When dealing with countries like China and Japan – members of the inscrutable Orient – an issue which must never be forgotten is that of ‘losing face’.
Xi Jinping has, for quite sometime, made it very clear that China resents its past treatment by western countries.
Like Morrison, Xi is a bully and, having secured lifetime tenure as the supreme leader in China, he clearly has no intention of turning China into a democracy, so Australia’s big mistake has been allowing our economy – which is currently in pretty poor shape – to become so dependent on trade with China.
About our only weapon in a diplomatic brawl with China is iron ore.
Rather than demanding apologies for an offensive, online post – knowing full well that it will never be offered, so making Morrison the one who loses face – or getting into a childish brawl over who is the worst offender on protecting human rights, Morrison should shrug off the insult by making little of it (“such a pity China should choose to be insulting over an acknowledged human rights issue when it constantly lies about its own”) and, instead, be beavering away to reduce dependence on trade with China.
If we manufactured our own steel, we would not need to export iron ore.
We have abundant renewable energy and a desperate need to create more employment, so what is holding us back?
We absolutely must reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, which means manufacturing electric vehicles and establishing recharging stations at frequent intervals – as well as looking at road trains having their own solar panels.
As far as agricultural produce is concerned, what crops would find a good market in other other Asian/Pacific countries? Most crops are seasonal so a switch of crop and market could solve some problems.
Xi is justifiably proud at the progress made in China in bringing people out of poverty and can, currently, look pityingly at the chaos in Europe and the Americas, where so many countries – claiming to be democracies – have failed to handle the pandemic anything like as effectively as has China – and Australia, thanks to the Premiers!
At our 2019 election, we were ourselves foolish in allowing the wool pulled to be pulled over our eyes by a man who offered no policies, projected the ‘Daggy Dad’ image, bribed all but the poorest with offers of tax cuts, and conned us into a dead end.
The pandemic gave him the chance to brush Parliament on one side to the maximum extent, enabled by an Opposition Leader who ought to resign, and he has become increasingly a petty dictator, who is all bluff and marketing, and no substance when it come to leadership.
The last Q and A for 2020 highlighted his total failure to fulfil promises of help to those who were victims of the 2019/2020 bush fires – and whose temporary homes, in caravans and make shift humpies, will shortly be again at risk in the current bush fire season.
He is all bluff and bluster and becomes more Trump-like every day, with his personal photographer shadowing him round and keeping his increasingly narcissistic image on the front pages of the Murdoch – and some other – press.
Now that COVID-19 is under control, and we seem to be making sufficient plans to maintain that state, we need to be spending money in a much more effective way, creating new markets and jobs and enabling the economy to benefit from people having money for non-essentials.
Germany has its Oktoberfest so why cannot Australia offer some carnivals around wine – and, with cruises starting up again, offer wines to the cruise lines on terms they cannot refuse!
And – most importantly – now we can, let’s get out in the streets and protest the Coalition’s failure to do what is necessary for our support, instead of spending our money on buying votes and supporting a climate-change denying Mathias Cormann OECD job campaign!
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