What is wrong with everybody? Two years ago, China tried to end Australian democracy. Now it is we that are crawling back:
On Friday, the government confirmed that after three years and a lengthy World Trade Organisation dispute settlement, Beijing had scrapped the trade impediment.
It cost the industry nearly $1 billion a year, and the decision has been welcomed widely from Australian growers.
But asked whether the Chinese government had received any concessions on the trade front, or any other trade-off for the decision, Senator Watt was quick to refute.
Australia is getting nothing out of this. A lousy billion dollars here and there to re-risk our trade profile:
What we gave up in return was the newly established diplomatic normative of China scepticism.
These were central to driving a global backflip against Chinese trade dependence so large that foreign direct investment into the dictatorship collapsed:
Now we have backflipped and are making no strategic sense. Ask yourself:
- If you calculate that liberal states can contain Chinese aggression, we should contribute to the effort.
- If you calculate that liberal states can’t contain Chinese aggression, we should be preparing for it via ongoing trade diversification.
Penny Wong admits this implicitly by openly warning Australian firms away from China, as her policies do the opposite.
Self-evidently, she is lying to cover the re-engagement. Probably to stop a lunatic Paul Keating from bursting out of his straight jacket into the national media.
It’s Labor treason in the plain light of day.
