We are fortunate to have such a topical speaker with the subject of China and its influence hitting the news media this week.
Born in Balclutha and raised in Blenheim, Jason became interested in China and lived in Taiwan for several years. He has seen first-hand the changes in the way that China is presenting itself to the world.
His overriding sentiment is that we are not ready for China and it’s influence on world geopolitical events.
He sees two levels of activity:
1/ State Building – Hong Kong, Taiwan, South China seas – pushing to ensure it shores up its boundaries or claims for territorial advantage.
2/ International – China sees itself as the rising super-power of the 21st century. The Chinese government attitude to external governments is ‘we are not going to take it anymore’ – don’t tell us what we can and can’t do.
China is the world’s second largest economy and looks like it will become the largest economy within the next 20 years or less. Chinas belt and road strategy is giving them influence in developing countries. They are becoming more influential in world matters but values of the US and European countries that we tend to align with are not always aligned with Chinas – and this makes us feel very uncomfortable. China believes that the State always takes precedence over private enterprise – so that puts the power in the hands of a very small cohort of China Communist Party officials.
As seen in the news, we need to be careful with how we interact with China as they are now our largest trading partner, but we don’t like the way their human rights records – recently the situation with Uyghurs is an example. We don’t want to upset our traditional partners, but we don’t want to shut off the money we make from trade with China either. We’ve seen Australia make a bit of hash of things with their relationship with China but will we do any better?
Jason says watch this space – Chinas influence will only become stronger, and we will see them pushing for their place in world politics and using their dominance for their own ends. Get used to it.
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