We are on the eve of the great Chinese leadership conference tomorrow, and days from a fresh New Zealand government that will have a more defensive position on foreign ownership. So it’s worth taking a moment on the relationship between the two.
I’m just going to pose a few questions.
Should our next government, as Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop requests, form a common strategy of the Five Eyes partners specifically against China?
With the examples of local investors regularly declining to gain controlling interests in Silver Fern Farms, Synlait and others in mind, should New Zealand limit foreign direct investment?
Should we be the first Western country to permanently re-orientate itself in its diplomatic and military views away from the United States and towards China? The shadows of such giant planets pass over us each day, and still we eat our breakfast and go to work. There is pretty much zero Chinese ethnic tension in New Zealand. In an August interview with The American Prospect, then White House Chief Strategic Steve Bannon said that the United States is “at economic war with China. It’s all in their literature. They’re not shy about saying what they’re doing. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years and it’s gonna be them if we go down this path.” Do we need to have sympathy? Who is evaluating for us the risks either way?
Isn’t all this just an Auckland problem, so Auckland should deal with it?
What if anything should New Zealand do to become a part of China’s One Belt One Road initiative?
Is Chinese influence in New Zealand so great that it is past the inflection point of being able to do anything about it anyway, so why worry? Isn’t the operative word “welcome”?
Perhaps even more than the previous United States election, the Chinese leadership conference this week will have a strong bearing on the future of New Zealand.
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