China is not a command economy anymore. The Chinese Govt
controls the bigger picture of politics, but their Govt
factories have been or are closing down, they failed miserably.

From telecommunications equipment to electric cars, it is
Chinese entrepreneurs, often with Western capital, who are
making the big changes. I watched an interesting documentary
today, of Buffett and Gates touring a Chinese company,
where Berkshire a couple of years ago, invested 300 million $.

Today that stake is worth 6 times that. Even Buffett and
Gates were blown away by the scale, speed and inginuity
being applied by this company, which started from virtually
nothing, just 15 years ago. Your mobile phone is most likely
kept alive by one of their batteries, but they are churning
out electric cars now.

The West borrows from the East, because Western consumers
have been living it up on borrowed money for too long.
But our own housing bubble has not been caused by the market,
but by poor Govt policies. The market has simply reacted to
those Govt signals.

Countries like Germany, Switzerland and others, don't borrow
from China and have no need. They also have large and clever
manufacturing sectors, underpinned by a skilled workforce.

Perhaps you should ask yourself why this is so, such a difference
amongst Western economies. Australia is not included lol, we
were just lucky to have volumes of resources, after the merino
sheep had been flogged to death and collapsed. Without China
buying, our iron ore might still be selling for 30$, instead of
130$.

Keating understood all this, but many Australians still don't.