black”. Or probihiting freedom of speech, scoffing at the rule of law, widespread theft of intellectual property, severe restrictions on freedom of religion, and no capacity of a country’s citizens to change their government – and all that is mostly just the internal stuff – are pretty black. No other country – let alone our own – is perfect, but in real life you choose to align with real people and real countries, and when you choose to consistently refuse to identify that New Zealand has a lot more in common – in its values – with Australia, Canada, the US, Japan, the UK, Taiwan, or EU – than with the PRC, by default you side with other lot. You give legitimacy to their evil.
The interviewer moved onto the Belt and Road Initiative, which the previous government signed us up to last year – some sickening text (“fusion of civilisations”), but mostly a big propaganda win for the PRC. Because although the Prime Minister tried to spin her listeners suggesting that lots of countries had signed up, we are the only advanced country – and the only Five Eyes partnership country – to have done so. Of course, given that the deadine in the original agreement for specifics has now passed, one might deduce that the government is not too keen on doing too much under the loose aegis of the Belt and Road Initiative. Perhaps the pressure from Beijing for some specifics is beginning to mount – if, for example, New Zealand wants that extension of the preferential trade agreement (or the Prime Minister wants that trip to Beijing).
The interviewer moved onto matters we have full control over: our response to the PRC influence and interference activities in New Zealand. He quoted Anne-Marie Brady’s line that those activities (“covert, corrupting, coercive”) were now at a “critical level”. The Prime Minister simply refused to engage with specifics (she was “very cautious about labelling”), talking about the need for good and broad “legislative frameworks” – as if the real issues were primarily legislative, rather than attitudinal ones being at least as important – while naming nothing specific there either (although some mention of cyber-security). We need, we were told, to be “vigilant across the board”, trying to play distraction with references to North Korea and Russia. She was, she said, comforted that there was no evidence of interference in the election, without being pushed to engage with the fact that the current inquiry into last year’s election is being led by her own MP, Raymond Huo, who is himself associated with various United Front organisations, who adopted a Xi Jinping slogan for Labour’s campaign, and who organised the function at which Phil Goff funded a large chunk of his mayoral campaign with a “donation” (charity auction bid) from mainland China. I wonder how the intelligence services would feel if they were called to testify to a committee chaired by Mr Huo?
And, finally, the interviewer moved on to the burglaries at Anne-Marie Brady’s home and office, and suggestions of interference with her car. There was no clarion call in defence of the freedom of New Zealanders (academics or otherwise – this isn’t largely about academic freedom) to write, advocate and lobby as they like, no observation that while the investigation hadn’t yet been resolved, if there were evidence of involvement of a foreign power it would be a very grave matter, which the government would need to respond to with utmost seriousness. Instead we got attempts at obfuscation and procrastination. She told us she didn’t comment on intelligence briefings, only for the interviewer to point out that she was first one to mention intelligence services. Twice she attempted to point out that she had “been away”, as if she’d been communing with nature alone on top of some high mountain, not travelling on a government plane, accompanied by all manner of senior government officials.
If it wasn’t that surprising – given what we’ve come to see of her performance – it was disappointing nonetheless. I wonder if we will even get a straight answer when the Police finally – next year, the year after – finish their investigation. Effective freedom of speech – let alone a stand for the core values of New Zealanders – seems to be an inconvenience next to keeping the donations going, and keeping the business interests trading with China (notably Fonterra, the universities, and the tourism sector) on side. Her only “value” in this area seems to be the dollar.
But, of course, she gets away with it because the Opposition leader is just as bad. She has Raymond Huo in her caucus (and in a senior select committee role), he has Jian Yang, and both seem to keep the donations flowing, and neither will call out the other. The parties combine to honour Yikun Zhang for what, it seems, is in effect services to Beijing.
There was an interesting article in the Financial Times yesterday, reporting that the US is considering banning exports to China of a range of advanced technologies
In a document published on the Federal Register, the commerce department listed all the products it might subject to export curbs. These included items from genomics, to computer vision and audio manipulation technology, to microprocessor technology, quantum computing, mind-machine interfaces and flight control algorithms.
It is the sort of thing that illustrates that however silly the initial focus on bilateral trade deficits was, the tensions between the US and China are well beyond that stage now. At a time when the Chinese economy is in any case looking under more threat as the longrunning credit boom appears to have exhausted itself, and the authorities seem unsure how – if at all – to respond, surely an honest and decent Prime Minister would be more interested in levelling with the public, about the nature of the regime in Beijing, the nature of its threats here and abroad, than in engaging in some sort of weird amoral “balancing act”. If she wants to run the “not black and white” line, at least she could honestly recognise the distinction between off-white and something very very deeply dark grey.
But not in New Zealand. One could almost say she puts herself in something like the same category as Trump over Saudi Arabia – with obfuscation and avoidance, rather than bluster, her chosen rhetorical style.
In closing, and having praised the Herald for persevering (I guess at near-zero cost) in its quest for a serious interview on these issues, I noticed this earlier in the day
Translated from Chinese by
Microsoft
New Zealand has fallen.
Bill Bishop is a pretty astute and highly-regarded China analyst (who wears his distaste for Trump pretty visibly). I clicked the link and sure enough there seemed to be a whole series of sponsored articles (links down the right hand side of this particular article) from the People’s Daily – main Chinese Communist Party newspaper – on the Herald website. Quite extraordinary.
croaking cassandra 
By 2020, China’s Skynet system will have 400 million CCTV cameras installed complete with biometric data and AI software linking people to a ‘social credit scoring system’ – at which point Emperor Xi will have enslaved 1/5 of humanity.
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Thank you. You have said much the same before. Please keep saying.
It is not clear what our prime minister and our leader of the opposition mean by ‘principles and values’ but any honest person knows right from wrong and should be choosing the former.
I doubt the source of this quote will recommend it to Jacinda: “” I am in politics because of the conflict between good and evil, and I believe that in the end good will triumph.”” Margaret Thatcher.
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People think China is the land of milk and honey and the money will never stop. Well here are two points to consider: 1) the People’s Bank’s OMO/ outstanding – excluding short term repo – are worth approximately $1.1 trillion. If they hadn’t implemented the Marginal Lending Facility and the Standing Lending Facility, and just relied on OMOs in repo and banks’ Required Reaerve Ratio (RRR) the RRR would currently be around4.5%. In other words, the banking system’s Loan-To-Deposit ratio is now close to 100% and their ability to inject liquidity to boost growth is becoming exhausted. Secondly, the national savings rate is falling steadily and the current account surplus is nearly exhausted. If they do a stimulus, history tells us the investment-to-GDP ratio will rise and the savings-to-GDP ratio will fall. The net effect is that their current account deficit will balloon. They can finance this fairly easily in 2019 provided net FDI inflows keep coming in (I’m skeptical) but beyond that, they’re in trouble – and the numbers are huge. They could easily run a c/a deficit of 2% of GDP – about US$ 300bn – and they’d struggle to find that without selling foreign assets.
Bottom line: They’ve nearly exhausted the runway on their economy…
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Ardern and Peters are being played by the Chinese who keep pushing out (now to 2019 it seems) the opportunity for our glorious leader’s triumphant visit to Beijing, as a means of ensuring her good behaviour. A Prime Minister with an ounce of spine would now allow themselves to be “managed” in this way by any foreign power. It is utterly demeaning for Ardern and for New Zealand.
Please keep up these very informative columns Michael. they deserve wide circulation. It is important to lift New Zealanders’ awareness about what is happening to their country, since our politicians will not do so.
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Mike Pence made a formal request for Ardern to not be seated next to him but to his wife. That is even more demeaning. I think she has overplayed her baby and stay at home husband card.
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I don’t think people realise, they’re a busted flush.
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I’m not convinced but I don’t understand the financial terms you were using. What with confidence I do know is financial experts have a habit of getting things wrong – for example the GFC and whether to put interest rates up or down after it. So you might be right. Certainly China is full of experts with big brains but they are in a society where it is best not to be the bringer of bad tidings. So you may well be right. If you are right I don’t see president Xi and his colleagues in the CCP apologising and resigning. I can well imagine a war just to distract and stimulate patriotic fervour. Who knows maybe only NZ will survive.
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Peter
Taking all those vulnerabilities as real, the question is still what it amounts to. 20 years from now the PRC will still be the world’s largest economy, even if it languishes in per capita terms in the middle of the pack, and with enough total resources to make a considerable nuisance of itself abroad. In fact, we’ve seen other examples of regimes that have trouble delivering economically using adventures abroad as a bit of a distraction, offering “national pride” in place of freedom or first world prosperity. The challenges facing us re the NZ political system also seem likely to remain.
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I’ve learned that however learned and persuasive economists are always wrong; worse than weather forecasters. A ‘probably still be’ I would have no trouble with but ‘will’ makes you a hostage to fortune – if I was confident of being alive in 20 years I’d offer you a bet. Of course the gist of what you say is right.
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I guess almost every statement is made with an implicit probability assumption underpinning it. For the “china will be the largest economy in the world”, my implicit probability was about 99%. Anything about where it will rank per capita (other than, say, “it won’t be in the top 10”) is far harder to say.
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I cant follow a word she says, the hands flapping wildly and the bobblehead at top speed.
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I think it is great the lead OECD countries are going to the WTO with a reform package. The Australian media has been full of stories this week about a massive increasing in govt-backed commercial secrets hacking out of China. Don’t see how the WTO can work when one of the largest members is so obviously acting in bad faith.
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I’ve just been reading the AFR articles. Cumulatively they are pretty sobering.
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The practical application …. cyber war is a lot closer
Seems internet traffic can now be intercepted and diverted via a number of additional hops (server to server) so much so that up to 6 seconds can be added to the journey. The following link describes what is done but not how it is done. The fact that it can be done does not bode well for the global financial trading community. If selected data can be diverted off into the ether for an added 6 seconds, considerable losses could and would be imposed upon the unwary. Don’t know how they can do it but be aware. It’s coming. https://www.afr.com/news/special-reports/cyber-threat/internet-data-headed-for-australia-diverted-via-china-20181120-h184k4
example: try a command prompt, type in ping smh.com.au should have 4 hops to get there
Algorithmic trading and HFT trading has just become redundant
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Two articles very pertinent to the discussion here on CC. re: NZ’s apparent acquiescence.
This the most succinct commentary Re:the PRC strategy I have read. It is part of a very good analysis by
Charles Edel ( the first link)
https://www.the-american-interest.com/2018/02/09/limiting-chinese-aggression-strategy-counter-pressure/
“For the past several decades, U.S. policy has focused on reducing tensions and narrowing areas of disagreement. According to this logic, maintaining bilateral Sino-American stability would aid China’s integration into the global economy, promote liberal democratic values, and elicit greater Chinese collaboration on common global challenges. Such well-intentioned impulses were not entirely misguided, were appropriate responses at the time, and yielded some important results in areas ranging from curbing nuclear proliferation to combatting terrorism to addressing climate change. But, by privileging cooperation and stability above all else, they also ceded the strategic initiative to Beijing. And in doing so, it has allowed Beijing to engage in “probes,” seeing which activities elicit responses, and which are only met with some combination of consternation, anguish, and ultimately resignation. Because these probes are specifically designed not to cross the threshold of military intervention, many have not been met with counter-pressure, enabling China to gradually erode the existing order.”
A more recent piece, relevant to the SW Pacific.
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/china/2018-11-13/how-counter-chinas-influence-south-pacific?cid=soc-tw-rdr
What will it take to jolt us all awake ?
The building of a fully functioning naval base in Vanuatu perhaps, as requested earlier this year by the PRC.
You can only hope NZ is playing some game other than being acquiescent and or negligent.
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why would our leaders want to change nz an anglophone nation into a sinophile one?
It to me is like building a mansion by myself in weekends over 6 years and then when it’s finished give it away to a Chinese migrant for free.
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Most of us prefer our native language. However if I had a choice between retaining hard earned freedoms and retaining English well I would start Mandarin lessons remaining a freeman who has Jacinda as my current political leader. That would be far better than being an English speaking subject of President Xi.
My reading of President Xi is of a patient man with self-control and high intelligence; I have no personal aversion (unlike say my attitude to Mr Trump). However the ability to vote against and speak my mind against the elected leaders of NZ govt is a freedom I would never willingly surrender.
I’ve no problem with sinophiles. I’m fascinated by sinophiles like Joseph Needham – but there is a difference between loving the rich cultural heritage of two millenia of Chinese history and losing the freedom to think and speak your mind. I expect Anne-Marie Brady would call herself a sinophile but she has a realistic opinion about the current Chinese govt and its actions. I wish our MPs would take note of her informed analysis.
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It would not be for free. Hotchkins sold his mansion to Deyi Shi for $40 million
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Sir John Key sold his Parnell mansion for $20 million to a offshore Chinese.
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They are trying to create an ethnicless society. Like a Chinese person will throw away 2000 years of heritage for Jacinda’S values (a job at HRC might do it temporarily if the pay was good).
The government doesn’t care about our heritage eg TVNZ had the rights to the Landmarks series now they dont know who looks after it (no one?) there are a few copies floating about but seems no one would be interested – that story would somewhat contradict “we are a nation of migrants”.
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A nation can have a mix of ethnicities and languages (when Italy became a nation in the 19th century about 3% of the population spoke Italian; France also had a range of languages and even in England I couldn’t understand the true Geordies and some Aberdonians) but as Mr Reddell’s other post today says about what is a nation:
“” nationhood isn’t about race or language, but about two things. One is the past, the other is the present. One is the possession in common of a rich legacy of memories; the other is present consent, the desire to live together, the desire to continue to invest in the heritage that we have jointly received.””
I suspect the real benefits of international trade has converted our young politicians into globalists – they simply cannot see the vital importance of being a nation.
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Shouldn’t Diversity Dividend Spoonley be talking about this? There must be something *super* about superdiversity that (perhaps) makes all the old problems of the world go away?
That Morgan Xiao wrote (Facebook ) about Labour being run by sociologists.
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Superdiversity is a technical term for linguists. It is a measure of the probability of two randomly chosen adults sharing the same first language. On that measure PNG is just about the only superdiverse country. PNG is a fascinating country but its superdiversity is not doing it any favours.
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This leaped out of the Isaac Stone-Fish Twitter feed: “murky somethingness beats transparent nothingness.” Is that the case here, in terms of NZ’s views on China?
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Some hope perhaps
I’ll bet when the Chinese Communists went for “restricted capitalism” in the early 80’s they never saw this $28 billion nightmare coming.
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This is interesting
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[…] authorities to this harassment, and engagement with the substance of Brady’s research, so far not exactly forthcoming in New Zealand. It thus advocates scrutiny of both the coercive and the cooptive sides of the […]
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