From Goethe’s classic Faust to Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore’s comedic version, Bedazzled, the message has always been clear: fools deal with the Devil at their peril. No matter how glittering the prize the Prince of Liars dangles before the naive and greedy, the Devil always wins – and cheats his dupes.
This is a lesson that the Ardern government needs hammered into them as they prepare to sign on the BRI dotted line in Kiwi blood. The Chinese devil will have his due and the promised gold will turn into so many withered leaves in the morning.
The Ardern government is rapidly undermining New Zealand’s status in the region. This is nothing new for Labour governments: ever since David Lange, NZ Labour have been seen by the nation’s allies as dangerously flaky. But recent actions by Jacinda Ardern and her minions are raising the question: is NZ Labour dangerously naive – or just dangerous?
When Damien O’Connor blatantly told Australia to shut up and kiss Xi Xinping’s arse, even the normally supine local media were aghast. “Lecturing our friends across the ditch about speaking nicely to China will irritate many people, and not just in Australia,” wrote Stuff. Ardern’s government quickly tried to back-pedal. But when foreign minister Nanaia Mahuta gently wafted a feather of reproach at O’Connor on Australian TV, it was hardly a reassurance that New Zealand had its allies’ backs.
Because Mahuta is also part of the problem. Speaking in December regarding the 2021 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit – which New Zealand is hosting – she was the one who suggested her country could mediate Australia and China’s trade and diplomatic stoush. “Both parties will have to be willing to come together and concede in some areas where they are currently not seeing eye to eye,” she said.
Just what does Mahuta think Australia should “concede”? Repeal new laws aimed at stopping Chinese operatives bribing Australian politicians and businesses? Let Daniel Andrews‘s dangerously stupid BRI deal go ahead? Stop taking notice of China’s brutality in Hong Kong and genocide in Xinjiang?
But Mahuta’s stupid pronouncement helps put O’Connor’s big-mouthing in context. The Australian government had already warned Ardern and her gaggle to mind their own business. O’Connor must have known this, but he shot his mouth off anyway.
It’s starting to become a pattern.
What was thought to be naivety looks increasingly like opportunism. “[O’Connor] just told anyone suspecting New Zealand of sucking up to China for economic reward that they’re bang on the mark,” wrote TV presenter Heather du Plessis-Allan in [NZ Herald]. And as Dr Jeffrey Wilson, research director of the Perth USAsia Centre at the University of Western Australia observed, the timing of the upgraded free agreement “puts China in a position where it can play one side off against the other”[…]
There is no doubt New Zealand exporters, particularly the timber, meat, wine, and seafood industries, will greatly benefit from China’s stymieing of Australian exports, a reward for Wellington being the visually-challenged member of the Five Eyes nations.
Even that idea should be treated with a Siberian grain of salt. As other nations who foolishly signed up to the BRI have learned, the agreements tend to run very much one way – to China. No doubt a handful of cronies in New Zealand will become Kiwi Princelings, but almost certainly the bulk of economic benefit will wind up in Chinese pockets. Ordinary Kiwis will find, like ordinary Aussies already have, that while a few comrades get very rich, lamb, beef and pork, not to mention local seafood and wines, suddenly become very scarce, decidedly second-rate and all at soaring prices.
Meanwhile, the Ardern government gives every sign of being Beijing’s faithful toady.
It was the only member of [Five Eyes] not to sign a joint statement last year condemning Chinese encroachment of Hong Kong’s autonomy, instead releasing its own.
It was also the last member of the group to suspend its extradition treaty with Hong Kong. Last year, the Financial Times’s Asian editor, Jamil Anderlini, reported that a senior Five Eyes intelligence official had warned New Zealand’s viability as a group member was in question because of its “supine” attitude towards China.
Then there is Jacinda Ardern’s extraordinary, incessant prattling at Australia. Despite her standard bullshit about “respect”, Ardern showed no respect to Scott Morrison with her public fishwife tirade over Australia deporting New Zealand-born criminals. Nor when she mouthed off at the Pacific Islands Forum in 2019. With the world’s single biggest carbon emitter holding her leash, she yapped that “Australia has to answer to the Pacific” over climate change.
China could scarcely conceal its delight that its Kiwi lapdog was so well-trained.
On the other hand, even our once-deadly enemies are proving better friends than New Zealand’s Labour government.
Japan’s ambassador-designate to Australia, Shingo Yamagami[…]last week praised Canberra for resisting China’s belligerence. “This is a trying time for Japan’s friends in Australia,” he said. “The fact of the matter is the world’s eyes are now on Australia.” But rather than stand in solidarity with its ally and closest friend, New Zealand has exploited this situation to Australia’s detriment[…]
Ardern appears more concerned with emphasising she is different from other Western leaders, particularly those of the Republican or Coalition variety, rather than stressing unity.
Even in 2017, another of Ardern’s rabble, Chris Hipkins, was caught interfering in Australian domestic politics.
Then foreign minister Julie Bishop was furious, saying she “would find it very hard to build trust with those involved in allegations designed to undermine the government of Australia” in the event NZ Labour came to power.
As subsequent events have shown, she was right.
The Australian
Jacinda Ardern and her cretinous coalition no doubt think they’re being very clever. No doubt the international left-media will continue to gush. But swooning Guardian editorials count for nothing when it comes to national security.
And like, Faust and Stanley Moon, Kiwis will one day wake up to find that the Devil’s fine promises have come to nothing and their list of regional friends have become very thin indeed.
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