Geo Political Risk

[Balance]

Who Balance - what's your point?

Not US, Australia, Canada or UK.

So much for the alliance!

With friends like them, who needs enemies, right?

[Davexl]

Not US, Australia, Canada or UK.

So much for the alliance!

With friends like them, who needs enemies, right?

The Rainbow Warrior events were for the most part a localized Pacific situation between France & NZ, an early environmental / anti nuclear war protest.
France needed its nuclear testing to maintain its nuclear forces at that time and to hell with everyone else in the faraway / forgotten Pacific.
France was also a Western Allie in the bigger picture which the other countries mostly sided with. NZ was small fry by comparison.
They chose to nor "rock the boat" over what was perceived by them as a relatively minor matter at the time. Though it was a huge issue for New Zealand.

I have no doubt that if war were to break out between the West and China, that France and Germany would also be allied with other Asian nations esp Japan and would if needed come to our aid, as we would do our little bit to come to theirs also. At the end of the day NZ is not non-aligned as a nation and stands for democracy.

[Balance]

The Rainbow Warrior events were for the most part a localized Pacific situation between France & NZ, an early environmental / anti nuclear war protest.
France needed its nuclear testing to maintain its nuclear forces at that time and to hell with everyone else in the faraway / forgotten Pacific.
France was also a Western Allie in the bigger picture which the other countries mostly sided with. NZ was small fry by comparison.
They chose to nor "rock the boat" over what was perceived by them as a relatively minor matter at the time. Though it was a huge issue for New Zealand.

I have no doubt that if war were to break out between the West and China, that France and Germany would also be allied with other Asian nations esp Japan and would if needed come to our aid, as we would do our little bit to come to theirs also. At the end of the day NZ is not non-aligned as a nation and stands for democracy.

Depends on what is in it for them - as you wrote, NZ is a nothing consideration.

[Davexl]

Depends on what is in it for them - as you wrote, NZ is a nothing consideration.

Only up to a point when it matters. Remember that the US came to China's aid in WWII against Japan, as they did for
New Zealand and Australia also in the battle for the Coral Sea.

Some of us haven't forgotten that...

but then you might argue that China is all sweetness and light which is clearly wrong at this time also.
Both sides have made mistakes but even Trump was right to stand up against China's aggression against it's neighbours...

A wiser man Deng Xiaoping, perhaps said it best:

"China is not a superpower, nor will she ever seek to be one... If one day China should change her color and turn into a superpower, if she too should play the tyrant in the world, and everywhere subject others to her bullying, aggression and exploitation, the people of the world should identify her as social-imperialist, expose it, oppose it and work together with the Chinese people to overthrow it."

Thanks Jaa

[Davexl]

I have no doubt that if war were to break out between the West and China, that France and Germany would also be allied with other Asian nations esp Japan and would if needed come to our aid, as we would do our little bit to come to theirs also. At the end of the day NZ is not non-aligned as a nation and stands for democracy.

France wades into South China Sea against China

https://asiatimes.com/2021/02/france-wades-into-south-china-sea-against-china/

Excerpt:
In another unprecedented move, France spearheaded a joint note verbale with the UK and Germany to the United Nations last year, where the three European powers categorically criticized China’s maritime and territorial assertiveness in the South China Sea, which “do not comply with international law.”

“France, Germany and the United Kingdom underline the importance of unhampered exercise of the freedom of the high seas, in particular the freedom of navigation and overflight, and of the right of innocent passage…in the South China Sea,” said the joint statement by the three powers, which called firmly on China to comply with prevailing international law.