Mr. John Key has been in China lately, talking up New Zealand's Chinese future.New Zealand know-how, Chinese capital.
New Zealand businesses, Chinese partners.
New Zealand lamb and butter for Chinese T-shirts.
Free trade, and a truce with Coca-Cola Communism.
I studied Mandarin for two years, and have many Chinese friends. There is no Yellow Peril ick factor here. Free trade with India, Thailand, Singapore and Japan doesn't bother me a jot.
But China?
China imprisons priests and nuns, Falun Gong members and political dissents.
China continues the oppression of Tibet.
China is a huge, militaristic, Communist dictatorship.
China does things like this:
What partnership is there between a dragon and a mouse?
What power equality is there between tyrants and the people they victimise?
What influence do we really have with the Chinese?
Apparently not much.
Heh, always good to see my FB videos posted here.
ReplyDeleteYou know, I completely forgot that's where I saw it.
ReplyDeleteMany apologies, you should have got a hat-tip. I hope you don't mind.
I suppose its only to be expected that all the dictators in history liked to have masses of men (and women) march past in very large numbers, all attired in exactly the same way. Nazi Germany, Communist Russia, China, none of whom exactly encouraged individualism.
ReplyDeleteMe, I prefer the colours and variations of our regiments, and in less than overpowering numbers. I don't need to be reassured they are excellent soldiers by the amount I can see at one time, I simply know they are, and I would rather die in the breech with any of our Commonwealth cousins than be an indistinct member of the PLA.
Good to hear from you again Swift.
ReplyDeleteIf it makes you feel any better my fraternal friend, we're all in bed with China now. And I don't know there is much that we can do about it, short of engaging them directly in the hopes they will reform and evolve over a long period of time. I also think Chinese Society is a much more settled and ordered polity and not nearly the marshalled civilisation depicted in that militaristic video. A damn far cry from the Queen's soldiers though.
Swift,
ReplyDeletethe video was a hash up by someone called Ian Asbjornsen. The footage has not been put together by the Chinese. I agree that this video might look overwhelming to someone in New Zealand, but there are plenty of military training videos, footage of parades and the field gun race that could be timed to Electronic music to make a propaganda video of British forces. If you look at you tube you'll find lots of gratuitous military might videos put together by people from France the US, Russia etc... I agree that the Chinese military parades look quite alien to the Commonwealth, but they were trained by Soviet military advisors.
The Chinese government is very unpleasant and we can't deny that. However, New Zealand is just making the best deals it can in terms of trading. In terms of technology, I'm really not too sure that New Zealand has that much that China doesn't already have access to. Don't forget that long before this free trade treaty, there has already been a massive technology transfer to China from the USA and looking at the number of Chinese students in Western Universities it seems that they'll soon find a point where they'll at least keep their own on knowhow in management and technology.
I don't see how withholding free trade would help New Zealand or damage China.
Best wishes,
Paddy