China

Categories under China

National denies/admits Chinese trade reprisals threatened

Written By: - Date published: 3:17 pm, July 19th, 2016 - 50 comments

Yesterday this was the story: Speaking shortly after his arrival in Indonesia for a three-day trade trip, Key sought to pour cold water on the idea of any Chinese retaliation. While he could not confirm whether MBIE had received a complaint about steel dumping, due to the confidentiality of the complaints regime, the Government had […]

China trade realpolitik

Written By: - Date published: 1:45 pm, July 18th, 2016 - 137 comments

We can’t afford to be using sub-standard steel. We shouldn’t have to buckle to pressure to do so, but we have no leverage at all.

Coming Down To Beijing

Written By: - Date published: 7:03 pm, April 19th, 2016 - 85 comments

Our Glorious Leader John Key Il is considering a formal extradition treaty with China. No doubt some genuinely bad people will be sent back, but China’s definition of ‘criminal’ is very, very broad. Why are we sucking up to a country lacking both democracy and a legitimate judicial system? Could it be the money? Could it be the pandas?

We used to be better than this. And not so long ago. Where did we go wrong?

The unexpected oil crisis

Written By: - Date published: 9:30 am, January 16th, 2016 - 186 comments

The world is currently facing a problem that even a few years ago was unthinkable.  Oil is cheap and demand has dropped out of the market.  What are the geopolitical implications of this?

Black Monday wasn’t so bad, John Key is worse

Written By: - Date published: 8:51 am, August 31st, 2015 - 37 comments

Black Monday on the casino Chinese stock markets wasn’t a particular problem for NZ. John Key’s short-term thinking government will be. Both us and our next biggest trading partner Australia are now heavily exposed to falling Chinese imports and falling commodity prices. That is going to hurt over the coming years.

The world’s stock markets: I see Red

Written By: - Date published: 8:11 am, August 25th, 2015 - 156 comments

China’s sharemarket plunge has affected the rest of the world as stock exchange after stock exchange has posted losses.  It appears clear that predictions of a Chinese sharemarket bubble market are correct and now that the Chinese Government is no longer propping up share prices they are crashing.

The great Chinese sharemarket selldown

Written By: - Date published: 11:48 am, July 28th, 2015 - 70 comments

The Chinese Stock market sell off has started again a couple of weeks after rather desperate measure were put in place.  The question has to be what will the Government do now?

One tough issue

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, July 15th, 2015 - 301 comments

Although the issue, the unfettered flow of overseas money into Auckland’s housing market, is important Labour’s current handling of this issue is not optimal and needs to be reconsidered.

Parnell Ponzi; When are National going to Act on Housing?

Written By: - Date published: 9:22 am, July 15th, 2015 - 176 comments

National need to act now to end the housing crisis. The market has failed and doing nothing is going to blight the future of Kiwis. The answer is easy. End speculation, build houses. But do National have the guts to do the right thing?

Phil Quin resigns from Labour

Written By: - Date published: 12:37 pm, July 14th, 2015 - 390 comments

Phil Quin: “I cannot, however, belong to an organisation that considers racial profiling fair sport. It really is that simple. I will rejoin once this or any future leader publicly repudiates such tactics.”

China Crisis

Written By: - Date published: 12:43 pm, July 12th, 2015 - 199 comments

Good on Labour for saying what needed to be said. Can they, the Greens and NZ First save the next generation of Kiwis from being tenants in our own land?

Includes Bonus Seinfeld reference!

Toil and Trouble.

Written By: - Date published: 2:22 pm, July 5th, 2015 - 46 comments

In the hope of some informed comment…

Nick Smith; Thick as a Short Plank?

Written By: - Date published: 9:56 am, July 3rd, 2015 - 25 comments

National’s Nick Smith appears to have misled Parliament over the illegal export of Kauri logs. Thankfully for Smith, it’s nothing to do with the rumours swirling around who is responsible for the loss of our irreplaceable heritage timber, but more to do with the Minister’s inability to understand a clear and explicit piece of legislation.

If you thought the Auckland property bubble was bad now…

Written By: - Date published: 7:27 am, June 24th, 2015 - 81 comments

… then prepare for it to get a lot worse.

But they do it too …

Written By: - Date published: 2:53 pm, April 19th, 2015 - 23 comments

With revelations that New Zealand has potentially been involved in the interception of Chinese diplomatic communications the questions arise did John Key know about it and did he authorise the activity.

Spying on China

Written By: - Date published: 8:37 am, April 19th, 2015 - 100 comments

So great, now we’re trying to spy on China. What could possibly go wrong?

The War Club Family

Written By: - Date published: 7:35 pm, February 8th, 2015 - 73 comments

There’s a fascinating article in the latest New Statesman titled “An Empire that speaks English: the right’s dream of a new world order.” Suddenly UK Foreign Minister Philip Hammond’s recent visit here makes sense. So does John Key’s references to sending troops to Iraq on behalf of the “club” or the “family” – he’s at the heart of the Empire.

What John Key actually believes in

Written By: - Date published: 9:21 am, January 6th, 2015 - 146 comments

Charlie Mitchell of the Dominion Post has analysed John Key’s formal speeches since 2007 to see what has from time to time been uppermost in Key’s mind. The results are interesting to say the least.

Greens: Falling milk prices highlight danger of National’s economic strategy

Written By: - Date published: 7:11 pm, August 6th, 2014 - 39 comments

This press release from the Greens pretty well sums up the situation that National have left the economy in. Once you remove the rebuild effects from the Christchurch earthquakes, our increasingly undiversified economy is looking in pretty poor shape for the decade ahead.

Phil Goff: Contemporary China Research Centre

Written By: - Date published: 6:25 pm, July 2nd, 2014 - 9 comments

It isn’t that often that we put up speeches by politicians. They’re usually aimed at the general public and don’t really get into the guts of the issues in the way that our activist commenters like to argue at – they tend to be political and in this site preaching to the converted.  However this speech by Phil Goff is exceptional. It was made at a centre looking at China, and looks at the benefits and risks of our current and future relationships with that country. Worth reading

Environment on the edge

Written By: - Date published: 9:01 am, April 20th, 2014 - 41 comments

On Al Jazeera NewsHour this morning, there were two reports on environmental issues in different parts of the planet: stories of the tension between pursuit of economic “growth” and the destruction of the environment. In both countries, there are attempts to develop renewables, without changing the whole system.

Officials’ dinners off in China

Written By: - Date published: 4:50 am, March 16th, 2014 - 36 comments

Fran O’Sullivan thinks that the only reason why Collins is still a Minister was Key’s need to save face in his impending visit to China. I think Key may have got a better reception from Xi Jinping if he had followed the Chinese leader’s example of taking a hard line on  dinner-table corruption and sacked Collins.

Pinning hopes on China

Written By: - Date published: 9:35 am, March 9th, 2014 - 33 comments

Our export-led economy is a rock-star according to those on the right. Australia kept us going, and now, despite the EU still spluttering, we can fly because China will buy all our milk powder. But there’s a potential flaw in putting all your eggs in one China basket, as a number of BBC stories have been revealing.

The server will be getting hardware changes this evening starting at 10pm NZDT.
The site will be off line for some hours.