“Five Eyes on China cut to four as New Zealand puts trade first”, reports the Times.
New Zealand has broken with Anglophone allies over using the “Five Eyes” intelligence-sharing network to confront China, reversing an agreement to expand the network’s remit.
Nanaia Mahuta, the foreign minister, declared that New Zealand was “uncomfortable” with pressuring China and wanted to pursue its own bilateral relationship.
The network, a Cold War-era partnership to share intelligence, took a new turn last year when it began issuing statements as a single entity, including condemning China’s human rights record.
Last May defence ministers from Britain, America, Canada, Australia and New Zealand endorsed an expanded role with a public commitment not only to meet shared security challenges but “to advance their shared values of democracy, freedom and respect for human rights”.
Mahuta, 50, said she had informed the other Five Eyes members of New Zealand’s changed position.
Ms Mahuta waxed poetical about the relationship between New Zealand and China:
She symbolised the China-New Zealand relationship as one between a “dragon and taniwha”, a serpent-like creature from Maori myth.
“I see the taniwha and the dragon as symbols of the strength of our particular customs, traditions and values, that aren’t always the same, but need to be maintained and respected,” she said. “And on that virtue we have together developed the mature relationship we have today.”
Oddly, the Times report makes no mention of the Prime Minister of New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern. If only she knew of this cynical act of realpolitik by one of her ministers!
Shortly before announcing a major partnership whereby China buys, I mean, loans multi-billions to upgrade NZ’s ports and infrastructure. Further isolating and threatening Australia.
Sometimes I suspect the Kiwis of applying to life’s demands a misunderstanding that is quaintly downish.
I see this as another indicator that war is coming to the Taiwan Strait this year. The pressure on Australia and South Korea to declare ‘neutrality’ will be intense in the weeks ahead.
There is huge frustration and anger here in NZ about this current government. If they were deliberately setting out to destroy both the economy and international relationships for decades to come I’m not sure what they would do differently.
Let’s get the one good thing out of the way first. The response in the first six months of COVID-19 was brilliant, and got the government re-elected with an absolute majority, the first since MMP started in 1996.
I think either major party would have done about as well, with the help of a neutral public service and listening to scientific specialists. It’s just an overall culture thing in this part of the world. Australian state governments of different stripes all did approximately the same things with approximately the same results. Close borders to stop infected people coming in. You don’t initially know who might have already been infected but pre-symptomatic (or asymptomatic) so keep everyone away from everyone else for a few weeks until most of the infected have become sick and well again without infecting others. Once the numbers are down enough you have the ability to track and isolate just the people who have been potentially infected then you can open everything up to a basically normal state. Here in NZ most things reopened on May 14 2020 (with extra distancing) and everything except the border was as pre-COVID from June 9 2020.
Everything else this government has touched has been a disaster.
Housing is perhaps the worst. Prices are rising so quickly that almost anyone who owns a house is making more money from appreciation in the house than they are from their salary. Between land use zoning, difficulty/time/money in the environmental impact and consenting process, and so forth it’s incredibly difficult to get new things built. And because NZ insists on locally certifying all building materials prices are often several times higher than in other countries. Why it’s not possible to just automatically accept things certified in Colorado, Oregon, Italy, Canada, Australia I don’t know.
The government keeps announcing programs to build 100,000 “affordable houses” in 5 years or whatever. And then actually building 100. The only way they could make their announced goals is by bypassing all the paperwork they impose on everyone else (and by importing or training a whole heap of builders). If the paperwork is unnecessary (which it is) then why not streamline it for everyone?
And then you have the ridiculous things such as banning oil and gas exploration which already, after just a couple of years, has resulted in significantly less gas being available to industry and electricity generation. Oh and they banned mining coal. So relatively clean gas generation is being replaced by imported coal, when we have maybe 1000 years of coal in the ground ourselves.
I could go on and on, but I’ll spare you all.
If, as George Atkisson writes, the trade deals between New Zealand and China involve huge loans to update NZ facilities, then the Chinese have already won. The situation in Hong Kong, where China has blatantly ignored the international agreement that there would be a 50 year period of Hong Kong being a special administrative area, shows that a contract with China is not worth the paper it’s written on. The habit of China giving out huge loans and then demanding immediate repayment when the recipient is unable to do so is well known (the cause of the bankruptcy of Daewoo cars is one example). It has been said that to enslave people, put them in your debt. The Chinese government, always playing the long game, learnt this ages ago and uses it with great success. I fear for the citizens of NZ in the short term, and the south Pacific in the long term.
If the Kiwis are going to fall for Maori mumbo jumbo there’s no hope for them.
When the Chinese navy turns up one day to repo New Zealand, I doubt the taniwha will be there to protect it.
I have hated the Ardern government ever since it scapegoated gun owners after the massacre, which was exactly what the perpetrator explicitly said he wanted to happen. Well done.
I remember the Kiwi government started getting pissy in the 1980s, when they banned British and American warships from visiting on the grounds they might be carrying nuclear weapons. Then they got rid of their small but efficient force of jet fighters. Obviously not needed, as no-one will ever attack New Zealand. Until the day they do.
Still, I take comfort from the fact the Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates types have been buying their panic room style properties in New Zealand of all places. It would take a heart of stone not to laugh.
Its her truth apparently.
They are appeasing the dragon in hopes it eats them last.
Has anyone seen this clip of the New Zealand Foreign Minister explaining her position on China? Brief intro from the Aussie Sky News presenter. I rest my case.
The praise about Covid does not seem to apply to Taiwan – they also sealed the borders and kept out Covid, so why is Taiwan not praised?
“Taiwan does not count, because…… well because…..” – because they are Asian?
New Zealand is many hundreds (indeed thousands) of miles from anywhere – it does not take a genius to keep a disease out of New Zealand.
As for the rest of the demented New Zealand’s government’s policies – well Bruch Hoult has summed up some of them. Mr Ed is also correct – the ministers of New Zealand are barking mad.
New Zealand’s history is falsified these days – compare early accounts of the various peoples who settled in the islands, to the modern (basically Marxist) accounts.
19th century history is also falsified – with the British settlers being presented as totally evil and the Maori tribes and clans presented as saints.
One sees this sort of thing all over the English speaking world – totally one sided history is presented as fact and the whites (really pinkish grey) people just accept it because they do not want an argument – and do not want to be called “racist”.
When New Zealanders of British origin are presented in a positive light it is (in television and films) in relation to some sort of struggle with Britain – a struggle which did NOT take place, it is just fiction.
There were Australians who hated Britain (although Manning Clark pretended that this small minority of Australians were the majority – his history of Australia being one long lie), but New Zealanders?
New Zealanders no more hated Britain than Canadians did – indeed within living memory (before the 1960s) New Zealanders, like Canadians, regarded themselves as British people living in another part of the world.
A Canadian became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom after the First World War and no one batted an eyelid, and it would have been the same had he been a New Zealander.
On Freedom of Speech.
When Lauren Southern and anther Canadian (bald as me – his name escapes me) toured Australia they had a lot of trouble as they do everywhere, for they believe in “racist” immigration controls or whatever it is the left hate them for.
But when they tried to tour New Zealand it was impossible – no one would hire them a hall to give a talk in, New Zealand was actually more P.C. than Australia (and Australia is very P.C.).
That was an eye opener.
Stefan Molyneux is the man’s name – he actually does believe that intelligence is linked to race, although he does NOT believe that white people are, on average, the most intelligent.
My favourite is the story of the Maori and the Moriori. Never seems to feature much in modern worship of indigenous people…
There are few books on this.
Probably the best is “Moriori – A People Rediscovered” by historian Michael King first published at the end of the ’80s.
On page 74 (of the revised edition) there is a rather revealing graph of the Moriori population on the Chatham Islands from the 1800’s through to the 1960’s
Overlaid separately are the European populations and the Moari populations.
There are few books on this.
Probably the best is “Moriori – A People Rediscovered” by historian Michael King first published in the late ’80s.
On page 74 (of the revised edition) there is a rather revealing graph with the populations of Moriori v European v Maori on the Chatham Islands from the 1800’s through to the 1960’s that would have political correctivists spluttering “but, correlation is not causation” .
Quite frankly, New Zealand isn’t worth one American, Australian or Brit soldier getting their hair mussed. Cut off all military and intelligence links. Screw’em.
Paul Marks, I think Taiwan has done a splendid job on COVID, as have Thailand and Vietnam. Taiwan is an island but the other two aren’t. All three are very very close to China and have — one would suspect — somewhat porous borders. But they have done well.
The only thing NZers have ever disliked the UK for is stopping buying our produce when they joined the EEC. Hopefully that will start up again now the UK is free. Study after study has shown that pastoral produce shipped from NZ has a lower carbon impact (if you believe that means anything) than intensively grown produce from Europe.
As an Australian, I think New Zealand is strategically very important. If the Commies had bases there, that would be very threatening. They might not even need to invade Taiwan, if they want to escape containment.
And they are important for another reason. Even in this PC age, why will we always be able to make jokes about New Zealanders?
Because they’ll never get the joke!
Paul Marks (April 21, 2021 at 4:51 pm), sadly, our own virtue-signalling home office gave Lauren Southern a ‘lifetime ban’ from visiting the UK in spring of 2016 after she discussed whether Mohammed was gay.
She did not IIRC actually believe that Mohammed was a homosexual. The man who allowed his followers four wives and himself took nine, one of them very young indeed, can be recognised as having provided historical evidence against the proposition. She was intentionally exposing the islamophobia / homophobia double-standard practiced in the UK.
I have not yet heard that this ban has been lifted. I can easily believe that civil servants who make Sir Humphrey Appleby look like an honest man are giving Priti the run-around, and that all this ChiComCold nonsense has derailed much intended activity, but I had been hoping for more progress than I’ve seen as regards the double-standard and related issues.
One of the benefits of being UK PM would be the chance to meet with and publically punch one other world leader as you supposedly step up to greet the particular bastard.
The problem is which scumbag –because you would only get one chance as none of the rest would go anywhere near you after you deck one. Have to ensure that your gun henchmen move quick enough to get the drop on their armed henchmen of course. The element of surprise would be very helpful.
Macron was my first choice as I imagined 100,000s of yellow jackets cheering and jumping for joy as the little bastard measured his length on the platform. Esp the 1/2 dozen who have lost an eye to his gas pellet firing CRS thugs.
But with Brexit and Frexit boiling the little bastards langoustine my present dilemma is between Canada’s Turdeau–Castro Jnr himself or NZ’s Jacaranda Vagina-Dentata.
Much as I would like to see Turdeau decked I think JaCVD wins the prize. Several of those tombstones being relocated would be good TV.
Of course the ultimate would be Xi. However given the evil of CCP I think Xi would need to die. Interesting if one head of state was beaten to death by another at the start of a state visit. Would the CCP scum have the stones for retaliatory WW3–or would the fact that lots of CCP hierarchy want Xi dead themselves just result in noise and nothing else.
It would certainly be justice and end forever the entire “state visit” waste of money .
Niall – the British establishment are indeed demented.
If they thought that the harmless Lauren Southern was dangerous – no wonder they wanted to exterminate me.
Bruce Hoult.
I beg to differ about Thailand and Vietnam.
Thailand had bankrupted a lot of business enterprises with a demented lockdown – which served no purpose.
As for Vietnam – their claims to have stopped the spread of Covid were exposed as nonsense when a British airline pilot visited the country, and ended up almost dying of Covid (he got it almost as soon as he arrived – because the virus was about, it was just that most Vietnamese were not made seriously ill by it).
There is a big difference between “we have stopped the spread of the virus” and “we have not stopped the spread of the virus – but it turns out that most of us are not very genetically vulnerable to it”.
The Japanese were, quietly, a bit more honest.
They released (quietly – but it was done) the study that showed that most people in Tokyo had been exposed to the virus.
In short their restrictions were pointless (they did not stop the spread of the virus) – Japan has a low death rate for other reasons (they are not fat, they are not Vitamin D deficient, and they are not Europeans – they are genetically different).
Why a virus should choose to be more dangerous for certain racial groups, but not others (not for people of East Asian origin) is an interesting question – perhaps it was just chance (luck), or perhaps it was not.
As Frankfurt School Marxist “Wokeness” has crippled science (and everything else) in the West, I doubt we will ever find out the truth.
Well all the above may well earn me a “life long ban” from the United Kingdom – oh dear, how sad, never mind.
By the way – in case some bored person from Special Branch has been given the job of reading all the stuff on this “subversive” website.
I have never met Lauren Southern.
No she does not really believe that Muhammed was a homosexual.
No I do not believe he was either.
Early Treatment for Covid 19.
I used to keep a piece of paper on this table with the correct spellings of words and the correct dosages .- but I seem to have lost it.
However, Early Treatment with a combination of existing medications (at the correct dosages) would have saved about 80% of the people who have died from this disease in Western countries.
Many independent doctors have spent the last year telling people this – they even formed associations with the express purpose of getting the word out.
But governments and corporations just carried on chanting TINET (there is no early treatment). Corporate medicine in the United States proved to be just as bad as government medicine in other countries.
I have lost all patience with the TINET forces – they can burn in Hell.
Ah – here is the piece of paper.
EARLY treatment for people in vulnerable groups – all the following medications at the same time.
Elemental ZINC – 50 mg once a day for seven days.
Hydroxychloroquine – 200 mg twice a day for seven days.
Azithromycin (for non Covid infections that may hit the body in its weakened state) 500 mg twice a day for seven days – or doxycycline 100 mg twice a day for seven days.
BUT FIRST see a medical doctor to see if this is suitable – or whether another Early Treatment (there are several) would be better in your case.
Obviously a government or corporate doctor will just chant TINET and tell you to self isolate at home (they even did that in Sweden – and a lot of people died there who could have been saved, a lot of elderly people were even denied OXYGEN, that goes back a long way in Sweden, the idea being that the old are “useless” and should not be “artificially” be kept alive by medical treatment) till you have to go to hospital – i.e. till it is sometimes too late.
It is worth checking how many people a doctor has successfully treated and what they charge.
These are cheap OFF PATENT medications – if a doctor tries to charge you a lot of money you are being scammed.
There are many associations of doctors that were set up to deal with all this – “America’s Front Line Doctors” is the best known – but it is not the only one.
My apologies – I could not read my own hand writing.
The above should have read 400 mg of hydroxychloroquine twice a day for seven days (the tablets are 200 mg per tablet in the United States) – but with zinc and azithromycin (or doxycycline) as stated, and NOT till one has seen an independent doctor, as another treatment might be better in an individual case.
And the azithromycin should be ONCE a day – NOT twice a day.
Again check out the doctor you go to in advance – do they have a good record, and are their charges reasonable.
Going to an independent doctor with a good record of treating the disease is the obvious first step – do not self medicate, as you may have problems with other medications or have other health problems.
Dr Zelenko always used to say no more than 200 mg of HCQ twice a day for seven days – and only with zinc and azithromycin, but opinion on dosage may have moved on. There are many doctors involved now.
Also, of course, keeping up vitamin D levels (and vitamin C levels) is good for general resistance to disease – keeping up a good immune system. And do NOT be fat and unhealthy like me.
Not having my genetics would also be helpful – but changing one’s DNA is not really an option.
Ivermectin has a lot of supporters.
As do other newer treatments – there are lot of good people out there (some of whom treat the poor for free) they are just not the sort of people who can work in governments or corporations where the slightest mistake (for example saying “coloured person” rather than “person of colour”) leads to dismissal, and attacks on your home, and death threats (and so on). Although one does get used to the persecution – I have no family, they can kill me whenever they like (I have no problem with that).
The “Woke”, Frankfurt School Marxist, religion of the West (of governments and the Corporations) is a demanding, and unforgiving, faith. I reject this religion.