Pericles
"Why it is OK for Australian companies to expand overseas... Britain, Spain, Portugal all used to have extensive world "interests", that were built on similar foundations.....but the same activity is somehow to be feared when conducted by foreign investors on our soil."
Do not you know what happened to people of the countries where Britain, Spain or Portugal went?
Do not you know why it is OK for Australian companies to expand overseas?
Do not you know who win and who lose from the economic colonization?
Do not you know that sooner or later the colonists (from economic colonization) will bring their culture too?
THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENT BETWEEN EUROPEAN AND CHINESE CIVILIZATION.
Do not you know that of cause their population that even if come few persons here from their busuness we will be a minority?
Do not you know that Chinese businessmen do not understand from human rights, labor rights or DEMOCRATIC PRINCIOLESS OR VALUES?
Do not you know that as more Chinese come here especially as businessmen we put more at risk our values?
Britain, Spain or Portugal did what they did to other people many years before, do you expect from us to allow Chinese to do the same things in Australia?
I am European (GREEK) and I prefer to see here European Companies than Asian one.
IT IS NOT ONLY FOR ECONOMIC VALUES, BUT FOR DIFFERENT CIVILIZATIONS.

Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

I've left it a couple of days, ASymeonakis, just in case you came back and said "... ho ho, only kidding"

Because you surely were, weren't you?

>>Do not you know what happened to people of the countries where Britain, Spain or Portugal went?
Do not you know why it is OK for Australian companies to expand overseas?
Do not you know who win and who lose from the economic colonization?
Do not you know that sooner or later the colonists (from economic colonization) will bring their culture too?
THERE IS A HUGE DIFFERENT BETWEEN EUROPEAN AND CHINESE CIVILIZATION<<

Answering a question with a string of - almost unrelated - questions in return, is intellectually lazy, and totally unedifying.

For one thing, it does not answer my original question, which was basically "we have done it ourselves, what moral justification do we now employ to object when someone else does the same?"

So, at the risk of getting nothing more enlightening than another xenophobic tirade, can you try again, not to answer this question with another question, but to simply state your case.

>>Do not you know that Chinese businessmen do not understand from human rights, labor rights or DEMOCRATIC PRINCIOLESS [sic] OR VALUES?<<

I suspect from this that you have not worked with Chinese business partners. I have, and can assure you that those I worked with were honest, and treated their employees well. I did not enquire as to their politics, in the same way I do not ask my Australian business partners theirs.

>>I am European (GREEK) and I prefer to see here European Companies than Asian one. IT IS NOT ONLY FOR ECONOMIC VALUES, BUT FOR DIFFERENT CIVILIZATIONS.<<

You are entitled to your preference. But if they come here and work under Australian law, what legitimate objection can you possibly have?

You are aware, of course, that there are people in Melbourne who think the way you do, but about Greeks.

How do you feel about that?