Table of Contents
One of the forgotten wars in history is the Spanish Civil War. It occurred in the mid to late 1930s, and was to some extent the Vietnam of its day; then immediately got overshadowed by World War II and more or less forgotten, as nobody could quite recall what it was all about. In New Zealand, there was a surprising level of discussion about the Spanish Civil War in 1936/37: check the newspaper archives.
One of the main difficulties appears to be that many folk were unable to decide who were the “goodies” and who were the “baddies”: the war occurring between two extremes – communists and fascists. Eventually, the fascists won, and General Franco took over Spain and governed it until his death in 1975, instituting policies including fanatical anti-communism, family values, and (eventually) a market economy. The way I would look at this – or any similar dilemma – is simple: communism is always wrong, so support the other fellow.
When the Clark government negotiated the free trade agreement with communist China, their spiritual home and paymasters, many decent people (ahem) were appalled and uneasy about doing business with a thoroughly rotten, evil regime. Things went from bad to even worse when China emerged as our biggest trading partner. The foolishness of such a situation is a major cause of the economic problems we are facing today but, as usual, nobody listened at the time.
Therefore I am enthusiastic about the National Party and Chris Luxon’s desire for a free trade agreement with India. Contrary to what the ignorant try to imply, there is nothing to stop anybody from exporting to India today; you don’t require an actual trade agreement. This rather rebuts the bizarre contentions put forward by Chris Hipkins during the election campaign: par for the course from somebody who has never had a real job.
My point is simple: India is non-communist, is rapidly growing, and is a land of opportunity for New Zealand and its export sector.
There are also longstanding ties between the two countries, with many Indians living here. This is in contrast to doing business with China which is a force for bad in the world and no friend of New Zealand. There are other nations not too far away we would be well advised to focus upon rather than China: the Philippines, for example – large market, strong friendship, non-communist, and lots of folk living here: not a force for bad.
What has hamstrung New Zealand is the lack of imagination of people like Damian O’Connor. Putting the local village idiot in charge of trade reveals the absence of talent within the post-Mike Moore Labour Party. Also, government departments like MFAT, if not actually being paid backhanders by communist China, are full of stupid people who have been seduced by the communists and will happily sell their own country down the river as a result.
Mr Luxon should indeed pursue his policies and with any luck we will find our exports to the non-communist nations growing exponentially. Not being reliant on an evil nation, who (let’s be honest here folks) views us as little more than a prostitute – happy to agree to anything they want to make them happy so long as we’re thrown a few quid – is a good thing.
Having proper trade relationships with people who respect us and who don’t want to enslave us can only be of great benefit to us. In due course, we should simply end trading with China altogether because the communists are always wrong.
