Threat to Democracy in New Zealand
Please note Chinese residents of New Zealand, that this article is NOT racist. It simply expresses a concern that some Chinese people here may be Communist and support the Chinese Government. If the Chinese government was a free-speaking, peace loving and democratic country, treated its residents decently and without threat of violence or death, then there would be no concern.
I think we might need Winston Peters as Prime Minister after all, and the sooner the better.
Many of us here in New Zealand are seriously worried about China. Many wealthy Chinese people live in New Zealand now: our government has welcomed them all because they believed their money will boost the economy. Well, one major negative economic effect is that normal New Zealanders on average incomes can no longer buy a house for their family, because the huge numbers of Chinese who have come in with the dosh have inflated our house prices beyond the reach of the average New Zealander.
That is one thing. What is a more serious threat, though, is that many of these newcomers are Communists, who believe in the Chinese Communist Government and its policies. Many of these newcomers from China are not here to enjoy our life-style and become assimilated into our society. No – they have a plan which relates their very existence here to the furtherment of China and the communist government.
Somehow, in New Zealand, we have been brought up to believe that communists are poor. These new Chinese immigrants are wealthy, mostly, and so we have assumed that they cannot be communist supporters. But I know some of these people in Auckland, and it is just not so – there is such a thing as a wealthy communist, and some of them are alive and well in Auckland.
The Chinese Government has not shown mercy to its own people: It killed many, many people in Tiananmen Square in the 1990′s who were protesting about the wickedness of the Chinese government. The Tiananmen Square massacre was damned by human rights protestors all about the world.
The Chinese communist government torture and kill Falun Gong people, and Buddhists, and anyone else who does not appear to be mindlessly in agreement with the barbaric controlling methods of the Chinese Government.
This is not a new thing. On the BBC just last night, 15th September 2010, a new book on Mao’s new China was reviewed. The author had been to China and gone through archives dating back to before the revolution. It is estimated that 45 million people were deliberately tortured and killed in China to pave the way for the government and regime which exists there today.
Freedom of speech does not exist in China: having a religion of any kind is forbidden , and if you defy the opressive rules of the Chinese goernment, then they simply get rid of you. The religion of the Chinese people now is supposed to be the Chinese Government itself – the one and only voice which has any bearing.
So how and why is our government seduced into thinking that we will be safe from these wicked forces: If they kill and torture their OWN people in China – anyone who is different – anyone who has a religion - you don’t have to commit a crime – then the day will come here, too, when we no longer have freedom of speech and live in terror of the Chinese communists.
On the Maori news late last night, Pita Sharples who represented the Maori party in the New Zealand Government, was shown to be ‘walking the walk and talking the talk’ in China. Basically, his interests in China are for us to trade with China. He said that although China is big, and we are small, that should be no reason not to trade: naive to say the least.
Then a picture came up of Pita Sharples sitting, smiling, next to the prime minister of the national government, who was beaming his smug 200million dollar smile in anticipation. Tariana Turia was sitting smiling on the other side of John Key. Yes, that explains it – Pita sharples, of course, is not in China at the moment of his own volition. He believes that somehow the Maori Party might benefit from trade with China. There is land to sell, sand to sell, trees to sell, gold to sell, food to sell. We will have nothing left when they have finished, which will benefit no-one here.
This current government does not look to the future in ANYTHING. They do not care that we will have nothing left in or on our soil here for our children of future generations. And they also do not care there are already signs that our democratic freedom is being undermined: the response to the Dalai Lama’s visit by the Auckland Chinese Businessmen’s Association surely is an omen of worse things to come.
This New Zealand government wants to sell everything, even at the risk of being owned, in thought, word, and deed, by the Chinese communist regime. They want to sell our agricultural land to the Chinese: they have an agreement in the pipeline. They were going to mine our beautiful protected forests without the permission of the New Zealand people: They pulled out at the last minute – but are probably waiting for some other diversion to behold the New Zealand people before they try it on again.
Now – back to the influence of the Chinese communist government here:
Tibetan Buddhism is under threat because of Chinese discrimination: The Dalai Lama’s visit here was blocked for a period of time by the Auckland Chinese Businessmen’s Association – this gives you an idea that the Chinese communists are already actiively monitoring the events and people to whom we are being exposed to in New Zealand: Already, we are being groomed. They do not like the Dalai Lama, saying, as reported in the New Zealand Herald, that he tells lies about the CHINESE GOVERNMENT, and that the Dalai Lama is a ‘separatist, and a trouble maker’: this is really part of their brain washing tactics which includes the rewriting of history on how and why they took over Tibet.
It was also alarming to see, these statements published as a front-page news item last year, just prior to the Dalai Lama’s visit, by the NZ Herald which has the biggest circulation of any paper in New Zealand, and is the ONLY voice of Auckland. This article stated that the Auckland Chinese Businessmen’s Association was blocking the Dalkai Lama’s visit to Auckland because he was a ‘trouble maker’, ‘a separatist’, told lies about the Chinese Government, and ‘worked for the CIA’.
It was interesteing and alarming too, that the NZ Herald did not publish anything contrary to the Chinese Businessmen’s statements. They simply let it ride: any New Zealander too young to have learned anything of the history behind the takeover of Tibet, or who was ignorant about the multitude of human atrocities in China, might have thought that these communist-inspired statements about the Dalai Lama were true.
A Chinese person I know who claims he is a Christian, reiterated all these things when I offered him a free ticket to see the Dalai Lama last year. He was irate when I, unwittingly, invited one of the family to join me in listening to this great man’s lecture. This Chinese businessman who was born in China, was obviously exposed to brain washing techniques and the rewriting of history before he came to New Zealand. He voiced the same opinions as the Herald article, and was vehement that the Dalai Lama worked for the CIA – more propaganda put out by the Chinese communist government. No mention of the fact that thousands upon thousands of Tibetan Bhuddist monks and peasant people were killed when the Chinese took over Tibet, and that the Dalai Lama was one of the lucky ones who escaped death at the hands of the Chinese army.
The presence of the Chinese is very visible in Auckland – and I am sure that not all of them are communists – but just wait – I believe the Chinese government and its evil ways will make us rue the day we ever let them take hold here. They will be doing more than tearing away the banner which Green Party spokesman, Russell Norman held in a one-man protest outside parliament recently: The banner which Chinese officials swiped had “Free Tibet’ written on it.
Threat To Democracy.
Yes, yes and yes. Everything you have written I have had concerns about for a while. Good for you to raise this issue. A lot of us keep our heads down, not wanting to offend ‘someone’ if we are faced with tricky situations. But, this is being apathetic and we can’t just trust in the powers that be to make correct decisions which will become our future. It has already happened once in New Zealands history, but there will not be any Treaty written up to protect us for a second time.
Take heed indeed.
Ali
Greetings Ali,
It was great to see you down in “The Bay” over the weekend.
Thanks so much for your comment. Yes – This article was meant to stimulate an awareness of our situation here in New Zealand. At present, we believe we are a ‘Democratic’ nation, but we should not take this for granted. I feel empathy for all those who suffer, or who have suffered, at the hands of the Chinese communist government because of their religious beliefs and/or a desire for Freedom of Speech, and pray that positive forces might prevail over the negative ones threatening our relatively peaceful nation. Thanks again for your intelligent response.
Merrilyn: what an absurd article.
What about all those racist white South Africans who have migrated here because they cannot stand the fact of black majority rule. They adhere to an odious racist policy, whereas communism is a universal ideology of equality.
There are more white migrants than Asian migrants. Do they not also contribute to rising house prices.
By singling out the Chinese you have proved your racism (or is it simply your stupidity?).
The Chinese communist regime since 1949 has done more to improve the lives of more people over a shorter space of time than any other regime in history. Life expectancy doubled during the time of Mao – and this fact is verified by almost any academic demographer, Chinese or Western. In fact just looking at the population growth under Mao, all during a period of falling fertility, would show this to be the case —except to those who are fundamentally innumerate.
The most murderous race on the face of the planet are Anglo Saxons. I refer you to Mark Davies work on British engineered famines “Victorian Holocausts” in which the British murdered tens of millions of Indians at the end of the 19th Century —these British mass murders make the Great Leap Forward look like a Teddy Bears picnic.
I say we should ban white migrants who bring racist beliefs to Aotearoa.
Free Tibet, I say. Free Chen Guangcheng who has been protesting against forced abortions done by the Chinese government, and who was jailed for speaking out. Free artist Ai Wei Wei who is another promoter of human rights and free speech, jailed wrongfully and taken away. He might have been released because of international pressure, but he is still under house arrest.
Free the Chinese Nobel Peace Prize winner 2010, Liu Xiaobo, who was never allowed to receive his prize and is still in jail, if not dead.
Remember the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989 where hundreds of people were mown down or shot by the military? This was a massacre where Chinese military killed their own flesh and blood. Today, just 23 years after this tragic event, Chinese writers are not allowed to refer to this incident, or to the earlier killing of Buddhists in Tibet.
Falun Gong supporters have been tortured or killed for many years. What a society. Our system is not perfect, but I think it is a good deal more humane and honest than the current Chinese one. I would be jailed or worse for saying this in China.
I pray that the Chinese people may be liberated from this ghastly regime – that all so-called dissidents speaking out for human rights are freed – that all those brave students of Tiananmen Square who died in the protest will be remembered and that their efforts and their sacrifices do not go in vain.
So rolling out a whole lot of Western enabled scumbags makes an argument?
I’ll just pick up one example of how scurrilous the Western media is. Liu Xiaobo, that Nobel prize winner, is on record as saying he supports British colonialism and hoped for its restoration – not only in Hong Kong, but throughout China.
That is the same as a Jew who says he supports Adolf Hitler. Or a hypothetical Jew who openly advocates for Neo-Nazi rule over Jews.
Liu Xiaobo, this Nobel prize winner, of the ‘peace’ prize, is an avid supporter of US imperialism. He praises Bush and Blair as great men, praises the Iraq war which has killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and praises US military intervention all over the world.
Do you hear of this in the Western media? Of course not. The aim of the West is to restore imperialist rule over China, as was the case between 1840 and 1949. These scumbags you mention are Western enabled tools that will facilitate this process.
You think you know a lot about Tibet? But have you ever in your life heard the Chinese point of view? Or only those of China’s enemies? Here is an alternative point of view about Tibet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wEwBvP4ZM1E
“Our system is not perfect, but I think it is a good deal more humane and honest than the current Chinese one.”
Bullshit. The Western system is built on the enslavement and murder of hundreds of millions.
Just consider the past two decades. What regime has killed more innocent civilians? China or the US?
Even if one was to accept that Tian An Men incident was unjustified, the most innocent civilian deaths China could be reasonably accused of over the past twenty years is several hundred, or a thousand at most.
Compare these to the crimes of US imperialism. US imperialism has murdered hundreds of thousands in the past ten years alone. Did the ‘humane’ Western governments ask the opinion of Iraqis and Afghans and Libyans and Vietnamese and countless other peoples before they bombed them into the stone age?
Did the NZ government seek the opinion of the Afghan people, before they sent in NZ troops to support US imperialism in their murderous war against the Afghan people?
Also you have not answered my question on why you pick on Chinese migrants for their supposed pro-communist views, but not white South Africans for their undoubted racist views.
I look forward to your response.
And try not to simply pick out a whole lot of cliches and press cuttings from the NZ Herald.
I would be jailed or worse for saying this in China.
Bullshit. This is belied by the huge number of anti-China blogs run by Westerners living in China right now.
In fact the US is the country where one is most likely to be jailed.
US incarceration rate: 743/100000
New Zealand: 160/100000
China: 119/100000
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/cri_pri_per_cap-crime-prisoners-per-capita
The fact is black Americans, Australian aborigines, and Maoris are far more likely to be incarcerated than Tibetans in China. In fact if you refer to the academic Barry Sautman’s work, it is clear that minorities, including Tibetans, are imprisoned at a lower rate than the Han majority.
Liu Xiaobo, the Nobel Peace Prize Winner 2010, is a fighter for democracy, freedom of speech, and improvement of human rights in China. He was unable to receive the Nobel Peace Prize at the ceremony in Norway, because he has been jailed for being a dissident, for speaking out against the oppressive regime in China. He was jailed in December, 2009, for 11 years.
He was part of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protest, where many people were slaughtered by their own government’s military. I have not read anything which says that he supported the war in Iraq, and I doubt very much that this is true. Liu Xiobo is a promoter of peace, and a non-violent man who, I would expect, would not support war or killing anywhere in the world.
The BBC website has a 2010 article on the Nobel Peace Prize winner that states Liu Xiaobo was ‘given an 11 year sentence for “inciting subversion” after drafting Charter 08 which called for multi-party democracy and respect for human rights in China.’
The Nobel Foundation praised Liu Xiaobo for ‘his long and non-violent struggle’. They also said that because of the unjustified sentence against him, he has become the ‘foremost symbol of this wide-ranging struggle for human rights in China’.
Merrilyn. You simply regurgitate (almost a copy and paste) straight out of some mainstream Western paper.
The most horrendous abuse of human rights these past few centuries, is the European invasions of the non-white world. Liu Xiaobo is a supporter of Western imperialism and is thus not a defender of human rights, but actually akin to a neo-Nazi.
Liu Xiaobo is a war monger —as long as those doing the invading and killing are white people.
“[T]he outstanding achievement made by Bush in anti-terrorism absolutely cannot be erased by Kerry’s slandering … However much risk must be endured in striking down Saddam Hussein, know that no action would lead to a greater risk. This has been proven by the second world war and September 11! No matter what, the war against Saddam Hussein is just! The decision by President Bush is right!”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/dec/15/nobel-winner-liu-xiaobo-chinese-dissident
Not talking about who is the WORST. All abuse of people anywhere in the world is to be deplored. Human rights workers should not be punished, or tortured, or killed, when they are trying to improve conditions for their fellow men.
Protestors at the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 were objecting to the Chinese government’s lack of human rights. Hundreds of these people were killed. You cannot dispute this.
At a recent writers convention in China, the one stipulation was that no mention was to be made on the Tiananmen Square massacre, or on the Chinese take-over of Tibet.
Liu Xiaobo was part of the Tiananmen Square protest against China’s abuse of human rights. He should be released. Chen Guangcheng should be released. Ai Wei Wei should be freed. There will be hundreds more who have been jailed in China for protesting the government’s lack of human rights. These people should all be freed.
“Not talking about who is the WORST”
Well why do you only single out Chinese migrants then?
By singling out Chinese migrants but not white British or white South African migrants, you by your actions imply that China is uniquely bad.
How much blood is on the hands of Tony Blair? Or George W Bush? Or David Cameron?
It would be hard to quantify exactly, but certainly shitloads more than any on the hands of President Hu Jintao.
Britain is an evil nation in a way China never has been.
In fact it was Britain which invaded China in 1840 and forced on China a flood of opium at gunpoint. China was pauperised by these evil white invaders.
http://themoderatevoice.com/133566/chart-of-the-day-chinas-historical-gdp/
Anglo Saxons should get down on their knees and beg forgiveness from the Chinese people for their shameless crimes against China.
The Chinese Government is a feared government because of its abuse of human rights. This is why Chinese Nationals are ‘singled out’, as you say.
I feel for all those poor people in China who are afraid to speak out. I feel for all those Falun Gong and Buddhists who have been detained or tortured or killed. I feel for the Tibetans who have lost their peaceful way of life.
It seems that many of the wealthy Chinese people coming to New Zealand are supportive of the Chinese communist government.
In New Zealand the only regime which is a threat to our peace here is the Chinese government, because of our government’s dealings with it.
No other government in the world has the potential to harm our democracy here as much as the Chinese government does.’It is not the Chinese people who are the worry – but the Chinese government itself, and the minority of people who support it.
I pray for the liberation of China, and for the freedom of all people wrongfully imprisoned because of their beliefs.
I also pray that our current NZ Prime Minister, John Key, gets some common sense and refuses to let Chinese investors take over any of our NZ state-owned assets, or our Crafer dairy farms. The Crafer deal, if it goes ahead, will tie us inextricably to the Chinese government, and this will be bad for NZ in the long run.
No more NZ land should be sold to any foreign investors, no matter where they come from. We should be protecting our small nation and preserving the land for the benefit of the people who live here.
Sorry. Most Chinese people support the ‘communist’ government.
Because it is the ‘communist’ government which threw out the Western imperialists.
Imperialism is the reason for massive human rights abuses.
The US imperialists and their running dogs New Zealand and Australia killed millions of Vietnamese and Koreans.
The British, French, German, American and other Western imperialists killed untold millions of Chinese.
Whatever the shortcomings of communist governments, their abuses pale into insignificance when compared to the crimes of imperialism.
Just considering the mortality rates under imperialism (before 1949) and the huge decrease in mortality (after 1949) shows it is imperialism which is the true human rights nightmare.
If the United States and Britain were destroyed tomorrow, and their people utterly annihilated, the world would be a more peaceful place.
Not of course that the US and Britain should be annihilated.
But given the damage they have caused the rest of the world, they should get down on their knees beg forgiveness, and compensate the victims of US/British imperialism all over the world.
This is what British use to do to chinese. Harness them to rickshaws, beat them and play rickshaw polo.
They also treated Chinese like animals, killing them with impunity. Under the principle of “extraterritoriality”, Westerners were not bound by Chinese laws when in China.
Here is just one little known incident – the Wanhsien Incident in which British gunboats shelled innocent Chinese civilians killing about 3000 in 1926. The British Consul thus described this incident: “Its a wonderful show on the part of the navy, but we can never forgive these bloody Chinks…’ Also the Shanghani English language press hailed the killing of innocent Chinese claiming we had been “put in our place.” Of course this is just one minor incident in the overall catalogue of imperialist crimes committed against China over a long 100 years.
But your anger comes from past actions, past war-crimes. Wanting revenge for the past, and using it to justify present atrocities is not going to help the world, or the people of China. I pray for peace everywhere.
This of course is a terrible thing to harness people to rickshaws and beat them. And I believe you, that Chinese people were oftentimes treated very very badly by the British.
Unfortunately, these skeletons are in the cupboard of most powerful nations, I believe. Although this knowledge does not make the pain of these injustices any easier to bear, I am sure.
But now, it should be our duty to strive for basic human rights in all places, in all countries, regardless of race, creed, or belief, and regardless of the memories of the past.
Nobody should live in fear of being jailed or tortured or killed because of their beliefs, or because they verbally oppose their rulers.
I agree with you, too, that there are many victims of US/British Imperialism.
The Viet-Nam war killed many innocent people. Many people were maimed by land mines there, as well as by the prolific use of the defoliant ‘agent orange’, which has the deadly dioxin in it. This is the same stuff as 245T which was made in our country New Zealand, even after the powerful countries of the world had banned its manufacture or use. Children are still being born in Viet-Nam today with birth defects due to this dreadful poison.
And many soldiers from USA and NZ who fought in this war have also fallen victim to the deadly effects of 245T ‘agent orange’, as they had to handle the stuff. Many of these soldiers have had shortened lives, or lives of debilitation, as well as passing on genetic defects to their children because of ‘agent orange’ damage to their own genes.
There were many victims of this Viet-Nam war.
Because our laws governing poison manufacture were behind the times, which of course benefitted some big wigs in the business, powerful chemical-pharmaceutical companies used New Zealand as a place to manufacture dioxin poisons when their own countries had forbidden it.
The Afghanistan war killed many innocent people. I do not believe war can be justified anywhere in the world.
I pray for peace everywhere.
And I say again that I hope the day will come soon when the Chinese people will be liberated from the inhumane regime which controls them. Free Liu Xiaobo. Free Ai Wei Wei. Free Chen Guangcheng and all the other so-called dissidents who are working for basic human rights in China. Free all those people jailed for their religious beliefs, and all those workers for peace, freedom of speech, and democracy.
Thank you for your comments. I agree with your sentiments, and think you are a well-meaning person.
However the fall of the Chinese regime, at this stage, in spite of all its faults, would bring along catastrophic suffering – something along the same lines as what happened in the former Yugoslavia.
China has made great progress the past 60 years, and if you look at all the economic development indices and health and literacy indicators, China has improved the lot of her people more than any other developing country.
We only need to compare China to India to see this.
If China became ‘democratic’ tomorrow, human rights would not improve. Life expectancy would likely go down. Economic growth would be stalled. Poverty would increase, and it is likely the environment would be even worse than it is now, with no hope of improvement.
But surely good can be achieved without abusing people, without abusing common human rights, without torture, without forbidding the freedom of speech and jailing people who strive for improvement?
How may dissidents out of 1.3 billion people —-about several hundred, if that?
Torture? There is police brutality, but it is not legal or condoned. There is police brutality in the Western world as well – probably more than in China.
China imprisons less people than New Zealand:
US incarceration rate: 743/100000
New Zealand: 160/100000
China: 119/100000
China’s human rights are not perfect, but they are probably better than any other developing country out there.
People can say what they want in China. You just can’t stir up trouble and publish in the newspapers and support imperialism. All countries have their sensitive areas which are no go. In many European countries you can be locked up for denying the Holocaust.
In any case it is not for Westerners to lecture the Chinese, anymore than Chinese have the right to lecture New Zealand, over say the Ureweras outrage.