Please have a look at China before giving Australia a lecture.

Concerns about China have more to do with the type of state China is, so please keep the discussion real.

China should not be allowed to buy Australian land until, at least, Australians can buy land in China. This equality of treatment is the very basis of mutual respect!

That having been said, with food insecurity increasing worldwide, Australia should not be allowing agricultural land to be sold to non-nationals at all. When push comes to shove and people are hungry and desperate, you can expect China to defend access to its agricultural holdings in Australia and, if these are large enough, then military action (or e.g. blockage of shipping lanes to Australia) could not be ruled out.

Just a bit of a kid are you Chan. Perhaps you're a bit short of time to do a bit of research too.

Well just to help you I'll point out that China is the third subject of this debate. If you were old enough you would have witnessed the exact same thing, when it was first the UK citizens, & then the USA citizens buying up the place. Similar people bitched back then, & equally dumb journalists played it up, big time, so don't take it personally Chan.

I personally do have a little worry that this time it is a foreign government buying us out of house & home, but we will probably survive. Being Chinese, they will sell what they produce to the highest bidder, there has never been much room for sentiment in Chinese business. So don't worry michael, we'll get first bite [do you like that one], at the food they produce here.

Is this article serious, or an attempt at satire? Foreign investment is a political and economic issue that's quite independent of ethnic politics---wrong forum.

The author seems completely unaware of the double standards she's using, on her criteria the Chinese are even worse racists. I would advise Dr Chan Cheah that anyone can play the race card. I've also had enough of hypocritical lectures.

Dr Chan, you are stereotyping Australians, there's a word for that..

Ho hum. We've blithely outsourced carbon emissions, slave labour and environmental damage to China to satisfy our endless appetite for cheap crap, so why not add food production. Melamine for lunch, anyone? At least China is forward looking and has plans well into the future, not just up to the next election. I'm sure when we negotiate our 'free trade' agreement with China we'll sign up to let them walk all over us, same as we did with the Americans.

So Chan, why can't we Australians buy land in China?

Agreed mac; the racial and ethnic implications made by the author are most unfortunate, entirely misplaced, and highly hypocritical.

Dr Chan (or Dr Cheah?) writes:

< … many of our government agencies have failed to acknowledge and effectively manage reverse racism (I would have said the effects of 'positive discrimination') against more established Australians. >

Eh? Positive discrimination? Does this mean that she is indeed a reverse racist?

Australian soil and productivity should remain in the complete control of Australians. There should be no foreign ownership.

Chinese immigration, as with all immigrants groups, should be kept very small, in line with a net zero immigration / population stabilisation policy.

Crikey, we have almost critically unsolvable problems now with the influence of big business on government and hence on our addiction to a totally antisustainable momentum, in terms of absurdly high population growth and maximised mining activity, to name just two things.

The LAST thing we need is for our government’s authority, and hence our ability to develop a sustainability strategy, to be progressively further eroded by ever-increasing vested interests from foreign ownership, the presence of more multinationals or foreign companies and larger cohorts of foreign people whose loyalties lie with their home nations and short-term vested interests, and not with Australia.

So Sorry Chan Cheah, but you will get total disagreement from me regarding the tenet of this article.

Ludwig,

Yes, indeed

I'm fed up with the "Only Caucasian people are racist" propaganda line and the easy assumption of the moral high ground by "representatives" of ethnic minorities in this country. The article is a transparent attempt to play the race card and the author has such a poor hand! Most Western societies have far better human rights records than their loud and hypocritical Asian critics. We could ask the Tibetans and Uighurs their opinions of the Han Chinese, for example.

I've recently gone 15 cyber rounds with "Big Australia" boosters, their position is that critics of high population growth are racists. They didn't present any economic or political evidence in support of high population growth rates, only ad hominem attacks.
Apparently the theory is, that no matter how flimsy the evidence is, play the race card and all the guilt-ridden liberals will run for cover.

Why are we having this debate? Is it because a few of us have finally woken up to the fact that the only thing we get from foreign investment, is an opportunity to line a few foreigners' pockets, or pay more for just about everything we need?
All my problems with mainland China, are linked to human rights, be it in the treatment of peaceful Falun Gong practitioners or Tibetans!
We should renegotiate our current FTA's so that reprecoscity is not only included, but mandatory.
This will finally set the scene for any future free trade agreements with anyone.
Moreover, given our massive resource base and very limited arable land, ownership ought to be limited to Australian citizens, new or old! And therefore, any proposed development subject to the same enforcible standards, as would apply, to any other Australian national!
We have to finally examine the fiction, that we actually need foreign capital; given, a virtually worthless letter of credit, allowed the capital required, to flow; and open up and develop the multi-trillion dollar iron ore resources, of the Pilbra.
Capital is flowing into this country now, like virtual rivers of gold!
And we need something else besides the ever enduring taxpayer, to support the interest the foreign investors expect/get.
We need to use this money train for as long as it runs, to open up our quite massive and untouched north eastern resources.
Only a fool living in a fools paradise would expect, we can continue to rely on middle east sourced energy resources for very much longer!
Sure lets sell everything they want to the Chinese; and buy whatever we need from them!
Just don't include the family silver or the farm!
Least we follow the Scots or the Irish; and history repeating itself, and become impoverished tenants eking out an existence on our own land yet again, as virtual slaves; to demonstrably arrogant and brutal, foreign owners?
Yes it is an emotive issue, particularly for those who get it and understand, we belong to the land, rather than visa versa!
Rhrosty.

Yes, I agree. This article is just a blatant example of asian racism and their underlying belief in their own superiority. Dr chan seems to feel and think that the whole of Australia should change to suit her own myopic vision that unfortunately does NOT include white people. The last thing this country needs is a flood of migrants and so called 'foreign investment' or 'globalisation'. Feel free to leave Australia, Dr Chan.

It's a bit rich to see crocodile tears about foreign ownership of australian soil when home grown, ie green, genocide is promoting the transfer.
Either walk the walk or get out of the way.

Just ask yourself who is selling the land ? Australians ! Don't blame the buyer for buying, blame the seller for selling.
Australians would sell to the Taliban if they offered more money. Australia is not for sale, Australians are.

Exactly Indi. We can’t blame the Chinese or anyone else for trying to buy Aussie land or get as much control over mines or businesses of all sorts as they can.

It is the mongrel Australian government that is being so extraordinarily wrong-headed in whittling away Australian authority over its own land, resources…. and future wellbeing!

why can't we Australians buy land in China?
rehctub,
Because China has a Government which wants China to remain chinese unlike Australia.
I think one of the reasons Australia is disintegrating is that we think we are multicultural & this multi culture works. Well, it doesn't work. We're not multicultural, we're supporting enclaves of mono cultures which delight in the ease of being able to achieve their objective.

The author missed the point.
Most international land investors invest to make money in the food market.
The Chinese are investing in land to send the produce to China in Chinese ships, probably.
How long before 473 visas for several thousand Chinese labourers to
operate the farms, and then transfer pricing not even leaving any tax behind.

As other posters have noted, the foreign investment debate should be about the national interest and whether or not it is wise for Australia's strategic assets to fall into foreign hands. Race is irrelevant.

"While multiculturalism has enjoyed some success, many of our government agencies have failed to acknowledge and effectively manage reverse racism (I would have said the effects of 'positive discrimination') against more established Australians. That unaddressed community frustration felt by some established Australians is surfacing now, and fuelling the sentiments of public debates."

While I don't see how any of this is germane to the issue of foreign investment, Chan has a point here. In fact, it is a point I've made a number of times myself.

Recently-arrived ethnic groups are encouraged under multiculturalism to promote their own ethnic identities and their own group interests. Ethnic minority organisations – cultural centres, business networks and political lobbies like FECCA – are accepted and treated with respect by politicians. However, at the same time, any attempt by members of the Anglo-Celtic Australian majority to advance their own group interests is immediately condemned. Australians of Anglo-Celtic descent are expected to forgo group loyalties and are even punished for showing them in politics and business. How can something be so precious and notable for one section of society but worthless and disreputable for another?

This double standard is most noticeable in immigration matters. Apparently, it is acceptable, even noble, for immigrant minorities to lobby for the importation of more of their own kind. No one in the media accuses them of racism, and instead presents people wishing to maintain the status quo as hatemongers. Yet why is it necessarily more wrong for Anglo-Celtic Australians to want the country to be more full of people like them? Recently-arrived minorities openly brag about their growing demographic strength, while Anglo-Celtic Australians are called racists merely for expressing concern that current immigration policy is rapidly reducing their percentage of the population.

Thank God it looks as though the tide's finally turning. Let's hope it is a high one with plenty of common sense. It got to the stage where a tsunami is needed to flush the nonsense.

The tide is turning?

Doesn’t look like it from where I sit!

Exactly Bazz, first, chinese own the land and mines, then they own the produce, then they introduce 457 visas so chinese labour is used and chinese labour only. What next? chinese military to 'protect' chinese assets in Australia? How would chinese people like it if the chinese government suddenly flooded chinese cities, towns and villagers with foreigners and telling the local populations that this would benefit the locals culturally and economically? They would be revolted and protest en masse! I see no evidence that chinese live peacefully with the Uigher minority in the west of that country. Take your drivel and leave Australia Dr chan!