Are we witnessing, for the first time, a British King appeasing a foreign emperor? And on the quarter-millennial anniversary of Britain’s greatest ever geopolitical humiliation. Could King Charles be enacting one of the final straws in the deathknell of the Monarchy?

To Mr Starmer, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom: Man-up. Grow a spine. Otherwise, you too may fall. Call an election if you must to re-establish your mandate, and the mandate of the King.

According to the ABC’s Brad Ryan: “The king was clearly keen to communicate that not only was the UK a friend to the US, it was also actively supporting the Trump administration in its efforts to project military might around the world.” (Takeaways from King Charles’ speech to the US Congress, on RNZ News, 29 April 2026.) Not even a capital ‘k’ for King.

In the light of Trump says his mother had a crush on young Prince Charles (The Independent on YouTube, 28 April 2026), I can envisage the expiration of the Monarchy being marked by a tabloid broadcast of an AI fake mashup of the late Mary Anne MacLeod Trump singing Charlie is my Darling. It would be an ignominious end to a line of English Kings and Queens dating back to 1066.

My reading of British politics at the moment is that there are many angry men (and women) in the United Kingdom (and elsewhere); The Educated Miserables, as Victor Hugo might have called them. The ruling classes on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean are just so out-of-touch with the demos; the people who work, live and die under their semi-democratic jurisdictions. (Refer UK healthy life expectancy falls by two years in past decade, BBC 27 April 2026.)

The election of the barely mentioned never debunked President of Iran in 2024 today looks much more like a transparent exercise in people power than the elections that same year in the United Kingdom, the United States, and France. To eyes foreign to the above-mentioned countries, Iran may not be the only nation for which regime change is being sought. To the western Emperors, Presidents, Kings, Prime Ministers and counsels: “first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye” (Gospel of Matthew).

In the meantime – beams and motes notwithstanding – just stop holding the world to ransom. And resign, if you cannot at least try to act in the interest of the world.

————-

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

For more on this issue, see; New Zealand PM Luxon Labelled as Weak and Cowardly After Delaying Decision on Palestine.

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The New Zealand Cabinet will today consider whether to formally recognise Palestine as a state – and Palestinian rights advocacy group Palestinian Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) urges the Government to listen to the views of a vast majority of New Zealanders.

The PSNA anticipates Foreign Minister, Winston Peters, will get instructions from Cabinet on Monday to increase pressure on Israel.

The United Nations General Assembly High Level Leaders Debate starts in New York next Tuesday.

PSNA Co-Chair, John Minto says the government has to have listened to the voice of the people who marched for sanctions against Israel, in Auckland (on Saturday September 13).

“With only limited time to organize, and disruption caused by having to change from the route over the Harbour Bridge at the last moment, 25,000 turned out to object to the government’s passive, and effectively pro-Israel, policies,” John Minto said.

“It’s a turn-out that’s been building, now rapidly, in our protests around the country over the past two years.

“New Zealanders are nearly two to one in favour of sanctions against Israel. Support for accountabilities will have increased significantly since then as Israel’s depravity and cruelty has shown no bounds.”

Minto says foreign minister Peters will be attending potentially one of the most important debates in United Nations history next week.

“The General Assembly has already begun, and on Friday, New Zealand voted along with 141 other countries, for a state of Palestine to be created through Israeli withdrawal from the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” John Minto said. “There were only ten votes against, predictably the US and Israel, but a concerning five Pasifika states voted against Palestine as well.”

According to Minto Israel has already made it clear that it has no intention to permit a Palestinian state to emerge, “nor compromise its apartheid system, by allowing equal democratic rights to Palestinians who live under its control and inside its present borders.”

Minto said in announcing its position on Palestine, the government will be sensitive to its reputation in Arab countries.

“Israel has just bombed Qatar, to kill off the prospect of a Hamas agreement on hostage releases.  Qatar is a member of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which is led by Saudi Arabia.

“Peters’ cabinet colleague, Todd McClay is in Saudi Arabia this week to talk trade.  McClay will not be wanting to explain to the Saudis, face to face, why Peters was in New York at the same time telling the world about Israel’s so called right to defend itself.”

Australia, Canada, France, United Kingdom and other nations have already demanded a ceasefire to hostilities in Palestine’s occupied territories and for Israel to cease the apparent genocide being committed in Gaza.

Minto said: “So far, the UN emphasis has been on two-state outcomes, and how to get rid of Hamas. But the world debate is moving strongly to sanctions.

“Now is the time to move past idle rhetoric, and deliver sanctions, which are the only persuasion Israel will concede to,” John Minto said.

The failing nation-states of Western Europe are not peacemakers. They are warmongers, the ‘Coalition of the Willing’ – the Coalition of Sanctimony and Hypocrisy. They are trying to frame the current geopolitical struggle between a unipolar versus a multipolar world order as a struggle of the ‘Democratic’ Axis of Good against a strengthening ‘Autocratic’ Coalition of Evil located through most of Eurasia.

Germany’s new Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, says “whatever it takes“. Twice this year the coalition of sanctimony has derailed opportunities to end the Russia-Ukraine War through the re-creation of a neutral Ukraine. (The present war is already nearly as long-lasting as World War One.) The re-creation of a neutral Ukraine is the only available off-ramp to end this war.

The anti-peace phalanx that pretends to be pro-peace – headed by Merz, Keir Starmer, Ursula von de Leyen, and Mark Rutter (and formerly including Joe Biden and Boris Johnson) – represents the expression of a clear and open geopolitical strategy of eastwards expansion, both further into the Slavic Heartland (refer to Mackinder’s Democratic Ideals and Reality, free on Google Books, published early in 1919 though mostly written late in 1918) and in Southwest Asia (aka the ‘Middle East’). (France’s Emmanuel Macron is more ambivalent than these others, and is expected to fade from the presentCoalition as his political career comes to an end, and as France becomes consumed by domestic problems.)

Considered to be the academic founder of the discipline of geopolitics, Mackinder – born in Lincolnshire, England – was then the Conservative MP for a Scottish constituency. In late 1918 – a critical pivot moment in world history – he held his seat in the House of Commons, with a comfortable majority in Britain’s immediate-post-war election. Mackinder saw the necessity of establishing a group of smallish neutral nation-states between the two potentially resurgent “Going Concerns” of defeated Germany and defeated Russia (Russia, then in a post-war civil war, and in the process of becoming the ‘Bolshevik’ Soviet Union). In line with Mackinder’s analysis, the World War reignited in the late-1930s partly as a result of those smaller states eschewing neutrality in favour of various mostly-failed attempts to form security alliances with former antagonists, and/or with Britain and France.

On the matter of Mackinder’s relevance to the 2020s’ world, note this quote re Heartland: Three Essays on Geopolitics, by Halford John Mackinder: “Heartland is a fascinating introduction to a pioneer of geopolitics. Halford Mackinder’s trailblazing ideas have influenced international politics to this day. His concept that world domination depends on the control of the global ‘pivot area’ or ‘heartland’ – the centre of the large land mass of Europe and Asia – has informed the political tactics and wars in the Middle East and Eastern Europe through the decades. His theories have influenced politicians and political scientists for generations, most notably Zbigniew Brzezinski, adviser to a long line of U.S. presidents. In our times, the importance of Mackinder’s heartland theory for the United States’ fight to enforce global hegemony, Russia’s struggle to stay independent and relevant on a world stage, and China’s plans to establish a trade route between East and West, make Heartland essential reading for understanding our world.”

Ukraine and Israel as Western bridgeheads into the Eastern heartlands

In geopolitical context, both Ukraine and Israel can be seen as Western bridgeheads into the ‘Near East’ and ‘Middle East’ heartlands; bridgeheads against the west-resistant poles of Russia and Iran. Ultimately these geopolitical gambits seek as an end-goal the ‘containment’ of China; China being understood as the single biggest threat to the unipolar Western – essentially Christian, labelled ‘Democratic’ – world-order fantasy which prevailed especially in Washington in the 1990s. (In the Cold War, this geopolitical contest was presented as the battle of the Free against Communism.)

Since the demise of Joe Biden (dubbed ‘Genocide Joe’ by some, and not without reason), there has been a bifurcation of the western project.

The United States is most focussed on its Middle Eastern agenda (which, as in Obama times, very much includes geopolitical designs on Syria), so has doubled-down as Israel’s main sponsor of regional terror. Nevertheless, the self-appointed European coalition of sanctimony has been fully and consistently behind “Daddy’s” geopolitical interest in promoting Israel’s asymmetric war of aggression; and still is, despite some attempts to appear to be distancing itself from the Palestinian theatre of conflict. (On ‘Daddy’, see “Daddy” diplomacy: The politics of obsequiousness, Hugh Piper, Lowy Institute, 24 July 2025.)

Israel’s barbarism could only be tolerated by any group of countries if those countries had a ‘higher’ political purpose; namely opposition to a geopolitical adversary shared with Israel – an adversary which dares to resist western power. Any coalition facilitating Israel’s anti-human agenda (of erasing “human animals”, aka Amalek) has fully given up any claim to be considered The Good. In line with geopolitical realism, there are no Good Guys.

The European Coalition of Sanctimony quickly formed when peace threatened to break-out in Ukraine following the 28 February 2025 meeting in the White House. Their aim is to locate German soldiers in Ukraine; an insensitive act which to Russians would be as provocative as 1914 and 1941. If a post-war Ukraine is to have genuine peacekeepers, they cannot be belligerents; such peacekeepers would have to be there under the auspices of the United Nations, and only from countries which are verifiably neutral with respect to Eurasian geopolitics (India would probably qualify; so would South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Indonesia, Vietnam, Philippines, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria – and of course Fiji with its tradition of peacekeeping.)

The Coalition is, it claims, fighting for the ‘rules-based-order’ in one conflict while pushing-back against international law in the other (genocidal) conflict. A coalition of hypocrisy, indeed.

In the end, international rules are meaningless in a battle framed as Good versus Evil. Evil, by definition, does not follow the rules. So, if Good is to wage an unyielding war against Evil, why would Good handicap itself by following rules that Evil cannot be expected to follow? Laws can be applied to a real war – of A versus B – but not to a war when one or both sides claim to be Good combating Evil? For the sanctimonious, defeating the posited Evil is more important than following the rules.

These West European interests are pulling back from their unconditional support for Israel so that they can focus on their belligerence towards Russia. While they don’t admit the contradiction in their embarrassing support for one aggressor (Israel) and their adamant opposition to another (Russia), Israel’s war in Palestine has removed any possibility that the coalition can seriously claim the moral high ground.

In Aotearoa New Zealand – the little-West located in the far southeast – we need to show more empathy towards Asia, which has been invaded and abused many times by The West, and less towards West Europe which was last invaded by Asia in the fifth century (by Atilla the Hun). New Zealand (eg under Jim Bolger) once considered itself to be an Asian country. Now, New Zealand’s political class is at risk of reinterpreting the continent Asia – sixty percent of the world’s humanity – as a monolithic antagonist. Can the lands to the south of Asia – literally, Australasia – be trusted by Asia?

In geopolitical terms, the West are the aggressors – and the peace blockers – in both of the present faultlines.

The Central Issue: Unipolar versus Multipolar ‘World Order’

Realist scholars of geopolitics – including the conservative John Mearsheimer and the progressive development economist Jeffrey Sachs – are clear about the nature of and the openness of the western geopolitical project. They see the eastwards expansion of the west, cloaked in its narrative of sanctimony, as somewhat problematic.

A unipolar world order is not necessarily an overt dictatorship over every human on the planet. Rather, it is a system in which one central polity – potentially one man or woman, but more likely a technocracy of truth-guardians – has an effective global veto over the contest of ideas, should it choose to use that veto. In a multipolar world order, such vetoes may operate regionally, though there could be no ‘one-veto-to-rule-them-all’.

The first thing that people across the world should consider, is whether the one-empire world is a better aspiration than a multi-empire world; noting that empires come in both overt and covert forms, and that empires can vary from the somewhat benign (ie fraternal) to the severely malign. (Mackinder’s principal principle was that of ‘fraternity’.) Is a single benign empire best? The issues here are twofold: how easily can a benign empire become malign; and how can we be sure that a benign hegemon is really as benign as portrays itself? (We may note the more benign optics of Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World compared to the chilling repression underpinning George Orwell’s 1984.)

The West’s illusion of being non-violent in achieving its objectives is a result of it using violence only as a last resort; the West favours heavy-handed diplomacy, known in earlier imperial times as gunboat diplomacy. Importantly – as we have seen in Palestine and Iraq, and as we saw especially in World War Two, Korea and Vietnam – the West will always resort to extreme violence if it feels it has no other choice. The West will always bring out its ‘big bazookas’ if it feels sufficiently threatened or sufficiently punitive.

The coalition of sanctimony, through Mark Rutter, let slip the truth that the President of the USA is ‘Daddy’. Another ingratiating word that I’ve noted, for example in Berlin Briefing podcasts, is ‘uncle’; a word that this year cost the Prime Minister of Thailand her job (see Thailand’s PM suspended over probe into leaked ‘uncle’ phone call with Cambodian official, Euronews 1 July 2025).

Daddy! says it all. The coalition wants a military presence in Ukraine. Please Daddy! Don’t stop the war in a way that obliges Ukraine to become a neutral country (eg in the way that Austria was obliged after World War Two).

Mackinder claimed: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; who rules the Heartland commands the World-Island [Eurasia-Africa]; who rules the World-Island commands the world.” (Not unlike the Muldoon political stratagem which contributed to New Zealand choosing to adopt MMP. “Who rules the Cabinet rules the Caucus. Who rules the Caucus rules the Parliament. Who rules the Parliament rules the Country.”)

Mackinder, in his later writing, emphasised the lands between the Black Sea and the Baltic Sea as the Heartland. The World Wars of the twentieth century can be seen as grabs by Germany for Ukraine, the heart of the Heartland. Which country is it today which – using ‘whatever resources it takes’ – most wants to gain effective control of all of Eastern Europe, including former Soviet republics. Who rules the European Union rules Europe. Who rules Nato rules the West. The United States’ role in Nato is diminishing. Who, who once played a back seat in Nato, is now muscling into the front row?

Let’s play Dominoes, noting that geopolitical advance is performed using various ways and means, soft power and economic power as well as hard power. From a European viewpoint, the final important dominos would be Georgia (an especially interesting prize, given the ambiguous statuses of Abkhazia as a seaside playground for Russia’s richest and South Ossetia), and maybe Belarus.

Further south, after Syria and Iran are neutralised by Israel and the United States (noting the events of 1953), there are – as dominoes for American imperialism – Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan. Russia, with Belarus and Kazakhstan, would then be encircled. The geopolitical West then would be literally on China’s border; adjacent to China’s sensitive Xinjiang province (aka East Turkestan). It was Zbigniew Brzezinski’s published dream; to contain China, to effectively veto China as a ‘player’. Something like this was Brzezinski’s open conspiracy.

Conspiracy Theories

Yesterday we heard this (Donald Trump says China, North Korea and Russia ‘conspiring against’ US, BBC News, 3 Sep 2025) from the American president. Yes, he was probably baiting the media. But we have been told that only feeble-minded people believe in conspiracies. Are conspiracy theories only lulu-lala when they are espoused by anti-ruling-class people? Is it OK to laugh-off other people’s conspiracy theories while quite earnestly promoting one’s own?

I heard this just the other day on Berlin Briefing, Why military service is back on the table in Germany(14 August 2025; 28’20”); the 2029 hypothesis which is gaining all the hallmarks of a Euro-conspiracy theory. Young soldier: “For example, 2029, the date that is put there out in the room from all Nato allies…”. Nina Haase: “Hang on there, to explain what that means, the date 2029 is the date when most military experts seem to agree that Russia will be in a position theoretically to test Nato’s Article Five, so to test an attack on one of Nato’s countries to see just how Nato will react, whether the other countries will come to help, because that’s what Article Five means, an attack on one is an attack on all.”

A good reference for the 2029 story is Germany’s Army Is Rebuilding. What Could Go Wrong?, Politico, Jessica Bateman, 29 August 2025, ‘”We are now moving from a war of choice to a war of necessity,” he [Carsten Breuer, the Bundeswehr’s highest serving general] explained. From security analysis he believes Russia will be capable of attacking NATO territory by 2029, with the caveat that this depends on the outcome in Ukraine and whether the war exhausts the Kremlin’. Remember Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass-destruction’!

Nobody ever says why Russia would want to attack a Nato country in 2029 or any other year; allegations-of-evil by western soothsayers notwithstanding. Russia has never aspired to possess Western Europe, and its hegemony over Eastern Europe from 1945 to 1989 was entirely in the context of the finality of World War in Europe. The coalition of hypocrisy simply asserts this conspiracy theory as a justification for the militarisation of a near-bankrupt Old Europe, to deploy Donald Rumsfeld’s2003 putdown.

Western Europe is undergoing an Economic Implosion

France, Germany, and the United Kingdom are all now in economic crisis; in fiscal crisis. Their spending cuts led to revenue constriction, meaning that less government spending has led to bigger (not smaller, as the neoliberals presume) budget deficits. With France it’s especially political, given the present fiscal crisis, the looming presidential election there in 2027, and the lack of unifying candidates to replace Macron in that role. (Marine Le Pen, who has become a potential unifier of the non-Centre has been barred from running.) The United Kingdom government is imploding too, and for similar reasons (though Nigel Farage, continuing to espouse fiscal conservatism, remains a less likely unifier). Many people in Britain think that the Labour Government cannot survive even half of its five-year term, despite Labour’s huge majority in the House.

In Germany, there is some pressure on the right for the CDU to dump its SPD coalition partner in favour of finding common ground with the populist-right AFD. But ‘Putin’ has become the number one political issue in federal Germany, and the AFD are – at least in Merz’s eyes – ‘pro-Putin’.

In principle, Merz could revive Germany’s economy – and enhance his own political fortune – by practicing Hitlernomics; reindustrialisation through a government-spending initiative to invest in rearmament. Whatever it takes. Hitler’s popularity in the 1930s increased because he got Germans working again. But Merz has agreed to buy Germany’s weapons from the United States, so that the arm-twisting United States can make more money and less war.

Most European countries are facing radical demographic change. To fight wars, they will need to exploit immigrant labour. Of course that happened in World War Two, too. One thing we hardly ever heard about, re WW2, was Germany’s reliance on and exploitation of ‘immigrant’ slave labour. Many of the victims of the Royal Air Force in wartime Germany were in fact slaves from the places the RAF was supposedly trying to save.

It all leaves the polities of the countries which make up the coalition morally, intellectually and financially bankrupt.

The Rise of the Conservative Left

The nuanced political chatter in Europe now is about the rise of the ‘conservative left’. And, indeed, it appears that the ‘populist right’ is moving leftwards on economic policy. In practice, that will mean a return to something like Keynesian economics. To a degree this is what is keeping Giorgia Meloni popular in Italy, while the handwringers and conservatives to her north are tanking in the polls.

In New Zealand, there is one authentic party of the conservative left; New Zealand First.

The three policy-axes which determine elections are: economic (progressive [left; fiscal pragmatism] versus neoliberal [right; fiscal conservatism]); cultural [multiculturalism versus dominant-culturalism]; and geopolitical [conciliation versus belligerence re foreign states].

In Europe and elsewhere, the Left (Die Linke in Germany) is ‘progressive’ on fiscal policy, ‘progressive’ on identity politics (including open to immigration), and pro-peace. The Right (AFD in Germany) is becoming ‘progressive’ on fiscal policy, is conservative on identity politics (including immigration), and pro-peace in Europe. Two-out-of-three (potential points of agreement) ain’t bad; especially as left-identity politics is slowly giving way to ‘bread-and-butter’ issues.

So the left-Left and the right-Left may be able to ally to form future coalitions which will oust the “Saatchi and Saatchi” (to quote the late Jim Anderton, as in ‘the difference between National and Labour is the same as the difference between Saatchi and Saatchi‘) centrist legacy parties of the hitherto mainstream political class. (We note that ‘coalitions of opposites’ are not unknown to history; for example, the alliance between the West and the Soviet Union in World War Two.)

The legacy parties, though divided on cultural/identity issues (as are the new parties), are firmly neoliberal (ie fiscally conservative, claiming the virtue of balanced budgets), supportive of Ukraine, and facilitating Israel’s genocidal erasure of Palestine’s indigenous population. The legacy parties can only survive if their opposition remains divided. With the rise of the conservative left – the right-Left – such division can no longer be guaranteed.

Prediction

My sense is that, on or before 2030, there is a one-in-five chance (20%) that there will be a nuclear exchange between the world’s ‘great powers’. That ‘Third World War’ will have been caused by the last-gasp resistance – on the part of the West – to the new reality of a multipolar world order. If such a ‘last gasp of the West’ exchange does take place, my prediction is that there is a 50% chance of a mass extinction event on a scale at least as great as that of 65 million years ago. That’s a 10% chance of a mass extinction event.

Nevertheless ‘nine-out-of-ten’ (or ‘four-out-of-five’) ain’t’ bad, meaning it’s more likely than not that the world does eventually settle down. I am predicting a 50% chance that the politics of Europe will decisively shift towards the ‘conservative left’ in this half-decade (or in the 2030s, towards the radical centre, parties like TOP in New Zealand); and that there will be enough common ground between the old-left and the growing conservative left to make it possible for the two-lefts to form coalitions against the withering centre; against the diminishing hurrah of today’s elite political class. Something like this did indeed happen in the 1930s; then the creation of a coalition against fascism pushed the old conservative politics to one side.

Summary

The world is facing a dangerous moment. Sanctimony and hypocrisy are not the answers. Fraternity, trustfulness, dialogue, neutrality, sympathy; they are the qualities we need to embrace and project.

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

A West Papuan advocacy group for self-determination for the colonised Melanesians has appealed to the United Kingdom government to cancel its planned reception for new Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto.

“Prabowo is a blood-stained war criminal who is complicit in genocide in East Timor and West Papua,” claimed an exiled leader of the United Liberation Movement for West Papua (ULMWP), Benny Wenda.

He said he hoped the government would stand up for human rights and a “habitable planet” by cancelling its reception for Prabowo.

Prabowo, who was inaugurated last month, is on a 12-day trip to China, the United States, Peru, Brazil, and the United Kingdom.

He is due in the UK on Monday, November 19.

The trip comes as Indonesian security forces brutally suppressed a protest against Indonesia’s new transmigration strategy in the Papuan region.

Wenda, an interim president of ULMWP, said Indonesia was sending thousands of industrial excavators to destroy 5 million hectares of Papuan forest along wiith thousands of troops to violently suppress any resistance.

“Prabowo has also restarted the transmigration settlement programme that has made us a minority in our own land. He wants to destroy West Papua,” the UK-based Wenda said in a statement.

‘Ghost of Suharto’ returns
“For West Papuans, the ghost of Suharto has returned — the New Order regime still exists, it has just changed its clothes.

“It is gravely disappointing that the UK government has signed a ‘critical minerals’ deal with Indonesia, which will likely cover West Papua’s nickel reserves in Tabi and Raja Ampat.

“The UK must understand that there can be no real ‘green deal’ with Indonesia while they are destroying the third largest rainforest on earth.”

Wenda said he was glad to see five members of the House of Lords — Lords Harries, Purvis, Gold, Lexden, and Baroness Bennett — hold the government to account on the issues of self-determination, ecocide, and a long-delayed UN fact-finding visit.

“We need this kind of scrutiny from our parliamentary supporters more than ever now,” he said.

Prabowo is due to visit Oxford Library as part of his diplomatic visit.

“Why Oxford? The answer is clearly because the peaceful Free West Papua Campaign is based here; because the Town Hall flies our national flag every December 1st; and because I have been given Freedom of the City, along with other independence leaders like Nelson Mandela,” Wenda said.

This visit was not an isolated incident, he said. A recent cultural promotion had been held in Oxford Town Centre, addressed by the Indonesian ambassador in an Oxford United scarf.

The people of West Papua have spoken.

Just today (15/11/24), rallies against Indonesia’s settler-colonial Transmigration plan were held in:

Jayapura, Nabire, Sorong, Manokwari, Yahukimo, Yalimo, Timika, Makassar. pic.twitter.com/u0ucw8RfUW

— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) November 15, 2024

Takeover of Oxford United
“There was the takeover of Oxford United by Anindya Bakrie, one of Indonesia’s richest men, and Erick Thohir, an Indonesian government minister.

“This is not about business — it is a targeted campaign to undermine West Papua’s international connections. The Indonesian Embassy has sponsored the Cowley Road Carnival and attempted to ban displays of the Morning Star, our national flag.

“They have called a bomb threat in on our office and lobbied to have my Freedom of the City award revoked. Indonesia is using every dirty trick they have in order to destroy my connection with this city.”

Wenda said Indonesia was a poor country, and he blamed the fact that West Papua was its poorest province on six decades of colonialism.

“There are giant slums in Jakarta, with homeless people sleeping under bridges. So why are they pouring money into Oxford, one of the wealthiest cities in Europe?” Wenda said.

“The UK has been my home ever since I escaped an Indonesian prison in the early 2000s. My family and I have been welcomed here, and it will continue to be our home until my country is free and we can return to West Papua.”

15/11/24 Jayapura, West Papua

Another angle showing that the rally against Transmigration was peaceful, but the police forcibly dispersed it.

This violates domestic and international laws. pic.twitter.com/Tm5f4d0VrU

— Veronica Koman 許愛茜 (@VeronicaKoman) November 15, 2024

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

Timing is everything. And from China’s perspective, this week’s visit by its foreign minister to New Zealand could be coming at just the right moment. The visit by Wang Yi to Wellington will be his first since 2017.

Anniversaries are important to Beijing. It is more than just a happy coincidence that the visit is taking place during the tenth anniversary year of the signing of a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between China and New Zealand.

That agreement, signed during a visit to Wellington by Xi Jinping in November 2014, marked the start of glory days for bilateral trade. New Zealand’s exports to China have roughly doubled in value since Xi’s visit. They now stand at nearly $NZ21 billion annually. Imports are not far behind, but there is still a trade surplus of some $NZ3 billion in New Zealand’s favour.

Indeed, China has been New Zealand’s biggest two-way trading partner since 2017. A consistent flow of agricultural exports to China – especially milk powder and meat – helped to keep New Zealand afloat during the Covid-19 pandemic while both countries’ borders were closed.

However, New Zealand’s exports to China fell last year for the first time (except for covid-affected 2020) since the 2014 pact was signed. Goods exports took a particular tumble, falling $NZ1.7 billion from 2022 levels in the year to December 2023. Only a post-pandemic recovery in services exports, driven by travel, was able to mask a greater fall. But it was not enough to prevent a $NZ500 million drop overall.

The removal of China’s last remaining tariffs on New Zealand dairy products at the start of 2024 may provide some hope for improvement this year.

But forecasts for China’s economy are mixed and a bumpy post-Covid 19 recovery seems likely. After an expansion of 5.2 per cent in 2023, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts China’s economy will grow by only 4.6 per cent this year and 4.1 per cent in 2025.

Given its food-focused exports, New Zealand is particularly vulnerable to sluggish Chinese economic growth. Tourism is also affected: visitor numbers from China for November 2023 were just 52 per cent of those seen during the same month four years earlier, before the pandemic.

A visit by Wang Yi cannot solve these wider macroeconomic problems. But it will put New Zealand’s crucial relationship with China in the spotlight.

There is every chance the trip could set the stage for an anniversary year visit to Wellington by Xi Jinping later in 2024.

However, whether this occurs will be highly dependent on New Zealand’s next steps in relation to Aukus.

It can be taken as read that Wang will have strong words for Winston Peters, his New Zealand counterpart, about Wellington’s apparent enthusiasm to entertain joining ‘Pillar II’ of the new pact.

The tea leaves are still being read after Labour lost power in the October 2023 election and a new three-way, centre-right coalition led by the National Party’s Christopher Luxon took office the following month.

A joint statement issued by Australia and New Zealand after the countries’ foreign and defence ministers met in Melbourne in early February claimed Aukus was making ‘a positive contribution toward maintaining peace, security and prosperity in the Indo-Pacific.’

Reaction from the Chinese Embassy in Wellington to the text was typically furious. In an apparent reference to another section of the joint statement which expressed ‘grave concerns about human rights violations in Xinjiang’, a spokesperson argued that ‘groundless accusations have been made on China’s internal affairs’.

Meanwhile, on Aukus, the Embassy asserted that the pact ran counter to ‘the common interests of regional countries pursuing peace, stability and common security’. The spokesperson asked ‘relevant countries’ to ‘cherish the hard-won environment for peace and stability in the Asia-Pacific region, and be prudent with their words and action to maintain peace, stability and development’.

An indirect, yet ultimately harder-hitting rebuke came from the Chinese Ambassador to New Zealand himself, Wang Xiaolong. Lamenting a lack of options after a last-minute cancellation of a flight to Auckland the day after the joint statement was issued, the Ambassador posted on X: ‘Stuck at Wellington airport clueless as to what to do due to the cancellation of my flight to Auckland and the lack of alternatives. Right now, I am really missing the high-speed trains back in China.’

The displeasure could not be clearer.

Earlier, New Zealand’s new government had sought to move swiftly on Aukus, particularly after Labour itself had laid the groundwork for the new Government by issuing a set of three hawkish defence blueprints just months before the election.

In December, Judith Collins, the defence minister, said that a failure to join Aukus in some form was ‘a real opportunity lost by the previous government’. Christopher Luxon then appeared to back her, telling media: ‘we’re interested in exploring Pillar II, particularly in Aukus, and the new technologies and the opportunities that may mean for New Zealand’. Meanwhile, Winston Peters called for greater NZ-US cooperation in the Pacific, saying ‘we will not achieve our shared ambitions if we allow time to drift’.

However, the Aukus tide may be turning.

Bonnie Jenkins, the US Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security, visited New Zealand in early March and told media: ‘we’re still in the process of having discussions about additional partners’, adding ‘that’s not where we’re at right now’.

Speech notes for an address to be given by Jenkins also seemed restrained.

The lack of a concrete Aukus membership offer is not a new argument. In May 2023, New Zealand’s then Labour Prime Minister Chris Hipkins called the idea of joining ‘purely hypothetical’.

However, gradual shifts in language since then – culminating with Luxon’s comments in December – had suggested that a more specific proposal was afoot.

A looming US election was also a logical reason for New Zealand to act on Aukus sooner rather than later.

But perhaps nothing had ever really changed. A new government in Wellington might have been getting ahead of itself.

Alternatively, it could be that a rethink is now going on in Canberra, London and Washington over the merits of asking Wellington – or others – to become involved with Aukus at all.

In New Zealand itself, opposition to the deal also appears to be increasing in intensity. Labour is appearing to back away from its ‘open to conversations’ approach to Aukus that was set by former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins during a visit by Anthony Blinken to New Zealand in July.

In February, Phil Twyford, the party’s associate foreign affairs spokesperson, described Aukus as an ‘offensive warfighting alliance against China’. And David Parker, Labour’s main spokesperson, said ‘we’re not convinced we should be positioning China as a foe’.

The same month, high-profile former Labour Prime Minister Helen Clark co-wrote an opinion piece in the New Zealand Herald newspaper with Don Brash, a former right-wing rival. The strongly-worded article called on Luxon to ‘reassert New Zealand’s independent foreign policy by making it clear that we want no part of Aukus’.

Finally, questions are being asked in Australia about the future of the original purpose of Aukus – to give Canberra nuclear-powered submarines – following a US decision to cut production of ‘Virginia’ class submarines in half from 2025.

Adding to the uncertainty is Donald Trump’s presumptive nominee status in the US presidential election campaign. A survey conducted in August 2023 found 37 per cent of Australians thought Canberra should pull out of the wider Anzus alliance if Trump wins in November. Meanwhile, Trump’s own stance on the Aukus deal remains unknown.

If all is not well with ‘Pillar I’ of Aukus, it is hard to see an expansion to ‘Pillar II’ in the short-term.

For China’s Wang Yi, the potential wavering over Aukus is an opportunity.

The clock is certainly ticking, but no final decisions have been made.

There is still time for Beijing to make its case to Wellington.

Geoffrey Miller is the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. He is currently working on a PhD at the University of Otago on New Zealand’s relations with the Gulf states.

This article can be republished for free under a Creative Commons copyright-free license. Attributions should include a link to the Democracy Project (https://democracyproject.nz)

New Zealand is reshaping its foreign policy via the Middle East. A decision to provide intelligence support for future US and UK airstrikes on Yemen is highly symbolic.

The Prime Minister, Christopher Luxon, announced the deployment of the New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) troops to support the US-led military response to the attacks on commercial shipping from Houthis in Yemen that began on November 19.

In announcing the contribution, Luxon played down its uniqueness, saying ‘choosing to support action in the Middle East is not unusual for New Zealand’. This was immediately echoed by his foreign minister, Winston Peters, who argued the ‘support for maritime security in the Middle East is not new’.

A ‘fact sheet’ released by the Government compared the NZDF contribution to other multilateral efforts in the Middle East such as the UN Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO) mission that has been ongoing since 1954.

The fact sheet also pointed to New Zealand’s role in the Bahrain-based Combined Maritime Forces (CMF), a mission for which Wellington has provided support in some form since 2008 and continuously since 2013.

The CMF brings together 40 countries in four separate Combined Task Forces (CTF). While all of these overlap to some extent, New Zealand has traditionally focused its contribution of up to 12 personnel on CTF 150, which concentrates more on criminal activities such as piracy, narcotics and smuggling.

To date, New Zealand has not been involved in CTF 153, ‘Red Sea Maritime Security’, a relatively new mission that was established in April 2022. CTF 153 is now serving as the umbrella for ‘Operation Prosperity Guardian’, a new naval patrol mission involving over 20 countries announced in December by US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.

New Zealand’s announcement made no mention of Operation Prosperity Guardian.

Instead, the NZDF contribution appears to be for the much smaller and far more elite coalition that is backing joint US-UK airstrikes on Yemen.

US Central Command (Centcom) listed Australia, Bahrain, Canada and the Netherlands as support partners for a second round of joint US-UK airstrikes conducted earlier this week.

They are the same countries that participated in the first wave of joint airstrikes, against 60 Houthi targets, on January 11.

New Zealand signed a joint statement in support of that operation, but was not otherwise involved in it.

Following Tuesday’s announcement, New Zealand can now expect to be included on the list of supporting countries for future airstrikes. So far, the aim of these has been to destroy Houthi infrastructure such as missile systems, radar units and other military facilities.

In between the joint missions, the US has also conducted smaller airstrikes against Houthi infrastructure on its own, according to Centcom.

The bombings constitute the sharper, more hawkish end of Washington’s military response to the Houthis.

Luxon suggested on Tuesday that New Zealand’s contribution would be intelligence-related and would support ‘precision targeting’ in any future airstrikes.

To some extent this will be driven simply by New Zealand’s limited capabilities, given that Wellington disbanded the combat wing of its airforce in 2001.

Still, while New Zealand’s efforts will be small and almost certainly desk-bound, they are in a very different league to New Zealand’s long-running peacekeeping efforts in Egypt and Lebanon, or even the largely deterrence-driven naval mission based out of Bahrain.

Put simply, New Zealand will be one of just a handful of countries that are bombing Yemen.

As Richard Harman points out, many countries willing to participate in Operation Prosperity Guardian, such as Singapore, are staying well away from involvement in the airstrikes.

The military involvement represents a huge shift for New Zealand’s independent foreign policy – and is uncharted territory when it comes to the Middle East.

Unlike Australia, New Zealand strongly opposed the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Wellington did deploy troops to the anti-ISIS coalition in February 2015 – with then Prime Minister John Key shouting at opponents in Parliament to ‘get some guts and join the right side’.

But that operation was at the invitation of the Iraqi government – and New Zealand was joining a broad-based international coalition that brought together dozens of countries from the outset.

On Tuesday, Winston Peters forcefully rejected any connection between New Zealand’s new military contribution and the war in Gaza, saying ‘any suggestion our ongoing support for maritime security in the Middle East is connected to recent developments in Israel and the Gaza Strip, is wrong’.

However, the Houthis have clearly linked their attacks with the war in Gaza and have pledged to continue for as long as the war goes on.

There is little doubt that the war between Hamas and Israel is exacerbating conflict throughout the Middle East – with outbreaks of tit-for-tat attacks happening everywhere from Lebanon to Pakistan.

On the Arab street, there has been an outpouring of sympathy and solidarity for the Palestinian cause – matched in equal measure by anger towards Israel.

While the airstrikes on Yemen may help international shipping in the very short term, they will also galvanise support for the Houthis.

Ultimately, the root causes of the instability will need to be addressed if there is to be any sustainable solution.

This includes Yemen’s own disastrous humanitarian situation, following years of civil war, but also the war in Gaza and the lack of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Shortly before the New Zealand military contribution to the Yemen airstrikes was announced, Peters posted on X that ‘New Zealand is deeply concerned at recent comments by members of the Israeli Government that fuel tensions & imperil the two state solution. New Zealand has always supported a two state solution – and has consistently engaged w/Israel & the Palestinians on that basis’.

https://twitter.com/NewZealandMFA/status/1749538284873912591

Peters’ diagnosis of the need for a long-term, two-state political solution is not wrong – and New Zealand’s good reputation in the Middle East and its traditionally independent stance still puts Wellington in a good position to play a small, yet very useful diplomatic role.

But as New Zealand backs the airstrikes against the Houthis, the window of opportunity to take the dialogue and de-escalation pathway may be gradually closing.

It is hard to overstate the significance of New Zealand’s new military deployment to the Middle East.

The troop numbers are small – but the potential ramifications are enormous.

Wellington is drawing a line in the sand.

And it could be the beginning of the end for New Zealand’s independent foreign policy.

Geoffrey Miller is the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. He is currently working on a PhD at the University of Otago on New Zealand’s relations with the Gulf states.

In this the twelfth episode of A View from Afar for 2023 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning note and discuss some of the big world events that have occurred and are occurring in 2023.

And in particular, Paul and Selwyn discuss the rise of the Global South; evaluate the the wars that continue to rage in Ukraine and Gaza; and tensions in the South China Sea.

Plus they note, with particular reference the trends that will become prominent in 2024, including the decline of Western democracies and a rightward turn in many places (including in Argentina and New Zealand in their respective 2023 elections).

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:

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New Zealand’s international relations are under new management. And Winston Peters, the new foreign minister, is already setting a change agenda.

As expected, this includes a more pro-US positioning when it comes to the Pacific – where Peters will be picking up where he left off. Peters sought to align New Zealand more closely with the United States under his ‘Pacific Reset’ policy that he launched while serving as foreign minister under Jacinda Ardern’s Labour-New Zealand First coalition government from 2017-2020.

Peters is wasting no time in getting back on the foreign affairs horse.

Just three days after being sworn in as a minster, he gave his first speech on foreign policy at the US Business Summit in Auckland last week.

Peters was lavish in his praise for the US in his address, arguing that Washington had been ‘instrumental in the Pacific’s success’. But he noted that ‘there is more to do and not a moment to lose. We will not achieve our shared ambitions if we allow time to drift.’ Adding that ‘speed and intensity’ would be needed, Peters said ‘the good news is that New Zealand stands ready to play its part.’

The early timing of the speech itself is a sign that New Zealand’s new, yet very familiar foreign affairs minister is unlikely to wait around when it comes to taking major decisions.

It was an important, agenda-setting address.

There were strong hints that New Zealand’s new Government wants to move swiftly when it comes to Wellington’s potential involvement in in ‘Pillar II’ of the AUKUS defence pact that currently involves Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

Peters’ disclosed in the Q&A to the speech that he had already talked to Judith Collins, the new defence minister, about New Zealand’s AUKUS stance.

The previous Labour government’s position was that AUKUS remained a hypothetical question while no formal offer existed for New Zealand to join ‘Pillar II’ of the high-level defence pact that currently involves Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States.

But while playing for time in an election year, the then Prime Minister Chris Hipkins signalled in July that New Zealand was at least ‘open to conversations’ about joining the pact in some form. And Labour’s expedited release of three major defence strategy documents in August, just prior to the election campaign, laid the groundwork for at least formal consideration of involvement in AUKUS.

The reports also paved the way for New Zealand to spend vastly more on its military and to take a more security-focused approach to the Pacific – recommendations that Peters will probably be keen to implement.

Wellington and Washington have been becoming closer since at least November 2010, when US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton visited New Zealand’s capital to sign the ‘Wellington Declaration’. The relatively short agreement served to clear the air after decades of chequered bilateral relations stemming from the Fourth Labour Government’s introduction of a nuclear-free policy in the 1980s.

Going nuclear-free (which prevented visits from US warships) saw New Zealand cast out as a US ally. Washington formally suspended its obligations to Wellington under the ANZUS defence treaty in 1986. But nearly 40 years on, US-NZ relations are rapidly deepening, a trend that has been accelerated by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and Western concerns over China’s rise in the Indo-Pacific.

Since February 2022, New Zealand has imposed sanctions on Russia, joined US-led groupings such as Partners in the Blue Pacific (PBP) and the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF) and sent its Prime Ministers to successive NATO summits. And in May 2022, Jacinda Ardern visited Joe Biden at the White House, where a 3000-word joint statement called for ‘new resolve and closer cooperation’.

Meanwhile, a string of senior US officials have visited New Zealand just this year, including Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Kritenbrink and the White House’s Indo-Pacific coordinator, Kurt Campbell (who Joe Biden recently nominated to become his new Deputy Secretary of State).

If New Zealand does join AUKUS, it could spell the effective end of the country’s ‘independent foreign policy’. The ANZUS break-up of the late 1980s, the end of the Cold War and the acceleration of globalisation had allowed New Zealand to free itself from blocs. Wellington talked to anyone and everyone, building solid, trade-focused relations with China and others in the Global South – while not neglecting Western partners, including the United States.

Peters may think the current geopolitical environment justifies a new approach.

If he does, he should prepare for significant pushback. Helen Clark, who was Prime Minister during Winston Peters’ first term as foreign minister from 2005-8, posted on Friday that New Zealand was now ‘veering towards signing up’ to AUKUS despite bipartisan support over decades for the independent foreign policy stance.

This added to criticism from Clark earlier in the year, including in August, when she argued the new defence blueprint showed New Zealand was ‘abandoning its capacity to think for itself & instead is cutting & pasting from 5 Eyes’ partners’.

It should also be remembered that Winston Peters, while undoubtedly powerful and highly experienced, is only one Government minister. The views of Judith Collins – the defence minister – remain unknown in any detail, while the foreign policy positions of Christopher Luxon seem more centrist than radical.

Moreover, with the US now firmly focused on the war between Hamas and Israel – and its own presidential election year fast approaching – it is far from guaranteed that the hypothetical AUKUS question will turn into a concrete one for New Zealand anytime soon.

Moreover, Peters’ initial ministerial comments on New Zealand’s own position towards the Middle East suggest there is plenty of room for nuance. Calling the death toll in Gaza ‘horrific’, Peters welcomed a short-lived extension to the ceasefire on Friday, but called for all parties to ‘work urgently towards a long-term ceasefire’.

And in a radio interview earlier last week, Peters said ‘the ceasefire is not good enough, we’re going to have find a way forward through this and a peaceful solution – that’s what New Zealand and the Western world has got to put its focus on’.  Peters added ‘internationally we need to be talking to people across the political divide who are making sense on this matter’.

Talking to all sides and playing a small role in facilitating a sustainable political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would very much be in keeping with New Zealand’s independent foreign policy approach – and Winston Peters is already speaking out strongly about the war.

With Christopher Luxon passing up on the opportunity to attend COP28 in Dubai at the weekend, Winston Peters will have the chance to make the Government’s first ministerial trip to the Middle East to begin this dialogue. The Gulf states would be a natural starting point for these discussions.

Meanwhile, on Ukraine – the war that helped to speed up New Zealand’s alignment with the US in 2022 – Peters was open to the idea of New Zealand upgrading its military support to Ukraine by sending Kyiv light armoured vehicles (LAVs). While noting that the decision was not up to him alone, he added ‘if we can help we should be doing the best we can’.

Labour had denied a request from Ukraine to provide the LAVs in 2022 and of late had preferred to make financial contributions to Kyiv’s war effort – the most recent being a $NZ4.7 million package announced by Chris Hipkins in July at the NATO leaders’ summit in Lithuania.

It all adds up to a complex picture.

Winston Peters has no shortage of global issues to address.

And there could be some major changes ahead for New Zealand foreign policy.

*******

Geoffrey Miller is the Democracy Project’s geopolitical analyst and writes on current New Zealand foreign policy and related geopolitical issues. He has lived in Germany and the Middle East and is a learner of Arabic and Russian. He is currently working on a PhD at the University of Otago on New Zealand’s relations with the Gulf states.

Last week (The Ponzi financial model and New Zealand’s monetary policy) I described New Zealand’s place and financial strategy within the world’s financial ecosystem; how New Zealand pursues a ponzi financial model, and how that model has played a role in offsetting the ‘mercantilist’ financial strategies of other countries (examples given were Denmark and Netherlands). (See New Zealand chart, noting the persistent inflow of foreign money.) In this kiwi case, New Zealand takes the role of ‘player’, with Denmark and Netherlands taking the ‘investor’ role.

The net effect of this monetary strategy has been East Asia (especially from 1993 to 2009, see Malaysia example) and  Northern Europe (especially this century, see Netherlands example) supplying foreign aid to New Zealand, with the beneficiaries of that ‘aid’ being New Zealand elite consumers. There has been a substantial domestic cost to New Zealand arising from the strategy; a cost which has manifested as substantial entrenched inequality and poverty.

Of course, New Zealand has not been not the only recipient of such unconditional ponzi-style ‘aid’. Other recipients have included Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States. (We may note that Australia is moving away from the ponzi model, though indications are that Canada has adopted it post-2008.) While the United Kingdom and especially the United States have been exceptional cases in other respects, they have both played key roles in balancing the world system. (The United Kingdom is exceptional because it has a financial realm which extends very much beyond its formal borders. These are essentially offshore tax havens. The financial fingerprints of Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands and Gibraltar almost certainly look more like that of Switzerland than that of the United Kingdom. For the United Kingdom, financial statistics must be treated as incomplete. See my Interesting Financial Fingerprints: Malaysia, Switzerland, United Kingdom, Israel, Evening Report, 30 October 2023.)

Japan

It’s time to see the role of the US, but before that to look at Japan as the truly exceptional country that shows the rest of the world how it could have been managing its public finances.

Japan Incorporated experienced a ‘balance-sheet recession’ through the 1990s, following a few years in the late 1980s and early 1990s of extraordinary exception; a short period of financial speculation run riot – fuelled by a significantly overvalued yen – and in which the lands of the imperial palace in Tokyo were said to be worth more than California.

Japan developed a way of dealing with its first-world financial problems by creating a new financial model, although it must be said that the United States has long deployed aspects of this pro-deficit approach. This new model, which consolidated in Japan as ‘Abenomics’, suits both these countries (the two largest liberal economies in the world), both of whose citizens strongly resist increases in taxation. Abenomics is characterised by what we in the west would call persistently easy monetary and fiscal policy. Japan’s interest rates have been below 1% since 1996. For half the time this century Japan’s interest rate has been zero, and since 2016 Japan’s interest rate has been negative. Japan’s interest rate is still negative. The last time Japan faced a significant financial crisis was 1998, thanks to its position in Asia; Japan weathered the 2008 global financial crisis very well.

Looking at the Japan chart, the dominant feature since 1993 has been the huge private savings being channelled directly into government spending, with the full participation of Japan’s citizens and businesses. Whereas New Zealand actively participates in a globally-oriented ponzi financial model by setting interest rates always high enough to draw in foreign savings, Japan operates a sophisticated and benevolent domestic ponzi model.

In Japan the ‘player’ is the government and the ‘investors’ are the citizens and businesses. Rather than be taxed more by the government, Japanese agree to lend large portions of their unspent incomes to the government, and with wholesale interest rates at zero percent, or less! This is truly astonishing in terms of the usual rhetoric of finance that western populations are subjected to.

It works of course because the Japanese people prefer to lend to their government instead of having that income taxed. It’s win-win. The government gets to spend the money on all sorts of public good systems and projects – as well as on World Cups and Olympic Games – while the money remains available for savers to spend should they experience ‘rainy days’ or should they want to travel or buy a car or buy a house. (It works like a cheque account; while borrowers spend the money, it remains fully available for the account holders to also spend it.)

The downside for Japan is that its cheapness (low cost of living, not low quality of goods) makes foreign travel – and imports – expensive. And then there’s having to put up with the tut-tutting from the west about Japan’s huge government debt. Nevertheless, everybody in the world who can be bothered to observe what financial success looks like understands that Japan’s government can service its debts to its own people. Japan’s government is as far from being bankrupt as any government can be. (In New Zealand’s final political debate before the 14 October election, Prime Minister Hipkins acknowledged Japan’s success by claiming that New Zealand’s economic growth was second only to Japan. Hipkins was not in fact correct; USA had higher growth in mid-2023 than either New Zealand or Japan.)

Japan’s government debt is stabilising at below 300% of GDP. It means that the Japanese government can run substantial budget deficits indefinitely. We should note that, in the 2020s, Japan’s interest rate has remained negative, and that inflation, which maximised in January 2023 at 4.3%, is now 3.0%. Japan’s very cheapness means that it cannot but help running balance of trade surpluses on an ongoing basis. Meaning that Japan becomes an ‘investor’ in New Zealand’s version of the ponzi game.

United States – USA

The final country to mention is United States, which plays both kinds of ponzi game; the New Zealand global version (USA Inc. is the player) and the Japan domestic version (US Treasury is the player). It has to. The United States financial model stabilises a world system destabilised by mercantilist ‘anti-players’ such as the European Union.

It’s just a huge pity that United States government spending is so focussed on war rather than peace. Indeed, the twentieth century wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were entirely funded from foreign savings being channelled into the United States Treasury. It is truly remarkable that the United States has been able to cut taxes while escalating foreign wars.

The United States’ ponzi economy acts as the world’s consumer of last resort; a situation necessitated by the extensive mercantilism elsewhere (especially the European Union), and by virtue of the $US being the world’s reserve currency. And the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan can be understood as ‘last resort consumption’. (We note that military consumption is easily the ‘least-green’ of all kinds of consumption. Fortunately, Japan has been constrained – by others and by itself – from indulging in military consumption. And we may note that in the early 2010s China shared the role, with the United States, of ‘consumer of last resort’. The least green type of production is probably mining; including the mining of crypto-currencies such as Bitcoin.)

The global economy’s woes have been compounded by an aggressive and totally misplaced United States monetary policy; a policy that has sought to induce a global recession by forcing other countries into believing that they also had to raise interest rates aggressively to ‘deal to’ a global ‘cost of living’ problem; a problem that transparently began with the Covid19 pandemic (especially the political ‘mission creep’ which generated a degree of economic paralysis in the world) and came to a head with the US-perpetuated Russia-Ukraine military stalemate. The trifecta of costs was completed by the raising of interest rates in most of the world. The cost-trifecta – the source of the coming stagflation crisis – has been pandemic-related paralysis in 2021 and 2022, war in 2022 and ongoing, and the US-led assault on interest rates from late 2021.

As the global system plays out at present, the United States is trapped in its role as ponzi-player-in-chief. The world will be a better place when the United States plays ponzi in a responsible way, as Japan does. Even better, the United States could be facilitating the intellectual leadership required to lead the world away from mercantilist growth economics. The mercantilist countries prioritise economic growth, and achieving that growth through export surpluses; hence the need for a consumer of last resort. It’s a global economic model that has become completely unsustainable; and which finances the cruel wars which the United States subscribes to.

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Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

On 26 October I wrote about New Zealand’s exceptional financial model, showing it to take a similar (though non-fraudulent) form to a Ponzi Scheme (The Ponzi financial model and New Zealand’s monetary policy). And I showed how this kind of financial behaviour by a nation-state could help to stabilise a world economy when some other national economies pursued a strongly contrasting model. I call the two models the ‘ponzi model’ (with New Zealand as exemplar) and the ‘mercantilist model’ (with Denmark and Netherlands as twenty-first century exemplars).

Malaysia, here, is a country which switched from the excesses of one model to the excesses of the other, before reaching a  neutral position after the 2012 Eurozone crisis.

In the Malaysia chart, we see Malaysia adopting the ponzi model around 1990. The telltale signature is the persistent amounts of foreign money (green) going into Malaysia’s private sector (blue), with the government creaming the resulting money-go-round, running fiscal surpluses (red).

Malaysia was one of the countries which precipitated the Asian financial crisis late in 1997. Having to pay back much of the debt incurred in the 1990 to 1997 ponzi period, we see a massive switch to private sector saving paying back much of the foreign debt incurred and then saving by accruing foreign credits.

For 14 years, Malaysia kept up an extreme form of the mercantilist model, which has foreign deficits as its main feature (which means current account surpluses). This 1998 to 2011 signature is one of high saving (blue), exports exceeding imports (green), and the export of material living standards (green) to countries like New Zealand. Fiscal policy (indicated by red) followed closely to global norms; annual government deficits of about 4% of GDP.

This pattern continued in Malaysia until 2012 when mercantilism became the collective financial policy of the Eurozone countries. After 2012 the East Asian trade surpluses got smaller, as these countries increasingly looked to domestic markets to keep their economies growing. (The last three years, of course, is the Covid19 pandemic, a period of increased government deficits.)

(Malaysia, by the way, has an interest rate of 3%, and which has not gone above 3.25% in the last 10 years. Its inflation peaked at four percent in 2022, and is now 1.9%. Its government debt is 60% of GDP, nearly twice as high as New Zealand’s. Its neutral post-2012 financial model is delivering for Malaysia.)

Switzerland is exceptional in that it is the world financial centre, par excellence, and is the headquarter country of global corporates and world governance agencies (including much of the United Nations).

Thus, Switzerland makes large global profits which are deployed all over the world, hence the persistently strong savings (blue) and foreign deployment  of those savings (green). While it has the look of a mercantilist country (like Netherlands), its special circumstances with respect to the global economy mean that this is by circumstance rather than by design.

Fiscal policy is passive in Switzerland. It does not make any fetish about the desirability of governments running financial surpluses. It’s government debt, much greater than New Zealand’s in dollar terms, is 41% of GDP, compared to New Zealand’s 36%.

Switzerland’s interest rate has been minus 0.75% for most of the last ten years. For half of that time, its inflation rate has also been negative. For much of the time its interest rate was similar to its inflation rate; in the late-2010s its inflation rate was positive, though under one percent. Its current interest rate is 1.75% and its inflation rate is 1.7%. The main reason for its low inflation has been its low interest rate. Unlike New Zealand, Switzerland has not created a domestic cost of living crisis, because it did not raise its domestic interest rates.

The United Kingdom shows aspects of New Zealand’s ponzi model; in particular it is a recipient and spender or foreign savings, especially this century. However, United Kingdom no longer pretends that fiscal (government) surpluses are necessary. Although David Cameron’s government (2010-2017) did misguidedly try for a large dose of government austerity, known there as ‘fiscal consolidation’. The United Kingdom is also notable in that it does not accrue large private debts in the way New Zealand does.

The United Kingdom is exceptional in that not all that country’s economy is covered by its national statistics. The United Kingdom economy includes a range of realm countries – such as Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Cayman Islands, Gibraltar – some of which are tax havens with economies with which contain a disproportionate part of the United Kingdom’s financial activity. So the United Kingdom’s chart is in fact incomplete; invisibly offset by these other countries which do not keep comprehensive statistics, and which most likely all have financial balances like Switzerland.

The United Kingdom has interest rates and inflation rates similar to New Zealand. Its current interest rate is now 5.25% and inflation rate is 6.7%. As with New Zealand, it has a hawkish monetary policy (anti-inflationary in dogma if not in reality); an excessive readiness to raise interest rates (with, as in New Zealand, unstated additional motives for this policy) created and perpetuated its cost-of-living crisis.

Finally, Israel is a mercantilist nation with a mercantilist mindset. It’s a financially conservative country, with private sector surpluses and savings deployed to other parts of the world. But you will see that it has substantial government deficits. In this respect it is like the United States, and of course (like the USA) the red in Israel’s chart shouts ‘defence’, or at least a very well-funded military sector. While Israel is a net exporter – hence the green on the lower portion of its chart – it is of course a recipient of foreign aid in the form of grants (mainly from the United States) rather than loans.

Israel’s inflation peaked at just over five percent and the interest rate is now 3.8%. From 2014 to 2021 Israel’s inflation varied between minus 1.5% and plus 1.5%. In that time interest rates were between 0.1% and 0.2%. Israel did not have an inflation problem, despite its high levels of government spending. Its government debt is 61% of GDP, twice New Zealand’s. (Government spending, per se, is not the cause of cost-of-living crises; although government spending without outcomes can be a contributing factor to inflation.)

Nobody would accuse Israel of unsound finance. But it does have very different monetary and fiscal policy agendas than New Zealand. And Israel is closer to the world’s norms than is New Zealand. For Israel’s first-class citizens – the majority of the population in its less-disputed territories, along with a minority of the population of occupied Palestine – there is markedly less inequality.

*******

Keith Rankin (keith at rankin dot nz), trained as an economic historian, is a retired lecturer in Economics and Statistics. He lives in Auckland, New Zealand.

Fiji independence day celebrations — “Fiji Day” — this week was a jovial occasion with thousands of flag waving citizens accompanying the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Band as they marched through the streets Suva towards Albert Park for a flag raising ceremony.

October 10 marked the republic’s 53rd year since it gained independence from the United Kingdom in 1970.

Fiji’s chiefs volunteered to cede their sovereignty to the British realm in 1874, gathering in Levuka — Fiji’s old capital — to sign a Deed of Cession. There was a re-enactment of that historic moment with young Fijians dressed in 18th century outfits of British diplomats and Fijian and Tongan chiefs who signed the deed.

“We must remember with gratitude all of those [who] contributed to the development and modernisation of our beloved Fiji,” Fiji President Ratu Wiliame Katonivere said in a televised state address.

“Among the many important decisions taken by our forefathers embracing Christianity was and will continue to be our guiding light, we have continued to embrace and respect our multiculturalism and our diverse cultures and religions, our differences make us unique as one people,” he added.

In Albert park, a military parade took place with formations of decorated officers marching around the park to the tune of the Republic of Fiji Military Forces Band.

Fiji’s elite were in attendance from the park stands led by Prime Minister Sitiveni Rabuka. A gun salute from three Howitzers artillery guns topped off the occasions soon after crowds stood attention to the Fijian anthem.

‘Uncertain times’
Ratu Wiliame outlined some of the challenges faced by the country — re-iterating the same concerns raised by Rabuka at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York last month.

“We are living in uncertain times,” Ratu Wiliame said.

“Climate change has resulted in frequent tropical cyclones, longer dry spells, floodings and sea level rise for us in the Pacific — it has displaced communities resulting in relocations and loss of culture.

“Like the rest of the world, we cannot turn a blind eye to the current war of aggression in the Ukraine, our nation like other nations in the world are facing supply change disruptions and threats to food security being heavily reliant on food imports.”

The anniversary is the country’s first under the leadership of Prime Minister Rabuka who was elected in the general elections last year, ousting the 16 year long reign of his predecessor Voreqe Bainimarama, regarded by his opposition as a democratically elected dictator, who imposed autocratic policies restricting freedom of the press and for oppressing political opponents from scrutinising his FijiFirst government.

For many Fijians and pro-democracy advocates in the country, the 2022 general election symbolised a return to democracy, following a peaceful election. Fiji has a history of political turmoil, having experienced four coups in the space of four decades.

Rabuka himself led the first coup in 1987 — a notorious event which saw racially motivated attacks and rioting against Fijians of Indian heritage. In May this year, he offered a public apology to the victims in a special ceremony.

‘Peace a cornerstone’
“In our multicultural society, peace serves as the cornerstone that nurtures unity and drives progress,” Rabuka said.

“Together, as one united people, we will continue to build a Fiji that thrives economically and stands as a shining example of unity in diversity.”

President Ratu Katonivere called on Fijians to “focus on the future”.

“We have had our share of pain and heartaches, we have paid highly for some decisions and actions that were taken in the past,” he said.

“We must continue to remind ourselves that lessons we have learnt from the past so that we can build a better future for the next generation.

“We must embrace our strengths and achievements, and be forward looking.

“As we reflect on our history, I urge all Fijians to celebrate the triumphs we have achieved and focus on the future.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.

Article by AsiaPacificReport.nz

In this the eighth episode of A View from Afar for 2023, political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and Selwyn Manning examine the risks of a 21st century nuclear war.

The movie Oppenheimer has renewed interest in the dawn of the nuclear era. Almost 80 years later, are we safer from nuclear war than we were in the years immediately after 1945?

The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved its Doomsday Clock hand to 90 seconds before midnight, the highest threat level since the Cuban Missile Crisis.What does that say about contemporary international security affairs?

No new nuclear arms limitation agreements have been signed in over a decade, several have lapsed and most nuclear armed countries are not signatories to them anyway.

Countries like China are rapidly expanding their arsenals and others like North Korea and Iran are seeking to join the nuclear armed club.

Has nuclear arms control failed?

What is the future of the Non-Proliferation Treaty?

Although conventions against the use of chemical and biological weapons are widely recognised, violations of the prohibitions have occurred regularly, most recently in Syria. Weapons like white phosphorus and cluster munitions continue to be used by many states.

The Questions include:

• Has non-nuclear arms control failed as well?

• Russia’s Putin Regime has threatened to use nuclear weapons against Ukraine and NATO. Is the nuclear genie about to come out of the bottle, even in a tactical use?

• Are we seeing the return of weapons of mass destruction (WMD)?

• Are we on the brink of Oppenheimer’s nightmare: nuclear Armageddon?

• And importantly, what are the solutions to this most serious and dangerous threat?

INTERACTION:

Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

To interact during the live recording of this podcast, go to Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/

Remember to subscribe to the channel.

For the on-demand audience, you can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/
• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.

You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

Paul and Selwyn will deep dive into the battle to control a narrative, waged by all sides in a polarised combative world, and how modern mainstream media institutions, like Radio New Zealand, fall vulnerable in the absence of robust all-sides-considered analysis and debate.

In this episode, Paul and Selwyn will analyse how fourth Estate bias, propaganda, and conflict-force fact-vacuums are the challenge of our times in this disinformation age.

Upon this context, Paul and Selwyn will consider:

* Why Is the Radio New Zealand sub-editor pro-RU-content debacle symptomatic of a fact-vacuum environment?

* Why is all media vulnerable to disinformation in the absence of robust NATO-Ukraine-Russia analysis?

* What are the unspoken of ‘big picture’ shifts in Russian Federation / Global South relations?

LINKS and REFERENCES:

• https://KiwiPolitico.com
• https://www.dekoder.org/de/person/ekaterina-schulmann-0
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/media/180
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/programmes/news-extras/story/2018893905/rnz-editorial-audit
• https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/top/491788/nz-entering-ukraine-conflict-at-whim-of-govt-former-labour-general-secretary
• https://meduza.io/en/feature/2023/02/25/russia-ends-nowhere-they-say
• https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/why-russian-elites-think-putins-war-is-doomed-to-fail

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE:

Paul and Selwyn encourage their live audience to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

To interact during the live recording of this podcast, go to Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/

Remember to subscribe to the channel.

For the on-demand audience, you can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Youtube.com/c/EveningReport/
• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

RECOGNITION: The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication. Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category.

You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

In this the first episode of A View from Afar for 2023 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning examine the pros and cons of New Zealand, and other APAC nations, joining the AUKUS security defence pact.

Specifically, Paul and Selwyn examine the following questions:

* What is AUKUS’s purpose?

* What are the risks to New Zealand’s national and public interest?

* What does AUKUS ‘success’ look like? What could its failure look like?

Paul presents the reasons why he believes New Zealand will not join AUKUS, and Selwyn delivers his assessment of why New Zealand must not join the Anglophile security pact.

ALSO, Paul and Selwyn will headline:

* The latest on the US Pentagon leaks. What really is happening here?

* The Global Geopolitical Theatre and how stable is Russian Federation’s president, Vladimir Putin’s regime?

INTERACTION: Paul and Selwyn invite and encourage you to interact with your questions and comments.

They recommend you do so via EveningReport’s YouTube channel, or via Facebook. Here’s the link: Youtube (remember to subscribe to the channel).

You can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

You can see this episode as video-on-demand, and engage with earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

RECOGNITION:

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.

LIVE@MIDDAY NZ Time – 8pm US EDT – In this the first episode of A View from Afar for 2023 political scientist Dr Paul Buchanan and host Selwyn Manning will examine the pros and cons of New Zealand, and other APAC nations, joining the AUKUS security defence pact.

Specifically, Paul and Selwyn will examine the following questions:

* What is AUKUS’s purpose?

* What are the risks to New Zealand’s national and public interest?

* What does AUKUS ‘success’ look like? What could its failure look like?

ALSO, Paul and Selwyn will headline:

* The latest on the US Pentagon leaks. What really is happening here?

* The Global Geopolitical Theatre and how stable is Russian Federation’s president, Vladimir Putin’s regime?

INTERACTION WHILE LIVE: Paul and Selwyn invite and encourage you to interact while they are live with questions and comments.

They recommend you do so via EveningReport’s YouTube channel, as Facebook is undergoing significant changes. Here’s the link: Youtube (remember to subscribe to the channel).

You can also keep the conversation going on this debate by clicking on one of the social media channels below:

• Facebook.com/selwyn.manning
• Youtube
• Twitter.com/Selwyn_Manning

If you miss the LIVE Episode, you can see it as video-on-demand, and earlier episodes too, by checking out EveningReport.nz or, subscribe to the Evening Report podcast here.

RECOGNITION:

The MIL Network’s podcast A View from Afar was Nominated as a Top  Defence Security Podcast by Threat.Technology – a London-based cyber security news publication.

Threat.Technology placed A View from Afar at 9th in its 20 Best Defence Security Podcasts of 2021 category. You can follow A View from Afar via our affiliate syndicators.