02-03 Populations

A New Zealand First Party that wants to stop the “Asian invasion”? Sounds like Donald Trump’s “America First” Republican Party worrying about the “Mexican invasion”.
Those of us living in Canada can learn much about population issues by studying the US, Australia and New Zealand. We all have white European-based populations that are not having enough babies to compensate for deaths. And we all have seniors that are living longer and putting a burden on a shrinking working population.
New Zealand is of special interest because, like Canada, they have a large indigenous population called the Maori, people of Polynesian descent who represent about 14% of the population. The parade in the photos shows them politically organized. They feel their language and culture is more threatened by the influx of Asians than the white population.
And both Australia and New Zealand have a sizeable population from the Pacific Islands. Papua New Guinea and the Solomon Islands, for example, are very close to Australia. Already something like five islands in the Solomon Islands chain have disappeared as a result of rising ocean waters. So expect climate change, refugees and immigration to become the hot population issue facing Australia.
In terms of immigration both New Zealand and Australia are two of the most open societies. They have healthy population growth from immigration to help pay the pensions of old white folks.
Immigrants to pay the necessary taxes to fund the welfare state is a global issue. Canada, New Zealand and Australia are handling it well. The US does not have this problem because its Hispanic population is having large families. But nations with shrinking populations, like Russia and Japan, are facing a future crisis.
Chinese immigration into Australia and New Zealand since 1990 is relatively massive in scale. But like the doctor in the photo, that has lived in Australia for 30 years, most Chinese prosper wherever they go.
And the Chinese culture has also been accepted everywhere. I talked to an Australian colleague who referred to the deference young Chinese show for their elders as one of the most beautiful elements of their culture. I agreed, and told him how they stand up when my wife and I enter a subway car in Toronto.
I noticed the huge Chinese population in both Sydney Australia and Auckland, New Zealand when we visited there in 2008. A Chinese restaurant in Sydney in which all the walls were the sides of monster aquariums was the experience of a lifetime. We all walked about picking out which fish would be netted and cooked fresh for our dinner.
When the Chinese say they like to buy fresh food they are not kidding. I saw a Chinese lady buy six sparrows in Hong Kong, which were caught in a cage and their necks broken.
And the immigration politics of previous governments attempting to restrict immigration by putting in place tough regulations on speaking English was just a non-issue for the Chinese. Something like 300 million Chinese are learning English. And from our experience in China in 1985, they speak the language without an accent.
My judgement call from my trips to China, Australia and New Zealand is that Chinese power will eventually be exercised globally, not just through trade but through population transfers.