It's hard to overstate how politically and historically tone-deaf Helen Clark & John Key are for showing up at a Chinese Communist Party "victory" party, complete with the world's biggest dictators, celebrating the end of the Second World War.
Politically tone-deaf for all the many reasons rolled out by mainstream commentators: being responsible for cementing New Zealand's free-trade deal with China (for which much credit to both) doesn't require attending the biggest Asian military parade since the Japanese army rolled into Manchuria.
Far from any credit going to Mao Zedong's Communist Party for resisting that invasion, it was instead the CCP's salvation. It gave them their best chance of survival, which they grabbed with both hands.
Far from fighting a patriotic war, Mao's rabble instead withdrew into Yenan, coming back from near-extinction far from the war zone while lighting joss sticks and praying to Marx for the destruction of Chiang Kai-Shek's Republican army at the hands of the Japanese.
So it wasn't "China" that fought off the Japanese. Because by and large the only "China" fighting there was Chiang Kai-Shek's Republican army, forced to fight the Japanese invasion while Mao's forces largely sat on their hands hoping for the best—keeping their powder dry ready for the civil war they started after the Japanese surrender and the exhaustion of Chiang Kai-Shek's army.
After resting up for several years while building its materiel and men, on the very day following Japanese surrender in China Mao's party headquarters issued orders to advance — taking over the country from north to south, finally seizing full control in 1949. (You can read all about the sorry tale in Anthony Kubek's brilliant How the Far East Was Lost.)
That neither Helen Clark nor John Key appeared to know anything about that history says very little for either, but their attendance at the revisionist parade would bring a quiet chuckle to Chinese organisers delivering the Big Lie to an international audience.
It would be even worse if Clark or Key did know the real history. That would be worse than a disgrace. It would be damning.
- 1937-45: Kuomintang (KMT) exhausts itself fighting Imperial Japan. CCP "hides its strength bides its time."
- 1945: Imperial Japan surrenders.
- 1947: US cuts back on aid to KMT.
- 1949: CCP, supported by Stalin, defeats an exhausted KMT. Captures China by Oct 1. KMT flees to Taiwan.
Chinese President Xi Jinping was selling his vision for a new world order this week. Hosting a regional security summit on Monday, Xi called on attendees including India’s Narendra Modi — Trump’s latest tariff target — and Russia’s Vladimir Putin to join China in leveraging their economic influence to challenge the west.
Bolstering that message was a massive military parade in Beijing yesterday ... to show off the latest weaponry in China’s arsenal. Xi was joined by fellow strongmen Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un — the first time all three leaders have been in one place.
6 comments:
I did get a laugh seeing the way this was reported on One news. Firstly talking about all the authoritarian and totalitarian dictators in attendance (Putin, Kim John Un, etc), and then flashing to photo of Clark and Key standing there, looking rather awkward. I suspect they perhaps came to the realisation part-way through they shouldn't have been there.
A bit like entering the room to realise you're the only one at the party wearing fancy dress.
Rice Christians
Or feeling like a spare prick at a wedding. I suppose that’s somewhat of a compliment. It would be far worse if they felt completely at home.
@MarkT: Yes. True.
Ex-PMs Clark and Key were invited to attend by the government of China. They were personally invited by the Guojia Zhuxi of China. This is of major importance- a very big deal. If they did not attend that would be cause for loss of face for the Guojia Zhuxi. Further, the diplomatic offense would not be easily forgiven. It certainly would not be forgotten. There would be consequences for the snub.
New Zealand's largest trading partner is the People's Republic of China. That appears to be reasonably well understood. No point in offending this trading partner, especially when it is the most important and powerful in the region.
Aside from this what really needs to be considered is that the Western "Rules Based" order is in terminal decline (receding in military, financial, economic and soft power, not to mention moral authority). In the Asia-Pacific region the dominant power is now the People's Republic of China. It has no competition. It is only going to get more dominant as time passes and its power grows. Knowing this, how clever is it to refuse to attend an event to which invitations had been issued? What signal does such action transmit?
New Zealand is a mildly developed nation with below average productivity per capita in the OECD. It is said that nature abhors a vacuum. It is the case that unless New Zealand gets serious about using its collateral to move well up the table in terms of productivity and in terms of high added value, then others will collapse the vacuum and come in to do the job (how shall we say it?- more forcefully). New Zealand is going to need to up the game. To do that needs a lot of capital which, of course, it doesn't have (having squandered generations of it on narcissistic welfare projects, bureaucracy, make-work, regulation, parasitism, cultural cannibalism and sundry hindrances directed towards Price's productive super-minority). The concentration of capital locally is Chinese and it is located in the People's Republic of China. Would it be prudent to show enmity to them?
Finally, what about New Zealand's security? Why would you encourage the People's Republic of China to conclude that the country of New Zealand is unfriendly and that it is better to take its resources (or ignore any other player in the region that sets out to) than it is to invest in development and trade. Wouldn't it be better to encourage them to see New Zealand as a nation which ought to have its sovereignty respected and honoured? Why offend the local superpower?
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What is it with the name calling and smearing? Shouldn't the focus be analysis of the civilisational changes occurring right now, right in front of you?
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