Ive seen it here a lot and on other websites.
Younger folk with an acceptance of our relationship to China.
With a eagerness to better that relationship...for the sake of the buck.
People with a willingness in their hearts to frequently overlook the abuse of human rights in China for the sake of Australias' economy.
I find it poor wisdom and distasteful to put a nations prosperity before her morality.
I find Australia almost a beggerman to a more powerful adversary that Kevin Rudd has been to such a government in recent times to build a cosy two-way for the sake of money and manufacturing, import and export.
Every day in China innocent people get persecuted, some killed by the States policies.
Shouldnt we take a stronger stand against such a government?
Become independent from her... rather than joining the rest of a morally weak world in "merging" with her.
Do you find Australia weak and kowtowing?
Why did the diggers give their lives in asian wars?
Wasnt it to fight ungodly, avaricious governments?
Not to have their vision of freedom and independence fade away? Surely not for the dollar!

Gibo I truly do not think it is wise to answer you, you are blinkered by your form of Christianity.
But in the 1970s this country took the first step to opening relations with China.
America followed and while not every thing is better we are a long way from the China we found then.
Australia again can talk to them, far better than closing doors, talk about human rights and a host of things like the environment.
Condemn me to a non existent hell if you wish but our fate is in our hands, humanity that is Iraq to me proves a better way than war must exist.
Last the west has strange eye sight- we tend to see others faults with perfect vision but find seeing our own impossible.

China will be, what China will be...

and they will always remember the Opium wars.. just like the Japanese remembered 1854 when Commodore Perry extorted 'openness to trade' from them with his gunboats off Tokyo harbour.

Australia... we are a cloak of many colors. Economics has always been the bottom line of human behavior and attitude. "What's in it for ME"?

So, those who are enjoying economic benefit from importing Chinese goods.. will suck up like a newborn infant.

Those who's businesses are threatened (like mine) will be the opposite.

Politics I guess, is where those competing views josstle for power and influence.

We abandoned 'principle' ages ago when it comes to politics and international relations.. we like to pick and choose our targets to portray ourselves on the high moral ground....but its all posturing and that...for economic benefit...

Me cynical ? haha.. you betcha

Glad you're not 'steering the course' Gibo. It's called TRADE. One trades with other nations for the E-CON-OMY. Without trade we'd have an E-CON-OMY like Zimbabwe. Actually, if you wanna know what it feels like to 'be a millionaire', spend fifty bucks on their currency. Let's stop buying oil from the arabs eh?. Surely there's been some human rights issues there....and African nations too....and Russia.....and Italy...damn inquisition....actually, write of ALL of Asia....and Japan....the sub continent as well....

Yes, I know all of this Belly.
I did live through the "early feelers" into China period.
What concerned me a bit was an attitude in many younger folk that I had observed in newspapers and Your Say columns right across Australia in recent times, perhaps a subconsicous thing, that Australia was now attached to China because of her huge manufacturing powers and her sway over our economy and we were subsequently locked irrevocably into a relationship that we depended on for our survival as a nation.
I saw the beginnings of a false vision, a lie even, in youth, that might one day might lead to some kind of subservience to what is basically an evil government.
The killing of the teenagers in Tiananmen Square (the subsequent denial) and of the people and the monks in Tibet and Chinas own born again christians and the Falun Gong folk and the minor criminals and who, apart from God knows who else has been murdered for small events, sustains that belief that they are primarily a wicked global power. The government that is.
According to the Bible, China never changes right up until the great outward march across asia (kings of the east).
I see a defeat in the hearts of our youth already.
We dont have to allow China to own us, in any way, we dont need to bend to her evil for the sake of economic things.
Thats how I saw the situation developing.
Defence, I fear, has long given up against a "complete defence of Australia".
No guns in the defence cupboard for the citizens. No plans for a home guard defence force. No decentralisation to escape Chinas nukes; and in support of a home guard. No ammunition sufficient for existing forces. Allowed most of the private firearms to vanish. Pathetic.

Yeah,I don't think that the "China Syndrome" of driving everything to the lowest common denominator is all that good.The Italian products I use are now surcumbing to the China Syndrome and quality is dropping off.

People have expectations of everything being cheap hence in my market,the fly by nighters are doing dirt cheap jobs and won't be around to honour warranties.

When the rest of China gets involved in their industrial revolution ie another 900 million people,they will have world dominance both economically and militarily.

We are will be minnows of the lowest order to be bought off at a price of their choosing.We presently sell them gas for 2c a litre under a thirty yr contract and sell coal for a song.We still have blossoming balance of payments deficit!

China will win by virtue of being intelligent,hard working,with a huge cheap labour force.They also have a totalitarian Govt they refuse to be hamstrung by the impotent democracies of the West.

Tibet and Taiwan could be the thin end of the wedge.