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Feigning normality since 1973

China Free

Filed in: Tetrap.Local.

Yeah, another political post. This will be the last one for a while, hopefully. I hate politics.

Recently the NZ government has been working towards a Free Trade deal with China. A bunch of people, including the Green party, have said the Trade deal should be thrown out due to the way China keeps killing Tibetans, and their crumby human rights record in general. Also, there's talk of boycotting the upcoming Beijing Olympics.

Leaving aside the fact that the Olympics are actually nicely bringing attention to Tibet (and I'm sure some of the athletes will defy the ban on mentioning Tibet), I point you to Statistics New Zealand's External Trade Statistics page.

In 2005, New Zealand imported 3.67 billion dollars worth of stuff from China. In 2006, it was 4.44 billion, and the projected total for 2007 is listed as 5.28 billion. For contrast, in 2006 we exported only 1.74 billion dollars worth of stuff to China, and in 2007 the projection was 1.88 billion. So we're already dropping a fair amount of money into the Chinese economy, and whether or not we get a free trade deal with them isn't likely to change that. We'll go on buying their stuff and giving them money, and they'll go on doing what they're doing.

Or is there something I'm missing?

Posted March 20, 2008 8:59 PM

Comments

Basic economics: we want stuff, which is cheaper and easier to do by buying from China than trying to produce it ourselves. China is just such a massive producer of junk that we can't help but give them a ton of money.

Posted by: Thad Ritchards | March 20, 2008 10:31 PM

It is no different than trading with the old USSR was. I don't recall anyone having any big issues about that, even when they were slaughtering people in Afghanistan/Chechnya, or oppressing half of Europe for over forty years. That said, I will not watch a single moment of the 'Genocide Olympics', purely because the Commie Chinese bankrolled the Darfur massacres. Oh, and I haven't forgotten Tian'Men Square, either, like a lot of other people

Posted by: Jeff Stone | March 21, 2008 7:40 PM

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