New Zealand's commitment to opposing multi-polarity, in support of continued U.S. dominance (lemmy.nz)

submitted 3 days ago by passwordforgetter@lemmy.nz to c/politics@lemmy.nz

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I recently watched Guyon Espiner's interview with China's ambassador to New Zealand, Dr. Wang Xiaolong, and in the interview Wang Xiaolong didn't have anything good to say about America's role as the global policeman. In fact he went as far as calling them "the great interferer" and accused the United States of using "colour revolutions". A term which, in New Zealand, is usually considered a Russian propaganda term.

Given the tremendous combined economic power of the BRICS nations I think that New Zealand should consider having equal relationships with countries, instead of taking sides as if we were still in the last century. There is absolutely no reason to sign onto crap like the AUKUS pillar two, which may involve getting involved in drone and missile production.

On Reddit a while ago, people thought AUKUS was a great idea. In the newspaper, they whine that we are only getting pillar two. We won't even be getting nuclear subs, or deploying our navy in the next big war. How sad lol

If AUKUS involves New Zealand working with the U.S. on drone and missile technology, is that something we want? I know the political class are mentally ill, but are we, the citizens, comfortable if our people and our engineers are going to work on technology that's going to kill Chinese soldiers in the South China Sea?

I'd love to see this from Winston Peters' view or Judith Collins' view, but I can't shove my head that far up my arse. Already there will be redditors coping hard on this topic by saying we can just put sanctions on China in a few years, and shift all our trade to India. I think that's extremely naive. Just re-shape the whole economy, so that we can afford to piss off China, and keep supporting U.S. supremacy? What does our country get from constantly pleasing the US?

The BRICS nations are growing their influence and promoting multi-polarity and ideas like non-alignment, but for some reason the media, the parliament, and all the "security experts" in New Zealand say that NZ must be aligned with the United States.

I don't support sanctions because I don't think that trade should revolve around politics. I believe we should have equal trade relations with all countries and not get involved with messy bloc politics. I laugh at Trump's threat to put economic sanctions on countries that stop trading in the US dollar. If say, 6 or 12 countries start using a cryptocurrency to trade, but without ever using the USD in the transaction, will Winston Peters come out and condemn this? lol

There is no reason to further align ourselves with a declining global power that keeps pushing its rivals together. We are in Five Eyes and that should be the limit. New Zealand should trade with whoever offers the best deals, and we should have no involvement in military alliances or any form of politically influenced trade.

The United States can only sit and watch as Russian soldiers advance toward Pokrovsk. Within 30 years China will reunify Taiwan by force, and there's nothing that the United States can do, because they don't have the power any more, the world has moved on.

The NZ parliament needs to die off and be replaced with younger people because these old nutters like Winston Peters don't get it. For example, they talk about blocking butter exports to Russia, because "raising the cost" will apparently influence something. What cost? What influence? The Soviet people lost 10 million people when they fought Germany. I'm sure they could lose 0.5% of that in the current conflict, and pay more for butter, and it still won't influence any political or military decisions.

I wish Winston Peters and the others would understand this but they're just too damn old. Nobody should tell us who we can or can't trade with. Trade does not equal political support. Just because the U.S. has declining relations with China, it doesn't mean we should stop trading with China. The propaganda in the news is already emerging, that China is a threat and we should move to other markets. There's really nothing wrong with having good relations with other countries in the region, but I guess the yanks want us to always side with them and orientate New Zealand's economy around US political interests. Weak as.

Sooner or later we had better figure out what the 21st century is going to look like, and adapt accordingly.

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[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 4 points 3 days ago

What a load of absolute boot licking nonsense.

Russia are currently invading their neighbour, completely without justification, and committing a huge number of war crimes along the way. There is absolutely no reason to be doing business of any kind with them.

China is currently acting like a bully towards their neighbors, including making unjustified claims against territory held by the Philippines, the nine dash line claims, and is plotting to invade Taiwan by force.

It's looking increasingly likely China will need to be repelled by force at some point in the future, and there is only one position in that conflict we can justifiably take.

Saying we should trade with anyone, regardless of other politics, is to turn a blind eye to some absolutely abhorrent behaviour by a number of nations.

[-] TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nz 1 points 3 days ago

Sweet, you've done Russia & China, now do the USA, France & the UK? These are the 5 permanent members of the security council, and i'd guess probably not coincidentally are the 5 empires that survived the aftermath of WW2 and are all responsible for historic and ongoing questionable behaviour.

Obviously there are differing amounts of good or bad any one of these imperial countries might have, are, or will do - but you can't pretend that there is one perfectly good or one perfectly bad empire. That suggests that there is a variety of positions to take on any future conflict between those powers.

If conflict occurs is where & when NZ's choices get constrained. We then need to make deliberations about how we can guarantee our sovereignty, and who could, or couldn't forcibly change decisions about who we ally with at any given point. And in today's day & age what sort of reprisal attacks could (and would likely) be made either directly against our territory, against our citizens or our infrastructure.

All of which to say is that the decision is not at all black & white, and the balance of decision making will change over time. Particularly if the US led alliance descends into the worst of their impulses it would become more & more likely that arguments get made that they're all just as bad as each other and there really is no moral right choice. If you're an anti-imperialist you'd probably say 'yeah duh!' to that.

[-] Ilovethebomb@lemm.ee 1 points 3 days ago

The five members of the UN security Council are the five nuclear powers, that's what sets them apart.

The rest of your case is nothing but whataboutism.

[-] TagMeInSkipIGotThis@lemmy.nz 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

There are (and/or have been) more than 5 nuclear powers*, that's not the only thing that sets them apart.

"Whataboutism" is a very convenient way to disengage from the point I was making. Regardless, if China must be repelled from Taiwan, and there is only one position in that conflict we can justifiably take - what is the justification? Why can we only side with a potential US led alliance instead of choosing any other side or sitting it out?