Now THIS is interesting: I don't want to look a gift horse in the mouth, but the Chinese are pretty smart, and Australia generally, is not. So what's amiss here? Or are we really the excitable girl who's dad owns a pub? Time to teach your kids to speak Mandarin if you want them to have a future it seems.
Quick summary: Source: http://www.smh.com.au/national/call...s-big-time-20141116-11npnq.html#ixzz3JEmYXRcX Source: http://www.smh.com.au/national/call...s-big-time-20141116-11npnq.html#ixzz3JEmYXRcX
Well if I was a betting man, and I am, I would say China is going to float their currency in some form or another in a few years and as the Yuan is considerably undervalued it would make our exports to China cheaper and their imports to us more expensive as they slowly try to focus their attention more on domestic consumption and less on exports.
As China has a rapidly swelling and vast middle class developing the agreement would be good for Australian exporters of quality items that are perceived by aspirational Chinese as boutique and cool, just as people here buy VW Golfs because they think that it gives them Euro cachet. They will be wanting "made in Europe/Japan/NZ/Australia" on their stuff for quite a while until "Made in China" reaches the quality level perception that "Made in Japan" has.
I wasn't expecting that good of a deal! This is great news for Australia and something the Abbott government should rightly boast about. It's a shame that the coal tariffs will stick with us for 2 years though.
Alan Jones on the radio put both boots into Abbott on his radio show. The link has some of the barrage. He makes a good point on the highlight:
How does it benefit me to ban someone who will pay the most for my property just because they won't (or are banned) from trading with me? Cutting my own nose off to spite my face.
The more I look at this issue the less I can see wrong with it - leaving aside the Aussie xenophobia that wants to close up the borders. It will be a different issue if Chinese investment buys up the land and people's it with Chinese labour and sends to product and proceeds offshore of course. But this was the anti-Japansese message of the 80's when they were buying Queensland. It's pretty much obvious from statements from the Chinese that they see external trade arrangements as a way to build the Middle Kingdom. I've never thought they wanted to expand and take over the world, but they do like money.
Yes I was recently reading that the Australian housing market is propped up and prevented from crashing because of Chinese investment. Also today I was reading in the age on Saturday an intersting article called rivals pitch their asian dreams (I can't find it otherwise i'd post it) about Australias role in regards to the China and US power struggle. The basic summary was its in Australia's interest to to please both sides but its difficult to do, it mentioned the denial to join AIIB and the recent FTA, and how Australia could capitalise of its pivotal role. Its also interesting to know that Hockey wanted to join the AIIB but Abbott and Bishop opposed this. What would you guys do? How would you handle this situation? I personally think we should Embrace China a little more than we do, so that we can stop China and Russia from coming together and truly dominating. Australia should also use the threat of joining the AIIB as a bargaining chip when discussions come up about emissions.
I don't know enough about the AIIB to really comment on the pros and cons. Presumably it requires a sizeable chunk of seed capital. There's a wider question about why the Australian Government should be involved in any of the other international banks (such as the ADB and World Bank) let alone throw their lot into another one. As I've said in the past (somewhere on here - perhaps in the General Discussion section), although we should be friendly and supportive of anyone who wishes to engage peacefully with us, we still have some very strong political, legal, social and cultural ties to the English-derived Liberal Democracies such as the USA, Canada, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Singapore, India etc (and the UK of course). In terms of acting for a goal of some sort of diplomatic advantage (ie by preventing some sort of a China-Russia "axis-of-evil" bloc) then I must admit that I loathe that sort of stuff. IMHO dealing openly and honestly (within reason) is always preferable to such "shady" dealing. But this is why I'd be a terrible diplomat and all of the guys at DFAT hate talking with me about this stuff :lol:
I completely agree with both points you've made, that's why I'm a little dubious about the AIIB and I'd imagine it would favour its creators like all these kinds of things. also by keeping the Chinese and the Russians split you would preserve a Western Hegemony.
Well the winemaking industry is getting drunk celebrating this deal, they are over the moon getting access to that market.
It's a great deal for Victoria. In 2010-11, 303,270 tonnes (or 76 per cent) of Victoria's grapes were produced for wine making. With approximately 19 per cent of Australia's wine grape plantings, Victoria is the third largest wine grape producing state. With over 600 wineries, Victoria has more wine producers than any other Australian wine-producing state Napthine should make use of this achievement. Source http://www.depi.vic.gov.au/agricult...-profile/victorias-grape-industry-winter-2012 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_wine and more info http://www.depi.vic.gov.au/agriculture-and-food/horticulture/wine-and-grapes/grape-industry-profile http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/X6897E/x6897e04.htm
It was a Howard initiative followed up on by Labor to fruition under Abbott. Not wise politically for either party to claim it really. The test will be which mob now best capitalises on the concessions and advantages gained. If I had kids though I'd surely be teaching them mandarin. As the line from 'Looper' goes, I'm from the future, go to China!
I just cannot understand claims that corporations owned and financed by a communist, totalitarian state for the benefit of foreign princelings and their cronies should be allowed to buy Australian assets when their is no reciprocation. Bilateral free trade is one thing, one sided capital flows is another and one sided movement of labour is something else again. It's obvious that all flows have to be bilateral to be fair. And I think it is also grossly unfair to characterise Australians as more xenophobic than the Chinese. The truth is, though, that all these distinctions about borders and identity are arbitrary and changeable. As the Australian aborigines succumbed to the ceaseless population pressure of the british settlers, the cultural identity of Australia developed over the past 200 years is now being overwhelmed by a greater force.
So India is the next goal. Government announces FTA talks with India Trade minister Andrew Robb said the agreement with China is "part of the trifecta". "We've got the Japanese one concluded in May and we've got the Korean one concluded before that," Mr Robb said. "The three countries themselves, in north Asia, represent 52 per cent of our current exports. So we have got a big spread. "We are now starting to talk to India about a free trade agreement over the next 12 months. "That's another 1.2 billion people, and we've got a big effort going on in Indonesia, and the Gulf States. "So there is a lot of other activity happening and I think you will find that, you know, we will be providing [for] as we do now, so many parts of the world for decades and decades to come."
