Frank wrote on Jul 25
th, 2021 at 3:33pm:
As in the imperial past, with China, other countries are expected to “tremble and obey”; tributaries to the ruler of “all under heaven”. To its leadership caste, China has always been the “middle kingdom”, the dominant country on Earth, with the “century of humiliation” an aberration to be expunged, even avenged. Thanks to globalisation, the whole world has become China’s neighbourhood; and thanks to Marxism-Leninism, the Chinese leadership’s overlord instincts have been reinforced.
The “14 grievances” against Australia that the Chinese embassy published last year: that Australia had blocked some Chinese investments; banned Huawei from sensitive national infrastructure; backed international law in the South China Sea; arced up against Chinese cyber attacks; and blocked Victorian participation in the contemporary version of an “unequal treaty”, the Belt and Road Initiative; all of them are replete with expectations that no self-respecting country could ever meet.
Yet it’s the
West itself that’s done so much to empower the bully we now face; a strategic challenger that’s likely to prove a far stronger competitor than the old Soviet Union because, unlike Russia, it’s a first-rate economy with increasingly a military to match.
Most obviously, from the time president Bill Clinton auspiced its entry into the World Trade Organisation, China has made use of other countries’ investment and technology to expropriate their industrial base. To us, back then, it seemed a richer China would inevitably become a freer China. To the CCP, of course, a richer China would be a stronger China, with the added bonus of being able to bring economic as well as military pressure to bear on its adversaries.
Cheap consumer goods now no longer seem such a bargain in return for the hollowing out of the industries that were the foundation of our economic strength and technological edge.
The pandemic has brought home the extent to which even the US had become dependent on China for drugs and PPE; and in Australia’s case, we simply cannot afford to be so dependent on an economic partner that uses trade as a strategic weapon to be turned on and off like a tap. But this isn’t just a problem for a country like us with 30 per cent of its trade with China. Every business with Chinese intermediate goods in its supply chains is exposed to economic pressure, which naturally enough has created a vast lobby for Western governments to do nothing to alienate Beijing. Hence the politics of standing up to Beijing has become so fraught that no one is prepared to challenge the developing-country status of the world’s number one trading nation already and soon-to-be number one economy.
Still, if there’s to be one lasting legacy of the Trump presidency, it’s likely to be the new consensus in Washington for economic decoupling from China. But this will require a very different approach from Western businesses that have grown so accustomed to outsourcing to China so many of their inputs, and it will mean higher short-term costs – yet vital though it is, it’s only one factor in our strategic vulnerability.
Countries such as the US, Britain and Australia are moving at breakneck speed to decarbonise our economies. To us, saving the planet is more important than our own relative place in it – more important, for instance, than affordable and reliable power and preserving the jobs and industries that depend on it. Yet even assuming that human emissions are the key factor in climate, it’s a one-sided and ultimately futile struggle if the world’s biggest emitter by far is not involved.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/wolf-warrior-at-the-door/news-story/6d...A key factor in the Beijing regime’s belligerence towards Taiwan is the palpable demonstration it provides that Chinese people can be both prosperous and free. It’s a real-life example of a genuine “democracy with Chinese characteristics”. I like most of what is written from the highlighted section there Frank
I cannot totally agree on the decarbonisation rhetoric in the last paragraph
It is obvious to me with China buying Volvo and majority stakes in land Rover Peugeot
With Tesla opening a massive factory in Guangdong
With China controlling 90% of the rare earth minerals and producing 90% of the batteries on Earth
And with a command and control economy
China is going to move to fully electric vehicles
And China is going to produce most of the world's fully electric vehicles
Decades in front of the rest of the world
And that is going to be such an enormous economic advantage
Similar to in Ford and Holden we're blazing ahead in Detroit
I mean how do you convert Australia to electric vehicles
It will be incredibly expensive and draining on the economy
All the authorities in China need to do
Is issued a decree that everybody will be driving an electric vehicle as of tomorrow and it will pretty much happen
That will clear the skies over the polluted cities
I also can't see how Australia can compete in manufacturing when we have completely shot themselves in the foot by having some of the dearest electricity prices on Earth
Time will tell I suppose
If the west is to rectify the situation
Literally billions of rather fat lazy and entitled unskilled people
Are going to have to completely turn their lives around
I'm not sure if that is possible
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Chinas Trade bullying (Read 275 times)
