I’m sitting in Eindhoven airport after a week in the Netherlands. Being exposed to the world makes me quickly forget about local body politics, cyclone recovery or keeping your fruit bowl full.
My eyes are confronted by a new world that seems much bigger. The Netherlands is squeezed between the might of its neighbours and, from Napolean to Hitler, armies have rolled across the low countries. This small nation know they must innovate and work hard if their people are to prosper. They have far fewer resources, but are 40% richer than we are.
NZ seems to me a sad comparison. We’re sleepy, naïve and perpetually squabbling over some issue that is trivial to most.
Our deficiencies are not so much because of injustice or circumstance but due to our laziness and lack of ambition. It’s no surprise that many of our best and brightest are leaving. 185 years after the Treaty of Waitangi we seem still not to have even put a nation together. We can’t tax our way to prosperity, we have to earn it. On this count we are failing and by many metrics we simply don’t deserve the first world services we expect.
Now we live in unsettled times and have begun to mistrust the peace and prosperity of past decades. Someone once said that at such times people start quoting WB Yeats. Amongst the hashish & fairy tales he penned some incisive lines. Yeats suggested we were brought: ‘Under a rule, under the semblence of peace/By manifold illusion’.
The NATO Summit was here and the ‘manifold illusion’ has been disturbed by ubiquitous, black clad soldiers with automatic weapons. Such scenes are commonplace across European airports at present. NATO countries have agreed on military spending of 5% of GDP by 2035. This suggests a future clash of power followed by a new epoch.
President Trump is floundering about with tariffs and other bully boy tactics and while I don’t like his style, his is the first US administration to actually confront the key issues.
The US has rapidly increasing debt and a perpetually large trade deficit. Those who have had large mortgages will understand how debt is a millstone that prevents more desirable spending. Countries with large trade deficits grow more slowly and eventually not at all. Interest is now the biggest expense of the US government when is should be healthcare or defence.
Countries with a perpetually large trade surplus grow much more quickly. China is growing at least 5% faster than the US. If current trends continue the Chinese economy will be as large as the US in about 6 years. Nine years later their economy could be twice the size of the US. We are somewhere near the end of the 100 year dominance of the US.
This is important because the dominant economic power is always the dominant military power. Say what you like about the chaotic interventions of the US military over the years. The truth is that, considering their technological might they have been the most benign empire in history.
At the end of WWII they could have sought to control much of Europe. General Patton fancied pushing on towards Moscow to put down the Bolshevik hordes and Churchill considered it too. Instead they rolled out the Marshall Plan and invested heavily in rebuilding the infrastructure of their enemies. Empires were never this gracious or wise, and may not be again.
China has also been relatively well behaved outside its borders, but military power usually breeds imperialist ambition.
Critics might say that the aging Chinese population will slow their rise. At 38.4 the average age in China is almost the same as USA or NZ and younger than Europe. Their demographic problems are real, but a way off. China’s economic rise is off a low base and you might argue that additional growth will be more difficult. At a GDP per capita of around US$14,000 there is still easy growth ahead.
What irritates the US and has prompted the tariffs is that it’s not a fair game. China’s trade surplus leaves them awash with US dollars. They should mostly sell these for RMB, causing their currency to appreciate and America’s to decline. Instead China manipulates things to prevent that from occurring. This along with the USD’s reserve status has sustained a strong dollar and decimated the US manufacturing sector.
The Chinese government has also adopted policies that are not dissimilar to Hitler’s in the 1930’s, rapidly building infrastructure & subsidising industries where it seeks dominance. They now produce more than 30 million cars a year, 3 and 4 times as many as the US and Japan respectively. Having won that battle, they’re now working on robotics and AI, providing whatever resources these industries need to dominate the world.
The Europeans are also far from the ‘free market’ we have in NZ. In Hungary, investment in high tech products can result in you getting a cheque for 80% of your purchase back after 4 weeks. In Germany it’s 50%.
It’s not cricket, but none of these countries know what cricket is.
In the battle of Empires you have to pick a side. The US would do well to work on relations with India, whose stellar 6.5% growth rate over the past decade was not because they’re a democracy, but in spite of it. Somehow it works.
Perhaps the best guide to future economic prosperity is the Atlas of Economic Complexity, produced by Harvard University. It reveals that China has moved from 30th place to 16th since 2000. Conversely the US has moved from 6th to 15th. For the record, we’re 68th and have been trending south since records began.
For the last word I defer to Yeats, who foresaw the end of the Christian era and the dawn of a new epoch and asked:
‘And what rough beast, its hour come round at last, Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?’
Thanks for the comments Annette https://www.nzherald.co.nz/hawkes-bay-today/news/claims-mayoral-candidate-breached-code-of-conduct-by-saying-napier-council-has-ignored-its-core-infrastructure/EST5SVCCXJBFBFCKZTEXA6MYK4/ but we all know where your allegiance lies and the multiple times you have breached the code and the LGA. Calling people out that don’t agree with you appears to be your fortay. Glad you are stepping down in October, Richard and Nigel are speaking the truth while you and Kirsten continue to sling mud. Ratepayers have seen what you are both about. Enjoy your new iwi job
Very interesting insights – gives a new outlook when put together like this – does tend to confirm my personal view of USA though
A number of comments in the article that beg investigating a bit…
“Now we live in unsettled times and have begun to mistrust the peace and prosperity of past decades.”
There have been many examples of US intervention, meddling, invasion and occupation around the world since 1945, no long term peace in the ME since the 1947 theft of land by the British to give to another 3rd party that has ensured conflict in that area between multiple states and that 3rd party that is ongoing today in a heinous replication of many of the atrocities meeted out by the criminal Nazi regime of WW2.
We sit here in NZ and think we have seen times of peace and relatively speaking for us (other than Korea, Vietnam etc) that is true, however throughout many other places in the world conflict has been an ongoing problem driven by our own western beliefs that our way is the only way and everyone must comply with our way for as the major power we (the west) write the rules everyone else must play by yet time and again we have broken those rules to suit our own hegemonic agenda (masked most recently as “rules based order”) with scant regard for the rights, wellbeing and right to live and be governed by whom they may choose, of all the other inhabitants of our planet. The US has a history the mirrors that of other, earlier empires like that of the UK, ask or demand something of another nation and if that nation resists, then move to sanctions of any and all types, economic, military, social etc against that nation along with infiltrating that society with plants and operatives sewing dissention and unrest amongst the populace in an attempt to pressure that Government to comply with those demands or force regime change via a coup, and it none of that works then just invade and take over.
Since the setup of the UN, anything along those lines must have UN backing yet we have seen time and again, the US with support form it’s minions, the UK, Nato, AUS and at times we here in NZ engage in or support and enable illegal acts and processes to inflict our “western” will on others… not in their best interests but in ours. All empires eventually fall and the US empire is indeed falling fast with debt somewhere around 37 Trillion dollars, with interest on that debt alone accounting for over 1 Trillion annually, the BRICS group is now bigger that the G7 in practically any measure, militarily, economically, population, natural resources, land mass etc and that is not going to change back again. China poses no threat to us militarily for it has seen the folly of occupation (the US in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Israel in Palestine, Gaza etc) and the huge cost of human lives for the occupier (international law states an occupier cannot claim self defence against those it occupies) and has no need to invade and occupy to prosper as proven by it’s success at trade with other countries by peaceful methods, not by coercion or by using force as the US has done many times.
The reduction of influence by the west over all others is not restricted to the US alone, France has seen its ability to take uranium from African states at the rate of 10-20% of market rates come to an end in very recent times with many African nations now resisting western meddling and influence over that continent which has endured for many decades… An African representative recently asked, Why is it the continent is one of the richest in recourses yet after 150 years remains one of the poorest?…. The answer being they have been manipulated and controlled if not directly, then by proxy by the west via manipulated puppet leaders for generations, at the cost of the continent and benefit to the west.
The only leader openly stating they are thinking of or prepared to invade and take over another land or state is the one who is supposed to be the leader of the “Good Guys”, the US with Trumps administrations claims that Greenland and Canada would be better off under direct US control, all the while casting China as the “Bad Guy”…. our mainstream media’s unwillingness or inability to report all news in an unbiased, factual, uncensored, unredacted manner shows we the people are not given the full picture of what has happened in the past or of what is happening even now as those in power know we the people would not stand for the double standards, hypocrisy, lies and criminal acts our western Governments engage in around the world.
What we should be doing is engaging with the rising economic powers rather than joining with our traditional ally in confronting them in sabre rattling and threats, or military build up such as the 5% of GDP demanded by the US of all Nato members to be spent on military that the US believes will be spent on its military machine thereby raking in more $$ for itself from it’s supposed “good friends”, some friend when it is effectively blackmailing you to buy it’s products that will most likely never be used (Any direct conflict between Nato and Russia would likely result in a nuclear response which makes conventional weapons redundant) then they try and pass it off as some sort of mutually agreed outcome for the benefit of all when those now lumbered with the burden of spending 5% of their GDP on weapons when their own economies are faltering or failing (with far more justified expenditure in health, education, social services etc having to go without) could have chosen to do that without being pressured and forced to do so had they thought that was the wise thing to do.
The US with over 750 military bases around the world enabling it to project and enforce its will on others is not conducive to a peaceful planet. It’s self-appointed role as Policeman, Judge and Jury protecting the corporates, oligarchs, neo-cons and elite is not what Abraham Lincoln had in mind when Democracy was to be “Government of the people, by the people, for the people”… not this multi semi-autocratic government that has been dominating our planet for the last 70-80 years.
NZ would be off remaining impartial, neutral and unbiased whilst the big guys come to grips with the new reality of a world that is more balanced, fairer, where every country has a say and unlike the current situation at the UN where a tiny minority of powerfully armed countries have the ability to dismiss and ignore UN resolutions designed to avoid conflict and suffering around the world based on mankind’s inherent greed and need to control all others.
Whilst we here in NZ may be affected by the same social ills, economic woes etc of other countries, as a producing, Island nation we are in a far better position than many others to ride out the waves of change as they happen and having seen first hand the social issues other leading western nations are dealing with, ours by comparison are not as bad though we do tend to follow other western social patterns albeit by a few years usually, enouh time to see them and make changes here before they hit one would hope….
I think successive govts ensure this global perspective is little understood by many in Aotearoa/NZ. Thanks for the great analysis, Darren Tichborne.
I, for one, am grateful that sleepy, naïve, unambitious Aotearoa has no interest in joining the heavies of the world in hastening our own demise by
1: drowning ourselves in overproducing the latest technological fad and destroying the remaining ecosystems our survival relies on in the process,
2: engaging in a military spending pissing contest,
3: taking sides in a third world war the origins of which lay in the hubris and greed of other world leaders.
We don’t have to take sides. The “either you’re with us or against us” rhetoric is a false binary. This is the number one rule in any kind of negotiation: don’t become personally involved.
Remain objective; Keep the big picture in mind.
Call that naïve, but this is why connection to indigenous relations, families, and local communities is important. What matters to us? As a country and as a culture? We are not Europe, or the US, or Australia. We have a cultural identity, a code of values that doesn’t align with the major powers of the world. We have a delicious mix of western and indigenous thinking, with a sprinkling of flavours from other cultural backgrounds. Migrants come here seeking that respite, that peace, opting out of the rat race of their home countries. They seek the relative safety and simplicity of life here.
Psychologically we are only able to bear the empathy and responsibility for a relatively small number of people in the world. A village, to be precise. So is it any surprise that Aotearoa NZ is as sleepy as it is? I think not. As a migrant, that’s why I found home here. Simplicity and humility used to be lauded qualities. Only in name, I surmise.