The China Trade Reality

China is a rising power with 1.3 Billion people. Its government is totalitarian, and focussed on improving its place in the world. From a Chinese point of view the West exploited it when it could, and it is now taking its rightful place as the Middle Kingdom, in the centre with others coming to it.

It is using soft power with far more success than the USA, and now it has far more money to do this, so can take a longer view. If it loses money but gains influence, so be it.

It is willing to do whatever it takes. It simply expropriates the islands in the the South China sea. It locks up dissidents and suppresses whole populations in Tibet, the Uyghurs and now Hong Kong. It sends it students to foreign universities and brings them back- it will not use them in the longer term. It is not enthusiastic about other people’s patents, and takes their intellectual property when it can. (It might be noted that the US did this to the UK a century and half ago with cotton processing).

But to rail against this is shouting at the moon. Are they going to respect US patent laws that keep supernormal profits on things for 25 years, and simply pay money while their people are poorer? The fear of democracy is more universal in those with power, and of course cannot be morally justified, but that does jot make it any less real. Their grasp and use of data technology gives their government a strength that Western governments still struggle to get.

Australia foolishly led the world in demanding China’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis be examined by WHO. It merely upset them. The investigation of this would have gone ahead anyway. It seems that their handling of it was tardy at first, then ruthless and effective. There are now more deaths in the US than cases in China if the figures are to be believed. So much for bad handling!

Now as we see our dependence on them and talk about reviving our manufacturing and being less dependent on their economy, we might reflect how many people are there, and how we can make other smaller populations take as much of our exports.

Truth, morality, democracy and governance are all great things to work for, but in the end, we live in the framework of reality.Do you stop supplying half of your Shiraz to China because the government says we need to “diversify”? You can’t give up that business to pursue wine sales in teetotal India or Indonesia.About This Websitesmh.com.auReality check on finding new export markets: China’s demand dwarfs the restDo you stop supplying half of your Shiraz to China because the government says we need to “diversify”? You can’t give up that business to pursue wine sales in teetotal India or Indonesia.