Australia has free-trade agreements around the world.

Then "review" those country's "debt" level owed to China - and for what purpose, as opposed to repaying such debt - without losing their assets if payment not forthcoming.

It's an interesting investigation.....one we should all conduct, not excluding our Government with Asian Pacific Nations.

'Our capital, Sydney' - epic brain-fart there.
Ah well, better to admit it before someone else points it out...

I'm not aware that either our PM or our Foreign
Minister has "goaded" China in any way.

However, China for Australia is a problem. Australia
has for so long lived in a region - and to a certain
extent - a whole world shaped by our government's
powerful allies - Britain and America.

We're not used to dealing with powerful states that are
not our allies.

We find ourselves dealing with a country like China.
In the past business and national security did not really
intersect. Now they do.

This creates a need for new habits, for dialogue among
stakeholders with very different perspectives. Australia
must calmly hold its ground with China.

However it also need to listen to advisors who understand
the cultural differences and can offer advice in how to
interact appropriately.

Sound Calm perspective Foxy.. Some of the preceding comments reflect a lack of the long game an perspective. China is aggressive and anyone who believes that old curtesy of ensuring we must ensure they "save face" is living in the world of La La Land. Time to row up People of the 'western world', Chai-na is on the move and we are mere collateral damage, as is Hong Kong!

Foxy

Cultural differences" ….. mmmmm

China "coughs" - infects the World with a virus that decimates the World's economy.

China knew about virus in "October" via shutting down Lab for two weeks.

Taiwan alerted WHO in December as to "virus", however as Taiwan is "not a recognised country by WHO/China - alert not passed on.

Seriously - I can go on.

If China were "honest" - it could have prevented 95% of infections being carried world wide.

Of course, they will not admit to this failure - and it's time for the world to investigate further.

Clearly, when you say you don't like the Chinese race, rather than blame the CCP, i believe you would be saying a racist statement.

I despite the CCP, but recognise that many Chinese are good people, including the ones living in Hong Kong which are fighting for democracy and also despise the CCP.
Posted by Chris Lewis, Friday, 22 May 2020 3:22:13 PM

This interesting view comes up periodically- the leadership is not the people. There are a number of assumptions that are attached to this concept. I remember hearing Sadam Hussein said something like even dictatorships need to listen to the people otherwise they won't be leaders for long. The flip side of this is that democracies can also perhaps act like dictatorships sometimes. Eg. Law without a mandate. Presumably leadership should be "of the people". There is some indication that government becomes more dictatorial the larger it becomes- China has one of the largest populations in the world- maybe it needs a dictatorial government to be stable. In that case perhaps the way to reduce dictatorship is to reduce the people.

A different example- In the Phillipines Marcos, Aquino, Estrada all accused of stealing money over about thirty years- but the amounts decreased over time by orders of magnitude- perhaps the institutions changed- perhaps an under recognized element of their leadership. It's not just issues with the government that are the issues but also the bureaucracy and vested interests.

Forcing them to change based on some arbitrary supposedly universal principle is a form of tyranny itself. To do so would distort things in ways we don't understand- and perhaps are impossible to understand. See Chaos Theory.

At some point you have to say that the problem is endemic and the people are incompatible with us- maybe we are in a sense racists- all people on both sides are all racists perhaps- they are all self interested- perhaps a certain amount of self interest at different levels of the hierarchy is a prerequisite for life- we aren't saying that they should be killed- but don't interfere with us