New Zealand can consider itself warned – and put in its place.
When Jacinda Ardern issued a rebuke – however mild – to the Chinese regime over its use of a faked Twitter image to smear Australia, it was a welcome change in direction from a leader who has been more besotted by China than most. However, as I warned, even the merest show of crossing the belligerent dragon is certain to earn pushback from the Little Emperor, Xi Xinping. Xi and his regime like their vassals to stay silent and compliant, after all.
Sure enough, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily, has fired off an editorial that is both warning and putting New Zealand in what China regards as its place: a mere puppet state of greater powers.
New Zealand’s Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern said on Tuesday that her government has raised concerns with Chinese authorities over the cartoon posted by Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson on his personal Twitter account.
In the Chinese regime, there is nothing “personal”: this was certainly posted with the permission, indeed the behest of the Chinese Communist Party regime.
After trying to defend the fake image as “satire” (yet, unlike normal editorial practice, the doctored image was not flagged as such, or as a deliberately altered image as, say, such images are here at The BFD), Beijing lets New Zealand know exactly where it stands.
New Zealand has emphasized that it is an independent country with independent foreign policies. But based on history and the current relationship between Canberra and Wellington, the latter still needs the former in many affairs in the South Pacific and surrounding regions. Therefore, if Kiwis don’t do something in time to show their solidarity with Aussies, then New Zealand-Australia relations might be affected – and this is not favorable to Wellington. From this perspective, Ardern’s statement has nothing to do with being wise or unwise; it is something she has to say.
In other words, the Chinese regime regards New Zealand as no more than a beggar, a puppet. And a weak, hypocritical one at that.
Nonetheless, by saying “we will stick to our independent foreign policy, but that doesn’t stop us observing what is happening with others,” Ardern has demonstrated that New Zealand will not stop playing double standard tricks the West uses so often. This is also part of the so-called Western values — the freedom to be hypocrites. As a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance, New Zealand has to stick to such values[…]
The self-contradictory behavior reflects the mentality of Western media and politicians – they do not accept the idea that other races are on equal footing with them. They believe that the West must always be in an advantageous status and position. In this case, the West must grasp total control over the discourse of power.
The People’s Daily
There’s much to unpack in those two paragraphs.
Firstly, China’s absurd cry-bullying. Even as its economy surges (and its carbon emissions dwarf the rest of the globe’s) and its military aggressively seize more and more of the Pacific and rattle the sabres at Taiwan, Beijing hypocritically wrings its hands and weeps that poor little China is bein’ picked on. Boo-hoo. All couched in the sort of Marxist discourse that would do a Massey University Communications academic proud.
Hand-in-hand with this, of course, is the playing of the race card.
Then there is the sly reference to the Five Eyes alliance. Five Eyes members are slowly but surely hardening their resolve against Chinese telco Huawei, part of China’s clandestine spying efforts overseas. Jacinda Ardern has wavered over letting Huawei have access to the sensitive 5G network (Australia and the US have already banned it, with the UK soon to follow; Canada hasn’t committed).
Beijing is subtly applying pressure on Ardern to open the telecommunications gates to Huawei – which it will then use as a lever to wedge the Five Eyes members apart.
At the same time, it is not-so-subtly telling New Zealand to mind its place: a nation of sheep whose only destiny is to be herded by bigger dogs.
Somehow, I think that idea will go over with Kiwis about as well as China’s fake image has with Aussies.
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