Seating Arrangements

Proximate Cause:  Tellingly, it was Helen Clark who was seated close by when, earlier this week, Jacinda Ardern delivered a speech carefully crafted to keep New Zealand’s dairy exports heading China’s way. Photo by Politik

PURISTS WOULD ARGUE that New Zealand’s foreign policy should not be determined by who its Prime Minister sits next to. Their preference would be for consistency of message and predictability of action at all times.

Easier said than done, of course. Contradicting the President of the United States when you’re seated next to him in the White House would be a diplomatic incident in its own right. Small wonder, then, that Jacinda Ardern decided that when in Washington, talk like a Washingtonian.

Ms Ardern is not so naïve, however, as to imagine that both the tone and the vocabulary of her Washington pronouncements would go unnoticed by those who speak the language of Beijing.

Aware that the New Zealand Prime Minister’s next stop would be the Nato summit meeting in June, China’s diplomats opted to remain silent. They were keen to hear what she would say when she was seated next to the Nato Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg.

In the official White House communique of 31 May 2022, President Joe Biden and Ms Ardern jointly singled out the Peoples Republic of China as “a state that does not share our values or security interests”, noting that any Chinese attempt to establish “a persistent military presence in the Pacific” would, by fundamentally altering the region’s strategic balance, give rise to national security “concerns” in both New Zealand and the USA.

One month on, the heady incense of Ukraine’s heroic resistance to Russian aggression which suffused Nato’s Madrid summit (28-30 June 2022) seemed only to brighten the militaristic glint in the New Zealand Prime Minister’s eye. Impressed, no doubt, by the lengthening geopolitical reach of the Nato partners – now extending all the way to the Indo-Pacific – Ms Ardern wound her diplomatic rhetoric up a notch. China, she said, “has in recent times also become [like Russia] more assertive and more willing to challenge international rules and norms.”

This was too much for Beijing. China’s Wellington embassy described Ms Ardern’s comments as “wrong and thus regrettable” and “not helpful in building trust”.

To the untrained ear, this may sound like a mild rebuke. But to those, like the Australians, who have, in the relatively recent past, forfeited China’s trust, the economic penalties following such rebukes have been anything but mild.

It’s all very well to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the shieldmaidens of Finland, Sweden, Estonia and Denmark and breathe in the heady perfume-du-jour – L’air du Cordite. But, eventually, all New Zealand Prime Ministers are obliged to get off at the World’s last bus-stop and breathe in L’air du Cow.

Not for nothing is our foreign service dubbed MFAT – the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade. By asserting the indissoluble linkage of New Zealand’s diplomatic and economic interests, our diplomats might just as easily have called themselves the Ministry of Milk Fat. It has always been thus. In two world wars we traded blood for butter, and, even today, it is the brute calculation of who pays for what that ultimately determines our allegiances.

Ms Ardern may have thrilled to the martial music of our “traditional allies” and longed to strike the heroic poses of her North European counterparts but, for all their war songs, the Americans and the EU nations weren’t offering to bankrupt their own dairy farmers by taking all the milk solids we can send them.

Thankfully, at least some of the employees of MFAT still have their eyes on the only prize that matters – the well-being of New Zealanders. Thankfully, some still understand that the only “national security” worth a damn is the security that comes from being able to pay your country’s bills. And the only country making it possible for us to do that; the only country willing to take all the milk solids we can send; is the Peoples Republic of China.

To her credit, Prime Minister Ardern always comes back to that single, crucial, fact of New Zealand economic life. It helps that the National Party’s foreign affairs spokesperson, Gerry Brownlee, “gets it” too. Even more helpful is the fact that the woman who negotiated New Zealand’s free trade agreement with China is as alive and alert as ever.

Tellingly, it was Helen Clark who was seated close by when, earlier this week, Jacinda Ardern delivered a speech carefully crafted to keep those milk solids heading China’s way.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 5 August 2022.

From “Friend”, To “Threat” – In Just Five Years.

New Zealand’s Most Profitable“Friend” Dangerous “Threat”: This country’s “Five Eyes” partners, heedless of the economic consequences for New Zealand, have cajoled and bullied its political class into becoming Sinophobes. They simply do not care that close to 40 percent of this country’s trade is with China.  As far as Washington, London, Ottawa and Canberra are concerned, Wellington is simply paying the price of putting all its milk powder in one basket.

WELL, THANK YOU, JACINDA! In just five years, you and your government have turned New Zealanders decisively against their country’s most important trading partner. According to research released today (22/6/22) by the Asia New Zealand Foundation, the number of Kiwis who view China as a “friend” has fallen from 62 percent in 2017, to just 13 percent today. Meanwhile, the number viewing the People’s Republic as a “threat” has risen from 18 to 58 percent, over the same period.

That dramatic rise (40 percentage points!) in the “threat” perception, is the entirely predictable result of a relentless, American-led, campaign to demonise, isolate and “contain” China. New Zealand’s “Five Eyes” partners, heedless of the economic consequences for New Zealand, have cajoled and bullied its political class into becoming Sinophobes. They simply do not care that close to 40 percent of this country’s trade is with China. None of them are willing to make good its loss by opening their markets to New Zealand exports. As far as Washington, London, Ottawa and Canberra are concerned, Wellington is simply paying the price of putting all its milk powder in one basket.

It is difficult to grasp the precise cause of the West’s falling-out of love with China. Since the late-1970s, the leading industrial powers have been falling over themselves to invest in the Chinese economic miracle. Without compunction, or compassion, they relocated Western industrial production to an authoritarian state where labour costs were low and unions docile, eliminating in the process the factories that had kept millions of their own workers gainfully employed. There were no complaints then about China’s lack of democracy, indeed, its absence was pretty much the whole point!

Ask them, today, what they were thinking, and they’ll spin you the usual yarn about how certain they were that this new, mutually beneficial, economic relationship would lead to the gradual liberalisation of the Chinese regime. Just as it had in the Soviet Union, democracy was coming to the PRC. You are invited to imagine their surprise and horror when Beijing opted, instead, to combine the Chinese people’s economic prowess with the Communist Party of China’s authoritarian political impulses. Western investment hadn’t created a friend, it had produced a monster!

To which we are all entitled to call “Bullshit!”.

Let’s just consider the counterfactual that China had, indeed, embraced democracy, or something approaching it – a la Singapore. According to the West’s own theories, the country would have become even more powerful, economically and culturally. It’s people, freed from the tutelage of the Communist Party, would have grown even more confident and productive. In other words, China’s inexorable rise to global economic dominance would have happened faster under democracy than it did under authoritarianism.

It is simply implausible to argue that the United States would have behaved any differently when faced with a democratic Chinese hegemon than it has in relation to the real-world’s authoritarian China. What can be asserted, however, is that if China had adopted democracy, then the United States would have found it a great deal easier to destabilise and dominate.

That’s the great attraction of democratic political systems to powers like the United States, they are just so pathetically easy to subvert. Pick a colour – any colour – and Uncle Sam will organise a “revolution” in no time. Don’t believe me? Go ask Serbia, Georgia, Ukraine. Or, dig out Time of 15 July 1996, and read the Cover Story: “Yanks to the Rescue: The Secret Story of How American Advisers Helped Yeltsin Win.”

There are, of course, many ways to destabilise and break-up a rival nation. If its authoritarian political system makes the organisation of a “colour revolution” impossible, then a global superpower can always stir up ethnic and religious communities in border regions with sympathetic neighbours. Arms can be smuggled across mountain and desert frontiers. Jihadists can be schooled in terror. Bombs can go off in crowded marketplaces. Innocent people can die. The Chinese have watched and learned, and in Xinjiang they have applied the lessons.

Once again it helps to examine the counterfactual. Imagine a China whose leaders were unwilling to take the measures necessary to suppress an Islamist insurgency. Very quickly, Xinjiang would have come to resemble Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria. Terrorist atrocities would have become commonplace. Beijing would have been forced to field substantial military and intelligence resources to its autonomous region. Communal hatreds would have grown and spread. Hundreds-of-thousands of the native Uighur population would have fled, or been interned. How different, in terms of repression, suffering and death, would it be from the present situation?

Not that these sort of questions are ever posed by the political classes of the Five Eyes powers and their Asian allies. Roughly six years ago, America’s strategic thinkers finally abandoned their dream of a democratic China that the USA could control, and began to intensify its parallel policy of containment. An important part of that effort was the co-ordination of elite opinion across the Indo-Pacific.

It is necessary, now, for earlier narratives of co-operation and friendship with the Chinese – of which New Zealand was a leading exponent – to be abandoned in favour of Washington’s new narrative of a dangerous and expansionist China, hellbent on establishing, first, regional hegemony, and then, full global dominance.

How easily that change of narrative was achieved by Washington should prompt New Zealanders to query the robustness of their own democratic institutions. That there has been no significant divergence of opinion concerning New Zealand’s pivot away from its largest trading partner – with all that entails for the health of New Zealand’s economy and society – should, surely, give us pause. This country’s much vaunted “independent foreign policy” stands revealed as rhetoric – not reality.

Uncle Sam has informed us that New Zealand is at war with Eurasia: that New Zealand has always been at war with Eurasia. Dutifully, our politicians, academics and journalists all contribute lustily to the compulsory “Five Minute Hate” against the People’s Republic. The “friend” that made us rich, has become a “threat” to be contained.

When the export orders dry up – and they will if China decides we’ve become her enemy – then we’ll have no one to blame but ourselves. Oh, and our “very, very, very good friends” – the Americans.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Thursday, 23rd June 2022.

Louisa Wall: Rebel In A Wrong Cause

Running The Wrong Way: Brave though she undoubtedly is: and tough as an old Rugby boot; on the crucial issue of China, Louisa Wall is just plain wrong.

I WISH I could like Louisa Wall. I really do. Labour has so few mavericks in its ranks these days. Following the historical contribution of the late, great Jim Anderton, they’ve rather gone out of fashion. And, no, I’m not forgetting the exploits of the hapless David Cunliffe. He did, indeed, show every sign of being a gutsy maverick – right up until he won the Labour leadership and self-destructed. (Albeit more slowly that Todd Muller!) Certainly, Labour’s due a rebel or two. Someone to recall the party to its core principles. Which it needs. Unfortunately, Wall is not that person.

Which is not to suggest for a moment that Wall hasn’t made an important contribution to New Zealand political history. Her Marriage Equality legislation fulfilled a long-standing goal of the LBGTQI community – on whose behalf she has been a tireless fighter.

Wall’s staunch advocacy on these issues has not been without cost. In the South Auckland Pasifika communities she represented there were many who harboured deeply-held religious objections to the causes she espoused. Wall’s outspokenness saw her fall prey to the internal machinations of Labour’s factions. That she faced them down, and forced them to back-off, bears testimony to her courage and resilience. As Jacinda Ardern discovered, Louisa Wall is one tough cookie.

Tough to the point of pig-headedness. It’s the greatest weakness, as well as the greatest strength, of the maverick. Once they get hold of an idea, or attach themselves to a cause, they will not let it go. Neither, sadly, will they suffer anyone to interrogate their adherence. Mavericks are not very good at seeing both sides of the story. They are even worse at admitting that their version of the story might not be the right one.

Hence my unwillingness to join Wall’s fan-club. Brave though she undoubtedly is: and tough as an old Rugby boot; on the crucial issue of China, Louisa Wall is just plain wrong.

If you intend to make your next big stand on the field of foreign affairs, then the very first thing you have master is the art of due diligence. In the fraught field of geopolitics, claims and counter-claims fly back and forth like artillery shells – with almost as much destructive effect. Before committing yourself to one side or the other, it is absolutely imperative to discover who is making those claims – and why.

Nowhere is this more important than on issues relating to China. Under the leadership of Xi Jinping, China is asserting its interests in ways that make the rest of the world – especially the United States – uneasy. For more than a century, China was on the receiving end of Western and Japanese imperialism. Weak, and prey to foreign exploitation and conquest, it had not been in a position to assert very much of anything. The rest of the world is neither accustomed to, nor comfortable with, a powerful China. Predictably, it is resisting its resurgence.

China’s treatment of political dissidents and ethnic minorities has provided her enemies with extremely useful propaganda targets. Rather than examine the reasons for the Chinese Government’s behaviour, which, in its essence, is indistinguishable from that of all other great powers when confronted with internal challenges to their imperium (think of England’s treatment of the Irish, or the United States’ treatment of Native Americans) China’s enemies accuse her of committing the most appalling atrocities – up to and including genocide.

Wall has proved herself to be an eager consumer of these horror stories. She has been convinced that the Chinese authorities are “farming” political prisoners for their organs. Rather than believe that the Chinese state is willing to use the organs of executed criminals to either save or improve the lives of desperately ill citizens, she has accepted at face value the claim that officials are murderously “harvesting” the organs of innocent civilians for profit. Rather than accept the Chinese authorities’ explanation that it is incarcerating Uighur nationalists and Islamists in re-education-through-labour camps in preference to going after them militarily, Louisa has bought into the USA-driven accusation that the Chinese are engaged in “genocide”. Given that the Uighur population of Xinjiang province is roughly twice as large as it was 50 years ago, one could be forgiven for observing that the Chinese definition of genocide is somewhat different to our own!

At the heart of just about all of these accusations against the Chinese Government one finds the virulently anti-communist cult known as Falun Gong. It is from Falun Gong that supposedly independent groups like End Transplant Abuse in China (ETAC) and The China Tribunal are fed the outrageous and unproven charges of organ farming, crimes against humanity, and genocide.

It is highly instructive that prior to the election of Xi Jinping as China’s head-of-state, Falun Gong’s horror stories were largely received with the international disdain they deserved. It is only since China’s new assertiveness began manifesting itself around the world, that the cult’s claims have been accepted as admissible evidence. The United States has ceased to treat China as a friendly off-shore manufacturing platform, and begun portraying it as a disruptive and increasingly aggressive force in world affairs. In this new endeavour, set in motion by President Barack Obama, the gruesome propaganda of Falun Gong has proved invaluable. So much so, in fact, that one could be forgiven for thinking that it was created for just such a purpose!

Given Louisa Wall’s political achievements, her descent into the murky waters of anti-Chinese propaganda is deeply regrettable. (Especially so, given the Falun Gong cult’s vicious homophobia.) There are already more than enough New Zealanders busying themselves in fomenting the next Cold War, without this hitherto formidable Labour MP joining their ranks.

The well-being of hundreds-of-thousands of New Zealanders depends upon this country’s diplomatic and economic relationship with China remaining strong. China’s enemies will not reward New Zealand for engineering a break with Beijing. Their local helpers will be cast aside with as much dispatch as they were recruited.

It is a great pity that Louisa Wall appears to have forgotten that mavericks are called mavericks precisely because they refuse to be driven in the same direction as the rest of the herd.

This essay was originally posted on The Daily Blog of Tuesday, 13 July 2021.

Dining With A Long Spoon.

Divided Loyalties: Can the Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready to sell their souls for a pile of soybeans (or milk-powder!) and forgetting all about their duty to protect the interests of their “very, very, very good friends” – in the United States and Australia.

AT ROUGHLY the same time as the police presence at Ihumatao was suddenly and inexplicably boosted (5/8/19) New Zealand’s Deputy-Prime Minister, Winston Peters, was sitting down to dinner with the US Secretary of Defence, James Esper. This high-level diplomatic tête-à-tête took place at the Deputy-Prime Minister’s home in the swanky Auckland suburb of St Mary’s Bay. It’s a safe bet that Mr Peters’ American guest talked about mustering coercive forces far greater than those then arriving at Ihumatao.

That Secretary Esper was there at all is, in itself, remarkable. The US Senate’s stamp of approval has barely had time to dry and the politician charged with responsibility for the greatest aggregation of military might in the planet’s history is on his way to Australia and New Zealand. Not to the United Kingdom and Europe, it is worth noting, but to Australasia, the crucial pivot-point of the United States’ brand new “Indo-Pacific Strategy”.

The change of  nomenclature – from “Asia-Pacific” to “Indo-Pacific” is important. It betokens a critical shift in emphasis. From the straightforward projection of American power to the farthest reaches of the Pacific Ocean: a constant of US foreign and military policy since the heady days of Teddy Roosevelt and his “Great White Fleet”; to the vastly more ambitious goal of “containing” the growing power and influence of the Peoples Republic of China by asserting American hegemony over both the Pacific and the Indian Oceans.

To make this work, the United States requires the active support and cooperation of Japan, Australia and India. Together, these nations form what to Chinese eyes must look like a profoundly threatening arc of offensive military capability. Japan stands at the arc’s eastward extremity, India at its western end, while Australia, at the arc’s base, straddles the two great oceans that give the strategy its name. With these three powers holding the perimeter, the other powers of the region: the Philippines, Indo-China, Indonesia, Malaysia, Burma and Thailand have little option but to go along for the ride.

For the geopoliticians in Washington, New Zealand also has a role to play – albeit a negative one. If Australia is going to fulfil its strategic obligations to the north and west, then it cannot afford to have anyone but a friend protecting its crucial eastern and southern flanks. As far as Washington is concerned – that’s us. Under no circumstances can New Zealand be allowed to fall any further under the influence of China. In the memorable phrase of the US Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, who travelled as far as Australia with Secretary Esper, the nations of the region could either “choose to sell their souls for a pile of soybeans, or protect their country.”

This, I strongly suspect, occupied a large part of the American agenda at St Mary’s Bay. Secretary Esper would have been anxious to know exactly where New Zealand’s loyalties lie: in Washington, or in Beijing?

Not that he entertained the slightest doubt about Mr Peters’ loyalties. His recent speeches, delivered on American soil, have made his feelings about Chinese influence in the South Pacific crystal clear. Nor had it escaped the notice of New Zealand’s ‘Five Eyes’ partners that Mr Peters had retired the outdated formulation “Asia-Pacific” in favour of “Indo-Pacific”. It was great to have New Zealand’s Deputy-Prime Minister and Foreign Minister on board and with the programme.

But what about New Zealand’s Prime Minister? Could she be relied upon? That’s what the boys and girls at Foggy Bottom and the Pentagon needed to be reassured about. Because Secretary Esper may well have suggested to Mr Peters that, from the perspective of Washington, it’s looking more and more like Jacinda Ardern and her Labour Party comrades are getting ready to sell their souls for a pile of soybeans (or milk-powder!) and forgetting all about their duty to protect the interests of their “very, very, very good friends” – in the United States and Australia.

As the desert plates were cleared away at St Mary’s Bay, and the whiskey liberally dispensed, did the US Defence Secretary seek to discover how the Leader of NZ First would react if push came to shove – in Hong Kong, for example – and his coalition partners declined to break-off relations with Beijing? Did the American remind Mr Peters’ that he, uniquely, enjoyed the political privilege of choosing his country’s bosses?

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 9 August 2019.

Balancing Fake American Friends Against Real Chinese Interests.

Interesting Times: Henry Kissinger warned that the United States had no friends – only interests. Attempting to curry America’s friendship at the expense of New Zealand’s vital interest in preserving productive diplomatic and economic relationships with China is exceptionally poor foreign policy.

WHAT HAS CHINA DONE to warrant such a public and insulting shift in the tone of New Zealand diplomacy? Well, according to our foreign and defence ministries, she has outstripped New Zealand and Australia in the delivery of aid and investment to the nations of the South Pacific. A heinous crime, obviously. But that is not all China has done. In the South China Sea she has reclaimed land, constructed an airfield and built other facilities on islands she has long claimed as her own. Outrageous!

It is on account of these “crimes” that New Zealand’s hitherto excellent diplomatic relationship with the Peoples Republic of China has been put at risk. Diplomacy is not, however, the only relationship facing disruption. The Labour-NZF coalition government is also testing the tolerance of New Zealand’s largest trading partner. (That’s China by the way.)

Putting at risk their country’s diplomatic and economic relationship with the rising global power. What (or who) could have persuaded our Acting Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, to behave in so reckless a fashion? Were Federated Farmers, whose members’ primary products are exported mostly to China, consulted prior to the release of New Zealand’s new defence strategy? Were the importers of the goods that make it possible for New Zealand’s notoriously low-paid workers to make ends meet? Were the unions who represent those workers? Doubtful.

What may be speculated upon with considerably more confidence is that the dramatic disruption of New Zealand-Chinese relations has be executed at the behest of the Australians. And, since Canberra does nothing without first seeking the approval of its masters in Washington, this disruption is American-inspired.

Ah, yes, the Americans. The people who have, in the 73 years since the end of World War II, twice dispatched combat troops to the mainland of East Asia (Korea and Vietnam). The people whose military bases extend in a great arc from the Bering Sea to the tiny Pacific island of Guam. Inherited from the Empire of Japan, these bases are situated not hundreds, but thousands, of miles from the continental United States.

Are these island bases stacked high with the most deadly military hardware available to humankind? Of course they are! Much higher than China’s. That being the case, does the Government’s defence white paper raise objections to the USA’s imperialistic power-projection into New Zealand’s Pacific backyard? Does it complain that the East and South China Seas are provocatively patrolled by American aircraft carriers and their accompanying support vessels? No, of course it doesn’t!

And we all know the reason why – don’t we? Because, between 1945 and 1985, New Zealand had been perfectly content to attach itself to the meanest sonofabitch in the imperial valley – the United States. Unsurprising, really, since before World War II we had been the willing colonial accomplices of that other mean imperial sonofabitch, Great Britain. In both instances, our entire defence force was configured to fit seamlessly into our imperial masters’ war machines. New Zealand diplomacy, throughout the period of the Cold War, amounted essentially to asking the Americans exactly how high they would like us to jump.

Then along came David Lange, who took issue with the uranium on America’s breath; and Helen Clark, who looked at China’s expanding middle class and persuaded its government to open China’s borders to the finest agricultural produce on the planet.

And it’s just as well she did. Otherwise, when the global financial crisis struck in 2008, New Zealand’s economy would have suffered much more acutely than it did. Indeed, had the Chinese government not embarked on the most colossal stimulatory spending programme in human history, the entire global economy would probably have collapsed.

That China is being repaid by being vilified and attacked by a faltering American empire and its risible “deputy-sheriff”, Australia, is bad enough. That the New Zealand government is lending its support to this dangerous reassertion of old and bad ideas is unforgiveable. How many tons of milk powder are the Americans offering to take off our hands? How many affordable products can we expect from Uncle Sam’s American-based factories?

Henry Kissinger warned that the United States had no friends – only interests. Attempting to curry America’s friendship at the expense of New Zealand’s vital interest in preserving productive diplomatic and economic relationships with China is exceptionally poor foreign policy.

This essay was originally published in The Otago Daily Times and The Greymouth Star of Friday, 20 July 2018.