Blog 144. Readers should take a few minutes and study this 2021 Lowy Institute poll in detail. Lowy survey At the start of 2017, Australia and China were close partners. Polls would show that both parties anticipated a golden future for their economic partnership. As the current poll reveals, this relationship has now soured dramatically. There is no obvious reason for it having done so other than deliberate manipulation by government agencies. I would have found this extraordinary were it not for my having picked up on an early indicator of what was going on behind the scenes. Tony Kevi ..read more

 Thoughts about the emerging cold war: Blog No. This article was written at the end of February 2021 and published under the title ‘Facing an existential crisis: the culpable west’ in the May/June issue of the NZ International Review. The same issue also contained articles by NZ’s Ministers of Foreign Affairs and of Disarmament both of which making it explicit that NZ did not wish to see its membership of the Five Eyes intelligence gathering organisation extended into other fields of diplomatic activism targeting China.) This article is written with the Doomsday Clock now advanced to just ..read more

This article was first published in the Australian Journal ‘Pearls & Irritations’ (A weekly publication that publishes articles diverging from the Australian Government’s viewpoint.) WORLD AFFAIRS Will Australia spring the Thucydides trap? By Hugh Steadman May 21, 2021 The Thucydides Trap argument is that history demonstrates that war is practically inevitable between a rising hegemon, such as China, and a failing hegemon, such as the US. This is the original article and things have moved on in the intervening year. article  Today’s follow-up article takes the position that ..read more

More than a century of progress in international relations! The Western World, is now well set into its latest USA-led, Sinophobic campaign. It is designed to limit Chinese economic success and preserve the American economy from otherwise seemingly irresistible competition.  New Zealand and Australia should not bet the farm on American success! In the course of some research on that exclusive, Anglo-Saxon club that is the Five Eyes Alliance, I came to the realisation that the composition of the OECD is also strangely colour-biased.  I stumbled across the attached chart detailing the ..read more

Blog 207. This blog is nowhere near exhaustive. It is envisaged that it will have to be continuously updated as he cold war progresses and the associated lies and mistruths proliferate. The alliance of western nations clustered around the USA is engaged in a major propaganda campaign. The primary aim of this campaign is to justify the extraction of enormous sums from the pockets of their citizens to be spent on their ‘defence’ at the expense of their wellbeing. These eye-watering wastes go to line the pockets of the multiple interests vested in the military industrial complex. There is a seco ..read more

Blog No 206. Blog 204, Parts I & II described the background to the ideological war between Eastern communalism and western ‘democracy. ’ Ideology I & Ideology II   China under the CCP, seems confident in its direction and in the demonstrable success of its endeavour to make China a better place for its citizens. It appears to welcome the fact that through trade, other nations are also enriched by its progress. From the CCP’s viewpoint, if the success of a single-party, socialist/capitalist hybrid impresses other nations to the extent that they wish to follow China’s example ..read more

Blog 205 The suggestion below is from someone well placed by experience to form an educated opinion. “Trade sanctions of the type Australia is facing are a weapon used by both USA and China. So let’s have a debate on whether we need Five Eyes, or whether it’s time for us to trade on independently.” Suggestion NZ businessman, Wayne Brown’s sensible argument is based simply on it being in NZ’s economic interest to avoid getting dragged by its Five Eyes membership into the USA’s Australia v. China trade war.  Australia’s decision to package gratuitous insults and hostile military gestures a ..read more

Blog 204.Part II Part I of this blog looked at the ideological struggle that was emerging between the west, led by the American democracy and China, led by the Communist Party (CCP.) Both parties look at the struggle as an exhibition ground on which to demonstrate alternative political systems in the belief/hope that their particular system proves so attractive that it will be adopted by other nations. While nearly all countries claim to be ‘democratic’ (a word which, by excessive usage, has come to mean little other than ‘good’) the versions of democratic governance vary widely between count ..read more

Blog 204: Part I: Dig beneath all the trade wars and the arguments to the effect that the USA should not permit China to achieve economic and technological superiority, or even parity, and you find the real reason behind the conflict. China is seen as challenging the West’s ideology of democratic neo-liberal capitalism. China, with its communist-in-name-only government and its demonstrable social and economic progress, is seen as having the potential to offer a governmental system more attractive to the majority of mankind.   The USA is approaching the problem of the Chinese challenge in ..read more

Blog No. 202 This blog with a preface from the Editor appeared in a recent Scoop newsletter. Scoop The Dig recently contained a most timely item by Robert Patman on the foreign policy challenge facing New Zealand’s new government. Patman advocates New Zealand adding its diplomatic voice to those nations wishing to revise the status quo as exemplified by the rules-based-order to which western governed spokespeople, including New Zealand’s are so fond of claiming their allegiance. The international, rules based order “Our defence engagement with the United States amplifies NZ’s ability to contr ..read more