26-06-2023, 12:22 PM
He's between a rock and a hard place: suck up to the violent, thin-skinned bully so that they don't beat you up now, but you know that just means you have to keep sucking up to them more and more and you have to keep pretending you haven't noticed any of the abhorrent things they're doing...or stop sucking up to them and they beat you up...
So despite that fact that Xi is most definitely a monstrous dictator (and I don't think that is hyperbole), I can accept Hipkins' mealy-mouthed response as I can't say that poking a stick at Xi would have been a good idea.
What I do think though is that we should be trying to "wean" ourselves off China though so that we can start being more frank. If we instead put a lot of effort into increasing China's share of our export market, we're just further ensuring that we can never speak up.
So despite that fact that Xi is most definitely a monstrous dictator (and I don't think that is hyperbole), I can accept Hipkins' mealy-mouthed response as I can't say that poking a stick at Xi would have been a good idea.
What I do think though is that we should be trying to "wean" ourselves off China though so that we can start being more frank. If we instead put a lot of effort into increasing China's share of our export market, we're just further ensuring that we can never speak up.