In the wake of her failure to properly criticise Chinese human rights abuses in Tibet, Helen Clark has attempted to defend her government's unconscionable decision to continue pursuing a free trade agreement with the Chinese regime. Her basic argument?
If New Zealand traded and entered into trade agreements only with countries with which it had identical interests and views, "then apart from Ireland and Switzerland and Scandinavia, it would be pretty thin pickings".This of course is a straw man. It's not a question of us only trading with countries with "identical interests and views" (something which doesn't exist between individuals, let alone countries); its a question of us going out of our way to offer preferential access to a country whose actions clearly put it beyond the international pale. While Clark shamefully attempts to paper over this difference, it's real, and reflected in our foreign policy. We're not negotiating an FTA with Zimbabwe. We're not negotiating an FTA with Uzbekistan. We're not negotiating an FTA with Belarus or Burma. So why the hell are we negotiating one with China?
