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Bulletins and News Discussion from January 22nd to January 28th, 2024 - Iowa Caucus, Bigger AUKUS? - COTW: New Zealand/Aotearoa

Image is of the Te Pati Maori (Maori Party) cofounders, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. They have 6 of the 123 seats in the New Zealand parliament.

Officially confirming that the Republican primaries were a gigantic waste of time for everybody involved, Trump has massively beat everybody else in Iowa, and will very obviously be the Republican candidate for 2024. Given the abysmal state of the US economy (for everybody who isn't in the top 1-10%, which is mainly what national statistics reflect when they aren't telling blatant falsehoods), it's more plausible than ever that Trump may indeed once again become President - though I personally refuse to predict one way or another due to how volatile politics and geopolitics currently are. Project 2025 is coming, folks - either as the official Republican governance program, or as what the Democrats will do in 2026 after the midterms, stating that they have no other choice and have to reach across the aisle as they are the Adults In The Room™.

In other news...

Late last year, New Zealand voted in a new and very right-wing government, composed of the center-right National Party, the libertarian ACT Party (ACT stands for the "Association of Consumers and Taxpayers", good lord), and the fascist New Zealand First party. By what I can tell, this was the well-trodden path of "Vaguely center-left party does neoliberal austerity and causes a recession and workers fucking hated it and voted in a different party out of desperation," though the flooding and cyclones did add challenges to Chris Hipkins' short reign after Jacinda Ardern resigned.

It's worth noting that Hipkins was at least fairly China-friendly, meeting up with Xi Jinping on a five-day visit in the summer. They still do the whole "We have concerns about human rights" thing, but of all the countries of the imperial core, New Zealand is - or, perhaps, was - one of the most amicable. In 2021, China was New Zealand's single largest trading partner, with a third of exports going to China (more than Australia, the US, Japan, and South Korea combined), and they receive 22% of their imports from China too, more than any other single country.

Christopher Luxon, the new Prime Minister and sentient thumb, has said that he is exploring a closer relationship with AUKUS:

Luxon said New Zealand was interested in becoming involved in AUKUS Pillar 2: a commitment between the three partners to develop and share advanced military capabilities, including artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and hypersonics.

“We’ll work our way through that over the course of next year as we understand it more and think about what the opportunities may be for us,” Luxon said. “AUKUS is a very important element in ensuring we’ve got stability and peace in the region.”

This is not to say that Hipkins wanted nothing to do with AUKUS or Western organizations aimed generally against China - in fact, pre election, "he was open to conversations about joining Pillar II of AUKUS". But the current government is pushing down on the accelerator pedal.

The left-wing Maori party, Te Pati Maori, has stated that they want New Zealand to remain non-aligned, as joining AUKUS would erode the sovereignty of the country:

As Maori we cannot allow our sovereignty to be determined by others, whether they are in Canberra or Washington. Aotearoa should not act as Pacific spy base in the wars of imperial powers. Joining AUKUS will severely undermine our country’s sovereignty, constitution, and ability to remain nuclear free. There is too much at stake for our government to make a commitment of this magnitude without a democratic process.

In general, the party leaders of Te Pati Maori want New Zealand to be the "Switzerland of the Pacific", which is perhaps not the greatest analogy given all the problems Switzerland had and has, but we understand the intended meaning of desiring neutrality.

The Country of the Week is New Zealand! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.

1.8K comments

  • The Country of the Week is New Zealand!

    As mentioned in the preamble, feel free to post or recommend any material related to New Zealand, whether from a thousand years ago or yesterday. You can post it anywhere in the thread, but you can also reply to this comment if you wish.

    If you're feeling particularly ambitious and want homework, you could take on any or all of these questions (no reward, but I'll be very proud of you):

    • Who are the main political actors? Are they compradors, nationalists, international socialists, something else?
    • What are the most salient domestic political issues; those issues that repeatedly shape elections over the last 10, 20 years. Every country has its quirks that complicate analysis - for example, Brexit in the UK.
    • What is the country's history? You don't have to go back a thousand years if that's not relevant, and I'm counting "history" as basically anything that has happened over a year ago.
    • What factions exist, historically and currently? If there is an electoral system, what are the major parties and their demographic bases? Are there any minor parties with large amounts of influence? Independence movements? Religious groups?
    • How socially progressive or conservative are they? Is there equality for different ethnic groups, or are some persecuted? Do they have LGBTQIA+ rights? Have they improved over time, or gotten worse?
    • What role do foreign powers play in the country’s politics and economy? Is there a particular country nearby or far away that is nearly inseparable from them, for good or bad reasons? Is their trade dominated by exports/imports to one place? Are they exploited, exploiters, or something in between?
    • If applicable, what is the influence of former colonial relationships on the modern economy and politics?
    • Is the country generally stable? Do you think there will be a coup at some point in the future, and if so, what faction might replace them?

    The previous country was South Africa.

    This is our Geopolitics Reading List so far! Please chime in with suggestions!

    General Theory:

    Canada:

    Chile:

    • 1000 Days of Revolution: Chilean Communists on the Lessons of Popular Unity (I cannot personally find an online version).
    • Santiago Boys Podcast, analyzing Allende's government and Cybersyn.

    Lebanon:

    United States:

    Venezuela:

    • Completely beside the point but that Santiago Boys website has really nice art and design.

    • Hey it's my little corner of settler-colonialism in the South Pacific. I can throw out a few thoughts here, although take everything with a grain of salt.

      Many of the points can be looked at through a familiar settler-colonial lens. Think the Canada of the Pacific. Maori arrive about 500 years ago, with the Brits beginning colonisation about 200 years ago. Familiar story of decimation of the Māori population through introduced disease, violence and land dispossession. The nuance here is some of the concessions Māori were able to get from the British, most notably Te Tiriti (note: it's a very short text, worth reading if you're interested). This has helped to get: dedicated Māori seats in parliament, some reparations for stolen land, co-governance of some land and assets, etc.

      This goes along with significant racism towards Māori (and Pasifica) that has always been a major part of our politics but is currently being leveraged in a more American style culture war approach by the right. E.g. demanding government departments to use English names

      In terms of foreign relations and economy: Our economy consists of exporting milk powder and trees to China (a mostly lactose intolerant country?), Tourism (don't look too closely at how fucked the land is from all the dairy cows), consultants sending emails, service workers serving the consultants, and majorly: investing in houses.

      Economically we are completely reliant on China, but culturally aligned with the UK and more recently the US. Which is going to make the next decade... Interesting.

1773 comments