Posts Tagged ‘china’

A time of trouble, a time for action

Written By: - Date published: 2:15 pm, October 25th, 2010 - 5 comments

The release of 400,000 classified documents on the Iraq war today highlights a much broader issue for New Zealand. As the world moves into uncertainty, some commentators call it a ‘new new world order’, New Zealand must establish itself definitively, cementing the values we wish to hold true for the coming century.

A PM but not a leader

Written By: - Date published: 7:17 am, October 13th, 2010 - 92 comments

New Zealand is small country, far from anywhere, always on the edge of irrelevance.  To continue our proud heritage of principled and effective international contributions, to hold our heads up high on the world stage, New Zealand needs a leader.  But all we have is a PM.

China rising

Written By: - Date published: 9:37 am, September 25th, 2010 - 37 comments

The idea of The Chinese Century has been around for a long time now.  But a couple of articles that caught my eye recently make me think that the start of that century is well and truly upon us.

Natural Dairy NZ & Chinese neo-mercantilism

Written By: - Date published: 10:23 am, September 13th, 2010 - 65 comments

To have power and independence, any country needs a solid economic base. That’s even more true of superpowers/empires. To secure their economic sovereignty they need the raw materials and markets of less powerful countries. They reinforce their economic sovereignty by taking others’. China does it by buying up whole supply chains.

Free speech zones

Written By: - Date published: 12:41 pm, June 23rd, 2010 - 40 comments

The most disturbing aspect of the handling of the Chinese security guard’s assault on Russel Norman is the way that the Nats are going to use it as an excuse to further restrict free speech. Don’t let them set us on the path to America’s notorious “free speech zones”.

I’m not sorry

Written By: - Date published: 8:23 am, June 22nd, 2010 - 48 comments

I’m not sorry about Russel Norman standing up to Chinese imperialism, I’m proud that he did. While I don’t personally have a lot of time for Norman, I very much respect his willingness to behave like an actual representative of the New Zealand people and voice his opposition to the immoral Chinese occupation and subjugation of […]

Chinese democracy

Written By: - Date published: 1:41 pm, June 20th, 2010 - 142 comments

According to Chinese State media. The Key government has secretly apologised to the Chinese dictatorship for allowing Russel Norman to protest new vice-dictator Xi Jinping. Since when was a peaceful protest something we apologise for? No apology from the Chinese appears to have been sought or recieved. Shameful, corwardly behaviour from our kowtowing government. [Update. The Herald reports our PM personally called the Chinese to apologise. Jaw-dropping]

Do we now kowtow?

Written By: - Date published: 2:09 pm, June 19th, 2010 - 49 comments

The police won’t lay charges against the security guard who assaulted Russel Norman. Fair enough I guess. They’re out of here today. Probably too minor to justify a prosecution. That doesn’t make what happened OK. A thug for a foreign power violated the rights of one of our MPs on the grounds of our Parliament. A display of contempt for our sovereignty. And our democracy.

Chinese security attack MP

Written By: - Date published: 1:22 pm, June 18th, 2010 - 162 comments

A security guard for Chinese Vice-President Xi Jinping attacked Green MP Russel Norman today while Norman was protesting at the Chinese delegation’s arrival, and holding a Tibetan flag. Our Government needs to make a formal protest to China over this incident.

Mining our national parks for the US war-machine

Written By: - Date published: 12:01 pm, March 23rd, 2010 - 23 comments

Most of the world’s supply of the key rare earth metals comes from China. That’s a strategic problem for the US, which needs rare earths for high-tech military equipment. They don’t want to be dependent on the world’s other superpower, and potential adversary, for their military hardware. Is it a coincidence that the Nats are so keen to let foreigners mine for rare earths in our national parks?

The Tank Man

Written By: - Date published: 11:55 am, June 8th, 2009 - 4 comments

It was remiss of me not to post on this last week. June 4 marked the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre. Pictured above is “Tank Man” – an unidentified protester who briefly halted the progress of the Chinese tanks on June 5 1989. You can watch the Frontline video “The Tank Man” below […]

Recap: China syndrome

Written By: - Date published: 1:56 pm, April 19th, 2009 - 8 comments

This post was originally published last year but it’s relevant in the light of the naive comments from McCully on Q+A today about China cooperating with New Zealand on aid to Fiji. _________________________________________ Liberal democracy (ie. democracy where there are truly competitive elections) is the dominant ideology of government of our time, having seen off […]

Turning a blind eye

Written By: - Date published: 4:25 pm, April 18th, 2009 - 16 comments

Unlike some of the other Standard writers, I don’t usually find Fran O-Sullivan too bad but her reporting of Key’s trip to China has been disappointing. Here’s how she describes Key’s failure to stand up for human rights: “Key is also quite pragmatic on human rights. He did not seem bothered enough on China’s record […]

Torchure

Written By: - Date published: 4:34 pm, May 6th, 2008 - 9 comments

Amnesty UK has just released the first of four animations intended to highlight human rights abuses in China during the lead-up to the Olympic Games.

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