Island Life: We are all Chinese now
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Surely as a broader point, any country dependant on the commodities boom should be rather worried - plenty of non white countries included in that. Although this whole "whites only" lols is a little confusing to me at least - does this include Latin America? Where do we stand with countries that have large white or not white minorities?
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Although this whole "whites only" lols is a little confusing to me at least - does this include Latin America? Where do we stand with countries that have large white or not white minorities?
I believe the US has a long history of distinguishing between "white" and "non-white" Hispanics. Must be jolly difficult if you're a Hispanic (what does this mean anyway - Spanish speaking?) of mixed or uncertain origins. Or of a generic coffee-coloured complexion.
It's the kind of idiotic quasi-racial categorization Turiana Turia would be proud of.
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I'd hardly say the streets in China are 'paved with gold'.
It was naivety along those lines that got Fonterra into its current mess.
While it sounds nasty, I would also be cautious about relying too much on 'new New Zealanders'. It seems that the loyalties of those from the PRC are overwhelming to the PRC.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz-election-2008/news/article.cfm?c_id=1501799&objectid=10536584
If they want to see New Zealand elections decided on how loyal candidates are to the CCP then. . .well really. . . please don't vote guys.
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Indeed, New Zealand should make good use of the FTA with China, but that would mean NZs business leaders actually showing leadership and intelligence and thinking about more than just satisfying their immediate, short-term desires. It would also mean NZ finally giving us linguisticky types the respect we deserve- despite the inane ramblings of certain undeservedly famous "China business experts" and the equally stupid rumours floating around certain social circles, learning the language and culture really is essential if you want to succeed here.
See, it's not just Fonterra (although I really love watching them squirm), but NZ's business community as a whole. Ask around, plenty of Chinese business types will tell you Kiwis just don't know how to do business. They show up, they sign what they think is a deal, they disappear, then they wonder why their China business fails. The two key phrases in what David Slack quotes from his China-based reader are "that want to make the effort" and "But it's not easy." Indeed, it takes long-term, strategic vision, solid preparation and a hell of a lot of really hard work.
@Seamus Harris: In a democracy, one is entitled to have and express one's own opinions. If certain 'new New Zealanders' consider loyalty to the PRC or even the CCP (actually, they said loaylty to China- quite a different concept) to be important factors as they decide which candidate to support, that is their right.
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i think the naivety that got Fonterra into their mess wasn't that the streets aren't paved with gold. it's that they trusted their their shoes (and whatever came between them and the gold) a little too much and weren't prepared to convert the ideals they have offshore into the way they handle their Chinese projects.
re: what jamil says
In China it is not just unemployment you have to worry about it is social instability (the government's euphemism for riots, protests, revolution) that results from unemployment. According to internal government estimates from earlier this decade, the Communist Party needed to keep the economy growing at 7% a year to ensure its own survival because if growth dropped below that level then it would not be able to manage (read - suppress by any means necessary) the resulting "social instability". I think the red line is now lower - I'm hearing more like 4 or 5% - but it still exists.
in the wake of the olympics, the space walk, the knitting of the nation following the earthquake and tibet fiasco, the country hasn't been as united since probably 1949.
social instability will be quashed, as it always has,who governs china? the chinese communist party, but who owns china and give the CCP mandate to govern?
the PLAthe chinese army are pure capitalism
any resistance results in extermination
their business interests are vast
their business ethics invulnerable to the sway of the system designed for the average chinese,
the usefulness of the CCP as an umbrella is incalculable.
the government doesn't own the army, the army owns the government, hence the effortless drift from communism to capitalism
if unemployment results in social instability
then unemployment numbers will be cut (down in the prime of their lives)
facing that barrel
significant social unrest is merely a suicide option for those brave not family oriented enough
the guan xi (network) systems are secured.
while the chinese family system remains strong (read social welfare)
so will the social system.the chinese save money
a major generalisation the average chinese makes about the west is 'they don't save money, while we chinese save money'they have been waiting for such a global event as is happening now, for a long time,
But as others have pointed out, China is absolutely not immune from the global crisis - not only because exports are so important but also because the domestic property market appears to have stalled and could be about to go off a cliff.
facts
but they have lived through worse
they will emerge from this, frontrunners
Jamil tian an men 1989 didn't collapse the government, it merely reinforced their claim.
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howing leadership and intelligence and thinking about more than just satisfying their immediate, short-term desires. It would also mean NZ finally giving us linguisticky types the respect we deserve
but James they're shackled in democracy...
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@Chris Waugh,
Sure, in a democracy you can have any opinion you like. However, if you rate loyalty to a foreign one-party government above loyalty to the democracy you are voting in then the whole exercise becomes slightly peculiar.
I would argue that it is morally inappropriate to vote if that is how you feel since you are more or less abusing the privilege. New Zealand elections are supposed to be about representing the interests of New Zealand citizens, not those of foreign governments.
While the question was framed as 'loyalty to China', if you read the whole article you'd see 'loyalty to China' was then equated by a NZ Chinese politician with 'loyalty to the government of China' (i.e. the CCP)'. No surprises there.
It's a little like Chinese students gathering in Aotea square to engage in a hostile flag-waving nationalistic rally. Sure, it's legal. At the same time, it is morally awkward and displays a disturbing sort of cultural insularity and contempt for the host nation.
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but they have lived through worse
i would politely suggest that "they" have not lived through worse, if "they" is the urban, young, "middle class".
what percentage of the Chinese population is old enough to remember the worst excesses of the cultural revolution (i.e. pre-1970) or the famines of the 1950s, etc? So, what percentage of the population is over 50 or so?
so i don't think the 20-something people with money now can remember even Tiananmen, let alone the worse stuff before that.
and you reckon the PLA is going to save the day for the CCP again?
maybe, maybe not, IMO. -
A key thing that perhaps seems to be being sidestepped in this is the lack, in Indonesia and China at least, of personal indebtedness. It's a massive point of difference between many Asian nations and their western counterparts.
We do tend to look at this from a western perspective at times, ignoring things like that and the massive positive that the oil price collapse is having on the current accounts of heavy oil subsidy states such as Indonesia and Malaysia.
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agreed simon, sorry chris waugh, early morning had me reading chris as james...
stephen
' they' isn't the young urban middle class, it's the Chinese, most of whom are over 30.
23% over 50,47% 20-50:
of which the majority are pre one child policy, and probably able to recall some degree of poverty,
http://www.iiasa.ac.at/Research/LUC/ChinaFood/data/pop/pop_7.htm
so i'd say a fairly large percentage can remember the cultural revolution first hand, a larger percentage still, can remember the poverty of the 70s and a large proportion recall the food queues and meatless winters into the early eighties.
that's why they all (generalization) save their cash. it's not about MTV china, these young urban middleclass, they work like a motherf@cker, unpaid overtime, through holidays etc, this easy life you confer on them doesn't quite meet their expectations.
they're families are very very close close, they meet at festivals, and the youf are regularly told stories of the bad days by oldies who are remarkably loyal to the establishment despite the hells they lived through,
more to your point is;
so i don't think the 20-something people with money now can remember even Tiananmen, let alone the worse stuff before that.
some can/ some can't, much the same as 20-something people anywhere can remember events prior to their birth, but i don't see 20 something people as any kind of cornerstone in this discussion, as the 20 something chinese are firmly under the thumb of their elders.
as a pre 40 something kiwi, are you bereft of cultural memory before a certain age, is the history prior to your birth a void? civil rights movement? feminist movement? the springbok tour? think big? the rainbow warrior? parihaka? this stuff could be etched in your memory whether you were there or not,
though i'm sure like myself you were fortunate to bare the 'impartiality' of a western education system.but it's beside the point, Jamil paints the chinese as a rabble who will hit the kill as switch soon as they reach that 5% threshhold.
And you,
well what you're saying is head of the PLA Hu Jin Tao may give orders to his army to overthrow or allow the overthrow of the CCP of which he is the chairman,or allow the PLA not do their damndest to protect that party from the potential revolutionary dangers posed a gunless nation of 5% threshold hooligans.gunless people pose little threat
and more to the point
why would they revolt
when they can watch the news
see the west's current financial woes
and observe their coming woes primarily as a result in drops to exports caused on the whole by bad western economic management.surely that'd be a time to say "thank you CCP, we know shit is hard globally but you've done a pretty good job so far buffering us from that as best you could. keep it up"
i know i go on.
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after running a survey of thirty chinese around the neighbourhood, the overwhelming consensus is that we are not all chinese and never will be, the majority seemed adamant that we are laowai 'old outsiders' and the Chinese in new zealand right now are heigui, 'sea ghosts'.
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Mark, the term is 'haigui', not 'heigui'. 'Heigui' literally means 'black ghost', and is an impolite way of referring to black people. 'Haigui' literally means 'sea turtle', and refers to overseas Chinese who have returned to China to live and work. Chinese living in New Zealand are not 'haigui', because they are living in New Zealand, not China. If they moved back to China permanently they would become 'haigui'.
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true seamus, bit of a freudian there, didn't realise that was wu gui de gui thought it was yang gui zi de gui, hei was a spelling mistake hence (seaghosts) often make that mistake probably based on my disdain for all similarly xenophobic terms, but i'm sure the point (without mentioning da bi zi 'big nose') was made re: the xenophobia (rampant), thanks for fixing those up.
fortunately despite my spelling I'm semi aware of the definition of the term hai gui, hence not referring to 'chinese new zealanders' but to chinese. a substantial number of whom are are students geared to inevitably return as 20 something middle class... just as when we say new zealand voted in a national government we don't mean all new zealanders voted for them. and i'd counter from stats that almost all chinese who leave china return eventually, and while no one's calling them hai gui while they're in new zealand, they are all potentially going to face the hai gui label, if not potential laowai depending who they marry and what their children look like. None of this taking into account the racism dealt to children of mixed marriages born and raised here.
thanks for the heads up,
and re: hei gui being impolite, i'd have to have to go a little further and press that it's downright racist, along the lines of the chinese paying black people and yellow people less than white people.based on skin colours. eg i had a colleague 50+, parents from guangdong, born and raised in Auckland, came to China to work, was paid 80% my salary for the trouble of not being white.
"According to Article 5 of the Nationality Law of the People's Republic of China: "Any person born abroad whose parents are both Chinese nationals or one of whose parents is a Chinese national shall have Chinese nationality. But a person whose parents are both Chinese nationals and have both settled abroad, or one of whose parents is a Chinese national and has settled abroad, and who has acquired foreign nationality at birth shall not have Chinese nationality".
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question i have is why has new zealand china friendship society website been blocked in china for the last two years. what is written on this website?
www.nzchinasociety.org.nz
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'Haigui' literally means 'sea turtle', and refers to overseas Chinese who have returned to China to live and work.
As heard from my partner (and supported by Renmin Ribao, for what it's worth), the phrase has now quickly spawned an offshoot - "haidai", or seaweed, for returnees who end up rooted to the couch at home waiting for a job.
As for the loyalty issue: again, I've had several discussions along the following lines:
B: I'm not watching [insert news show again]. Not after that story they ran before the Olympics.
A (meself): That's okay, it was just one story.
B: But they knew the Olympics were coming! Why did they rush to say this kind of stuff right before the Olympics? They don't like China.
A: It's not about hating China, it's about what the Chinese government does. They're not the same thing.
B: What do you mean, "not the same thing"? Whose government is it??This has prompted an ongoing exercise in cross-cultural understanding and comparative politics. It must look odd the other way, seeing that government and national identity are more or less separated in the NZ mindset, with one being separate from another. (Or are they? Do we flatter ourselves too much with our distance from the US's "my country, right or wrong"?)
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i'm always fairly proud of our ability to make that separation sam, though i sometimes feel our somewhat apolitical patriotic spirit leaves new zealand a little lacking in nationalist cohesion that could make the place a little merrier (sounds weird but it's too difficult for me have a decent go at backing up), having said that, i'm continually reminded of how nz(western)'s liberal globalism in this big old world is somewhat ahead of it's time, as are our pacifist tendencies...
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mark taslov, I've been wondering the same thing about the NZ-China Friendship Society wesbsite for a while now. It doesn't help that all my favourite most reliable proxies have been blocked.
And what everybody seems to be forgetting is the delicious little pun in 'haigui'. The hai (海) is reasonably obvious, the gui could be read as either the turtle (龟）or return (归), both of which are gui in the first tone.
And that one sentence took me far too long. Oh how I dearly wish my properly set up laptop had its screen back in proper working order.
Seamus Harris, I'm sorry, but I'm still having trouble getting all worked up about mainland Chinese immigrants valuing loyalty to the motherland in a Chinese candidate. I don't see their attitudes as being any different from those of our fellow Kiwis here in China planning to take part in the upcoming election (something I am denied because I've been overseas for over three years). Most people feel some form of loyalty to their homeland, and that loyalty does include the current legally recognised incarnation of their homeland.
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Chris, I ended up writing a little piece on the issue of loyalty to China/CCP among Chinese voters in New Zealand on my own website.
http://bunnyhugs.org/2008/10/12/ccp-style-nationalism-meets-new-zealand-democracy-hillarity-ensues/
I see it as a little odd. I think it also raises a few moral issues.
I think your comparison to New Zealander's in Beijing who vote in New Zealand elections is odd and not very relevant. The same thought crossed my mind while I was writing but I discarded it as a dead end. It makes for a glib little analogy, but there is no real comparison between the two situations.
How are NZers in Beijing who vote in the NZ election displaying a nationalistic mindset? Surely they are just exercising their democratic rights as NZ citizens?
In contrast, Chinese NZers who see supporting China and the CCP as the single most important thing they can do with their vote in a NZ election appear to be subordinating their interest in NZ to their interest in China and the CCP. If that's how they feel I'd question whether they deserve a vote in the first place, and whether it is morally right for them to to use that vote.
Of course lots of people, probably the majority, cast votes for stupid and counterproductive reasons. That said, I think my questions are still valid.
Of course the larger issue here is why are Chinese from the PRC so nationalistic, and what are the implications of their nationalism for New Zealand?
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A few of thoughts on the issue of separation of government/country in Chinese thinking. . .
- The commonly used Chinese word for 'country' ('guojia') is a little ambiguous. It means state, country, land and nation, all at the same time.
- You have decades of CCP propaganda telling people that China=CCP, that the CCP saved China, that only the CCP can run a country like China, and so on.
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And what everybody seems to be forgetting is the delicious little pun in 'haigui'. The hai (海) is reasonably obvious, the gui could be read as either the turtle (龟）or return (归), both of which are gui in the first tone.
Not so much a pun as the origin of the term - it's actually an abbreviation of "haiwai guilai", or "returned from overseas". Someone spotted "haigui" hiding inside the phrase, and liberated it.
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Although, of course, the pun in itself is still tasty. And commiserations on the state of your laptop - ours is in a similarly dire situation (backlight dead, external monitor only if you want to see anything)...
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Correct me if i'm wrong Seamus, but are you saying Chinese NZers who see supporting China as the most important thing they can do with their vote in NZ as less justified than New Zealand New Zealanders who see supporting China as the most important thing they can do with their vote?
For me, as far as i can recall, a vote for National is basically a vote for loyalty to the USA.
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I'd think that a non-Chinese New Zealander who considered supporting China was the most important thing they could do with their vote had a major screw loose.
That said, a non-Chinese NZ voter who thought this way would (presumably) be in New Zealand by accident of birth rather than by active choice. I would thus be a little less inclined to question why that hypothetical voter was participating in a New Zealand democracy given New Zealand's marginal position in their world view.
In the case of the Chinese NZ voter with such feelings I have to question why they even participate. At best their participation as New Zealanders is insincere; at worst they are a negative influence.
Your reference to National is silly. I doubt many National voters are motivated primarily by the fact that National leans closer to the USA than Labor does. Loyalty to the USA is just one among numerous features of National Party policy. In any case, Labor is not exactly an enemy of the USA.
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I'd think that a non-Chinese New Zealander who considered supporting China was the most important thing they could do with their vote had a major screw loose... In the case of the Chinese NZ voter with such feelings I have to question why they even participate. At best their participation as New Zealanders is insincere; at worst they are a negative influence.
I understand your distaste, but I can think of plenty more parts of the legally entitled electorate for whom the election is going to be a matter of inexplicable personal bias. I, for one, don't have time to organise a flying squad to sort this out.
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