The clown will say anything that comes into his head that denigrates CHINA. What AUSTRALIA must avoid is another COALITION style recession like the one imposed on the country by the economically incompetent Morison government. We cannot afford the "drunken sailor" style spending the previous mob embarked on. LABOR are trying to re-establish a sound economic relationship with CHINA, which hopefully will keep our heads above water and avid another recession.

The village idiot/tyrant arse kisser would have you believe that China is a paradise with zero unemployment, pensions and medical care and that it will grow to be a benevolent giant. This is primarily because the village idiot is also a habitual liar and fraud who not only wants to cover up China's human rights abuses, attacks on neighbours etc along with covering up the two senior greens convicted of paedophilia, the racist and violent greens councillor etc.

That Labor and the greens are largely responsible for Labor's $T debt the high inflation and interest rates and the cost of living burns his backside

In my opinion we should have avoided economic ties with China in the first place. China's treatment of the Uighurs and its behavior as a totalitarian state should have disqualified China as a trading partner. 'Pig Iron' Bob sent metal to Japan before WW2. The metal was returned to us in the form of ammunition. IBM and other corporations did business with Hitler. IBM machines were used to keep rack of the numbers of people sent to concentration camps and murdered. It is Quixotic to consider morality in trade. We will suffer economically for it. However, the sufferings of those oppressed by totalitarian states is greater than our economic suffering.

So many varied and good opinions expressed in this
discussion. All are valid (in my opinion). What the
future holds for us - we'll see. I'm concerned about
Taiwan - and China's intentions. Economically, I'm
still hoping that we'll be allright.

That China's economy is in serious trouble is a fact. From the beginning of its modernisation, China has relied on getting western companies to relocate to China in return for access to the Chinese markets.

But that model is now unravelling as western companies beginning to realise that getting access to the Chinese market isn't sufficient compensation for the problems of dealing with the CCP.

Thus, foreign investment in China is in free-fall- down by by 80% in just the last 12 months.

There are some new terms which we'll likely hear more of in the future. One of those is 'de-risking' ie avoiding the risks of being at the mercy of the CCP by relocating to places like Vietnam and India.

As more and more US companies pull out of China its been said that this is the era of deglobalisation. But in reality, its just a new phase of globalisation that excludes China. We in Australia fret about our future if China declines, but that is the wrong attitude. We are already in the process of realigning with China's successors. Look at the 'best of friends' alignment between Albo and India's Modi. India, among others (Vietnam, Cambodia, Philippines) are the beneficiaries of the unravelling of the CCP model.

An even more profound indication is that the US is relocating its economic system to North America. In recent days it was observed that Mexico just overtook China as the USA's major trading partner. Trump's America-First policy led to the so-called New NAFTA agreement which is now seeing an alignment of economic interests between the US and Mexico to the benefit of each. As this grow, the US needs China less and less and China has nowhere to turn. Equally Europe is decoupling for China.

Adam Smith observed "There's a lot of ruin in a nation" and that is so of China. Things aren't going to fall apart overnight. But as the population goes into free-fall and rapidly ages, Mark Steyn's prediction from 20-odd years ago that China would get old before it got rich, looks more and more accurate.

david f

Yes! Getting mixed up with a totalitarian, Communist country was shameful to say the least. The greedy corporates and the stupid politicians naively thought that trade and capitalism would make China like us got it wrong, as they usually do.

China is worse, and we are getting to be more like them.

The only thing that China has copied from the West is the vacuuming of more wealth from the bottom to the top. The 'lifting of the masses out of poverty' is a lie.

Even the much vaunted 'middle class' is only about 12% of the population. Two thirds of Chinese people are still peasants, farm labourers, industrial workers, who will never make it to the middle class. They work in the unregulated 'informal economy'. And, minorities continue to be slaves or just locked up, to keep them out of the way.

Outside of Beijing and the big cities, China is a flash back to forty years ago, where people barely eke out a living. People can't move to the cities without a permit. Those who get to the cities can work 60 hour weeks to be paid less than $100.

Much work has been in the frenzied construction business, but with the recent drop in population growth, it's back to the villages and extreme poverty for thousands and thousands of people.

The economy is described as 'classic Marxist exploitation'.

Writer, Nan Chen, says that Communist China has "skipped" the part of capitalism that in the West produced a well off middle class, and gone straight to the stage of extraordinary productivity, but with "disproportionately distributed wealth like the contemporary United States". ('China’s Missing Middle Class).

Australian politicians have been fooled by Communist China; they continue to be fooled by Communist China, and many of them are busting to visit Communist China.