Well it's the world turned upside down, isn't it? It wasn't that long ago when the Chinese were starving by the million under the socialism of Mao. And now the USA, whose government is more socialist than that of Red China, and taking over more and more private industries every year, wants protection from their competition!

The US cannot continue to enjoy its former living standards by keeping going into debt to China, which is what has been happening, paying for TVs with paper money based on nothing. They have no right to a living standard based on producing nothing but debt and exporting inflation; and there is no reason why any policy should support such an end.

I live in Far North Queensland. People from Sydney, Melbourne and the mining communties come here and buy property they will never live in. They force the price up. The buildings they build not appropiate for the area and are ugly. They do little business investment in the area. The economic input is tourism where the shareholder of Hilton would probably make more than the housekeeper. So people are shut out of certain areas of the city dominated by those outsiders that buy property and those outsiders that stay there for holiday, backpacker labour and transient workers abound.

Get used to it, we may not have invented capitalism but we have fined tuned it. Reap what you sow.

agree Missus;

I think what Chris is vaguely implying we should do to buyers in China we should make standard practice domestically.

So I personally can't complain.

And I'm not so much threatened by China as the general investment/purchase practices China is being singled out for in general.

An interesting piece.

Rarely is there an article on OLO so replete with xenophobic innuendo, and so empty of specifics

"So just how liberal should the US and other Western nations be"

Is "liberal" now a dirty word?

"But as communist China seeks to flex its muscle, Western generosity may prove much less generous."

Generous? Was it generosity that drove us to take advantage of the economic benefits that China's cheap exports provided?

I didn't hear too many complaints from the previous government, that encouraging Australians to borrow to the hilt in order to snap up a new plasma TV for the spare room would lead to perdition.

In fact, I seem to recall that they took all the credit for the wonderful standard of living they provided us.

Generosity? Greed.

"How long do Western policy-makers believe they can avoid really tough decisions about China?"

And those "tough decisions" might be.... what? We won't win a trade war, that's for sure.

"And for how long will Australians tolerate much greater influence by Chinese who may have acquired their wealth within China’s dodgy political system?"

Is it our business, how they come by their money? Is it any of theirs, how we acquired ours?

"home buyers in Melbourne complaining of being frozen out of a tight housing market by Chinese purchasers who have no intention of living in their new properties"

Of course. No Australian would consider such a dastardly trick, would they? Unheard of, eh.

"The rise of China should be a major political issue in Australia"

Not really. It's business, that's all. The fear of communism is surely a 1950s thing.

"And where is Australia’s academic concern about a rising China?"

That's just scraping the barrel. Are we talking economies, politics or culture here?

"Dream on if one thinks that Western nations can compete with communist China."

Perhaps the author should be less concerned about competing with, than living alongside.

In the sixteenth century, India's GDP was 25% of the world economy, China's was also around 25%.

The world turns. We don't have inalienable rights.

Get used to it.

See the Missus, hi-ya from Bushbred.

If you've studied Aussie economics, you surely must have heard the terms pitstock politics and quarry economics.

Though many spit with fury when academics mention it, certainly it cannot be denied.

Indeed, they are terms that really go back to the early 19th century, or even further in the West, when both Vlaming and Dampier considered Western SouthLand, simply A Land in Need, and certainly not fit for white habitation.

Right now, whether we like it not, consider ourselves damned lucky that it was gold that first kept the bailiffs from our doorsteps, and now its China that's been doing the
same for us for years and years.

But certainly there are conscience troubles, especially for us Christians, who now have the problem of whether we should just keep old Communist China from our prayers, or with tongue in cheek just thank the Lord that China was granted so very little iron ore.

Oh, and I forgot, so very little coal.

Cheers, BB, Buntine, WA.

Perciles, you said "The world turns. We don't have inalienable rights.

Get used to it".

I have no problem with any nation rising. All I am arguing is that one nation, especially a communist one, should not receive most of the benefit while most others struggle.

Sure democracies have relied on some dodgy policies in recent years rather than hard policy decisions, but this does not rule out the need for policy adjustments in the future.

I do believe there will be a public backlash against China should it benefit most without playing by the same rules.