China FTA still unseen but ready to sign
The media is reporting that New Zealand and China will be ready to sign a free trade agreement in April. It seems the Prime Minister and Trade Minister Phil Goff have already booked their tickets to Beijing and packed their ceremonial pens.
There is one particularly interesting quote from the Newsroom story [offline]:
She [the Prime Minister] would not discuss its substance and whether New Zealand has secured good access for agriculture products, but indicated there had been compromises…
“So there’s no question in my mind, should we be successful and be able to announce that in April, that it’s a very, very big move for the Kiwi economy; a very important move and beneficial.”
So, after nearly five years of negotiations and only a few weeks left before the agreement gets signed, and we, the people who are going to be affected by it, still don’t get to know what is in it. The judgement as to whether a free trade agreement is good for us or not remains something ‘in her mind’, rather than a topic open for public scrutiny.
I guess we’ll need to wait a bit longer before details of the free trade agreement come before Parliament, and hope everyone has time to process and comprehend them all before the voting is all done and dusted.
February 26th, 2008 at 9:12 pm
The real question is why on earth would the state put any obstacles in the way of you spending your own money as you see fit.
These trade deals are a complete farce - a conspiracy against the consumers of this country.
All the state has to do is unilateraly step aside and let us freely enter into whatever trades we desire.
End of story.
No trade deals. No nothing.
The fact that they’ve spent months negotiating means we have been stitched up, because there is nothing to negotiate about.
February 27th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Think you’ll find the Chinese government isn’t going to step aside and let free trade just happen, which is why all the negotiation has been necessary.
And having gained rather a lot from their heavily protected and regulated economy why would they?
February 27th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Because, Mouldwarp, we didn’t start off with a free market, and everyone’s been guarding some key industries that they don’t want to be subject to real competition because of that.
Not to mention that there are times when a free market sucks because it results in monopolies or because it hurts social values that are worth more to us than efficiency, or because of externalities that businesses don’t have to pay for.
February 27th, 2008 at 6:10 pm
Sam Buchanan said: And having gained rather a lot from their heavily protected and regulated economy why would they?
You missed “miserably low-waged” as an additional description of the Chinese economy Sam.
February 27th, 2008 at 8:21 pm
Sam,
- “Think you’ll find the Chinese government isn’t going to step aside and let free trade just happen, which is why all the negotiation has been necessary.”
The argument being that, because the Chinese government denies its citizens this freedom, and effectively treats them like a bunch of hostages, so should the NZ government?
Ari,
- “Not to mention that there are times when a free market sucks because it results in monopolies or because it hurts social values that are worth more to us than efficiency, or because of externalities that businesses don’t have to pay for.”
How does a free market result in monopolies? Surely *limiting* competition by reducing free trade has such an effect.
As for hurting social values, I don’t quite know what this means. It just sounds like special interest groups wielding power over others to deny them the freedom to live their lives as they see fit. Social values can go to hell when they restrict other people’s legitimate freedoms.
The externalities is a more interesting issue. Certainly poor countries can’t afford the luxury of the very high environmental standards that the West has. But then that remains the case whether or not we are allowed by our government to trade with them. The quicker these countries become wealthy, the quicker they will have the luxury of raising the environment up their list of priorities; and that’s only going to happen through trade. NZ is not populated by saintlier people than those grubby third world countries, just richer people.
What’s particularly nauseating is rich western unions trying to restrict competition by seeking to impose first world labour standards and costs onto these poor countries. Truly a disgusting and disgraceful spectacle.
February 27th, 2008 at 9:27 pm
I think they would probably settle for ‘legally and freely being able to organise without company-supplied beatings’.
February 28th, 2008 at 9:18 am
On ‘quicker’ - China is getting very rich very quick, but is often cited as the country with an unprecedented amount of suffering due to their lax or non-existent regulations - phrases such as ‘cancer villages’ come to mind here. Would the slower growth of the West have facilitated a better standard of living while they first industrialised AND now?
February 28th, 2008 at 11:41 am
“The argument being that, because the Chinese government denies its citizens this freedom, and effectively treats them like a bunch of hostages, so should the NZ government?”
No, the argument being that China won’t let NZ citizens trade freely with Chinese ciitizens just because you like the idea, so its a bit pointless suggesting the government should just unilaterally step aside and everything will be fine.
“Sam Buchanan said: And having gained rather a lot from their heavily protected and regulated economy why would they?
You missed “miserably low-wagedâ€? …”
I hadn’t noticed that the Chinese government was miserably low waged, much of the rest of the population is, though probably not as miserable as they were a few decades ago.
February 28th, 2008 at 11:58 am
“The quicker these countries become wealthy, the quicker they will have the luxury of raising the environment up their list of priorities”
Making the environment a priority is a ‘luxury’?
“NZ is not populated by saintlier people than those grubby third world countries, just richer people.”
Who suggested looking after the environment was saintly - I thought it was something to do with self-preservation. Actually, while rich countries tend to do a good job in terms of reducing pollutants with obvious health impacts (such as atmospheric SO2 or heavy metal contamination in rivers) they tend to be worse in other indicators (such as CO2 emmissions per capita, amounts of waste produced) in comparison with developing countries, despite relying on those countries to produce highly polluting products.