NZ: Public being kept in the dark about possible trade war with China

Oh, so the trade war with China has erupted and where are the NZ Media?

NZ faces some very rough economic times if China decides to make an example of us for questioning the quality of their mass produced cheapest capitalism model exports they have dumped upon us, and the NZ public seems ill aware of the ramifications

Martyn Bradbury

the Daily Blog,

9 August, 2016

Wow. Look at that, a trade war that was threatened weeks ago turns out to be true despite the excuses the Government deployed at the time of being asked questions about it…

Zespri supends all Kiwifruit shipments to China

In a move to “weather tighten” shipments of Kiwifruit to China, Zespri has temporarily halted all exports there.

It comes after Chinese authorities tightened its quarantine of Kiwifruit imports into the country, last week.

Chinese border control agency AQSIQ issued a risk notification saying shipments had been found carrying a fungus that could cause fruit to rot in storage.

…and more dodgy Chinese steel is turning up in our infrastructure…

Steel for Huntly bypass bridges fails test 

Sixteen hundred tonnes of steel from China has been found to be too weak for four bridges on the $450 million Huntly bypass that forms part of the $2 billion Waikato Expressway.

Contractors building the ‘Road of National Significance’ chose a very low bid for the steel tubes.

But the test certificates for them have turned out to be wrong, and now an expensive fix-up job is under way.

The contractors, Fulton Hogan and HEB Construction, have admitted to RNZ News the steel tubes were not good enough. They did not comply with standards for structural steel, which for bridges were very high as they must resist impacts, heavy loads and low temperatures.

It was only after a third lot of testing that the contractors found out. The first tests were done in China by the steel mill and the tube manufacturer; it is understood the second tests were done in New Zealand on samples sent here from China.

Both lots of tests said the steel met the New Zealand standard.

As for the third testing, there are two versions of events. The contractors and the New Zealand Transport Agency say that, following established quality control processes, they tested the tubes after they arrived and immediately found out the steel was no good.

But RNZ News has been told it was only when workers began pounding the tubes into the ground, and the steel ballooned on the ends, that tests were done by an accredited laboratory.

…so the Chinese lied about the steel and being the skint arses we are, we didn’t even know about this until the workers started building with it???

We have EVERY right to question this farce by the Chinese, yet for doing so they have started a trade war they threatened months ago.

The tensions from the top are impacting those who are at the very production point of these trade deals. The 5 Kiwifruit pickers who died on a road where the Government hasn’t invested in the infrastructure this new market demands helps highlight the interconnectedness of these trade deals with the lives of those who have to fulfil them.

NZ faces some very rough economic times if China decides to make an example of us for questioning the quality of their mass produced cheapest capitalism model exports they have dumped upon us, and the NZ public seems ill aware of the ramifications.