"Chutzpah" is brazen effrontery. The classic illustration is of a man who murdered his parents, then threw himself on the mercy of the court, pleading that he was an orphan.
China has shamed itself and lost face in New Zealand with and act of chutzpah as ludicrous as the account above. According to Stuff,
China has demanded New Zealand give special compensation to Chinese families who lost their children in the Christchurch earthquake. Seven Chinese nationals have been named as dead while 24 are missing, all from the CTV building-based language school.
Is the demand based upon race? Or upon China's long held view that it is earth's Middle Kingdom and that we in the outer regions are barbarians? Not at all. The Chinese ambassador has been demanding extra compensation because of the "special circumstances" of the bereaved Chinese parents.
An embassy official coordinating the disaster relief centre, Cheng Lee, told Radio New Zealand that China's situation was unusual due to the fact that by law families there could only have one child per family.
"There is a very notable difference in terms of the family situation between the Chinese family members and other foreign family members," he said. "You can expect how lonely, how desperate they are, not only from losing loved ones, but losing almost entirely their source of economic assistance after retirement."
To be sure the suffering of parents losing an only child would be extreme. Coupled with the fact that in China, one's only child is one's retirement plan, the suffering is not just emotional--it is also financial. All this we can understand. Just as we can understand how the man who murdered his parents might suffer as an orphan.
Whilst the immediate cause of suffering for these bereaved parents has been the earthquake in Christchurch, the ultimate cause is a deliberate benighted policy of the Chinese government. The "one child policy", we believe, is already resulting in untold damage and will wreak destruction to Chinese society in the long term. It is an overt act of rebellion against the Living God which will be judged by the nation reaping its fearsome consequences.
Before too long Chinese parents who have suffered adverse consequences as a result of losing their only legally permitted child are going to rise up against their government and demand redress. Maybe that's the real reason the Chinese Ambassador has been pushing so hard for extra compensation from the New Zealand government. Anything to nip potential unrest in the bud.
In the meantime, the Chinese government has just lost face and shamed itself in New Zealand. Chutzpah is what it is.
1 comment:
I only hope the NZ Government sees it this way.
The request of the Chinese Ambassador is interesting given that our free trade agreement with China is not that old. I wonder if there are any economic implications for NZ if we deny the request or whether to even consider this is to scary an option for NZ politicians. I have seen Phil Goff's response this request but have not seen what John Key's is.
The fact that ACC may well provide some payment for the families of the victims is more than many other countries would provide.
Another consideration is that many of those who were killed may well have taken out travel insurance so the parents could well be beneficiaries of this, not that you would know from the Ambassador's request.
Having said that; because the child of a one child family is the source of retirement support for their parents, don't these parents take out life insurance on their children given that there is quite a risk that many will loose their children to accident or illness in China before the parents retire? What happens is that situation?
Does the death of a child outside of China preclude these families from a particular entitlement that they would otherwise have qualified for? What does the Chinese Govt do, if anything, for the parents of one child families who suffer the death of their only child in China?
The Ambassador's request raises many, many questions.
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