How To Go From Sinophile to Sinophobia – Ask Australia

A country’s Foreign Affairs  isn’t only about setting policy but you need to understand economics in order to achieve your diplomatic objective.

Having a few politicians who are certified Sinophiles isn’t an automatic pass either.

Unfortunately, politicians and their advisors often aren’t financially literate let alone considered to be business people and because of this, they fail to understand how to deal with other countries over the length of many economic cycles.

In Australia’s case, it was the only large developed economy to survive the 2008 Global Financial Crisis. The fact that it has hasn’t posted a year with negative economic growth for 22 years in another anomaly.

Over the past 10 years, Australia’s economy benefitted from China’s appetite for its commodity resources (see China’s stimulus) and we loved them for it but after a while Aussies weren’t happy with what panned out, as the social and financial divide was then blamed on a “Two-Speed” economy.

When a large trading partner saves your economy, you say “Thank You”.

You don’t;

1. antagonise them by placing U.S. Marines in Darwin and lie about the real reason they are there.
2. call them dirty polluters (even though you have been one for a 100 years before them)
3. revile the fact that their students come to Australia to study and “take away places from Aussie students”.
4. ban their large telecomm networking company from participating in the construction of your own National Broadband Network
5. obstruct and oppose their companies from buying assets (farms) from a willing seller in a free market enterprise system &
6. charge their citizens more tax if they choose to buy property in Australia.

Oh Australia, you just don’t get it.