Kia ora,
Economists and politicians have their own language when it comes to disguising the facts. Not a problem. Academics do it, technocrats do it, even elephants in the zoo do it (blowing incomprehensible notes on their trumpets).
I’ve been on a break for a week now and rather than venture out of my house and do tourism I have decided to stay indoors and catch up on some Chinese by reading Chinese news in Chinese. I bought some vegetables and lamb (actually fresh-killed mutton) and I’ve been living on lamb soup and tea. Low carb, very healthy.
APEC is on in Beijing. John Key is doing online interviews with Chinese netizens via Xinhua, the dominant news agency in China. Nothing has made headlines yet. By comparison the Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott is ‘shirt-fronting’. He called Putin out, and rightly so, over the MH17 tragedy but that was from the other side of the world and it looked like once he was within spitting distance of the tiger-hunting Russian his rhetoric, like his gall, would tenderize moving from shirt-fronting, to a robust discussion, to seeking assurances. However, tonight he lived up to his word. Both sides have apparently agreed to abide by the independent investigation. Oi,Oi,Oi!
The Chinese leader Xi Jinping, immaculately coiffured, stands tall, waves at everyone with a fixed, paternal smile. They’ve spent squillions on the conference. They stopped cars running in Beijing and factories operating and sent all the government officials out of town (with their cars loaded on a special train until they hit the countryside) and as a consequence the normally dangerously-polluted capital is bathed in blue skies.
It’s all about the image and not so much of a problem for me but why can’t they have blue skies every day of the week for the coughing and spluttering Beijingers?
It could be Xi’s pitch to be King of Asia and damn the Americans. He’s handing out money to everyone (except the poor in China which make up about 60% of the population).
He’s just given so many billion to Pakistan ostensibly to support nuclear power project development but, according to analysts, really because Pakistan has said they’ll help him control the Islamic militants causing instability in North-Western China. Good luck with that.
Casting aspersions is perhaps impolite, but giving money to Pakistan and expecting something in return is somewhat of a gamble. Ask the Americans.
Talking economics over the opening days – before they get down to the business of who owns what island (it’s all owned by China, but that’s another story) – Xi has come up with an ingenuous way of describing China’s recent economic slowdown. He’s described it as the “new normal”. 新常态 xinchangtai. Actually the term was first used by some American as a result of the 2008 economic crisis but who’s going to shirt-front Xi and tell him he’s a copycat when he’s the one handing out all the money?
In the news report I read it said the current economic slowdown is the “new normal” because there used to be an old one?
I think there’s something missing in the translation but you get the idea. It means relax, right? Sure you might be overweight, broke, dissipated, always wrong, incontinent, broke, unemployed, homeless, but relax – as they’re saying at APEC, it’s the “new normal”.
Chris L. Taylor
