The thousands of words and hundreds of column centimetres this newspaper is this week devoting to a series entitled "China and Us" has done nothing so far but fill me with a deep sense of unease. And I'm obviously not alone. In a nzherald.co.nz poll at the weekend asking, "is the increasing Chinese influence in New Zealand a positive thing?" of the nearly 11,000 readers who replied only 33 per cent said "yes" and 67 per cent said "no".
These nay-sayers will be, like me, folk who understand that "multiculturalism" is a bullshit word because there is no such thing.
Folk who are increasingly concerned at China's economic and migratory imperialism know that there is a fundamental truth in Kipling's immortal words: "East is East and West is West, and never the twain shall meet."
What bugs me about most of the palaver I have skimmed so far is that it's all so bloody mercenary.
I get the impression that China is our economic saviour and our relationship with that huge and densely populated communist nation is all good.
I read nothing of the fact that China is a totalitarian state which clings resolutely to Mao Zedong's version of Marxism-Leninism. (read more)
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