Now the Commies in China have slapped a massive tariff on Aussie wine. It is hypocritical of all the KRudd's and Jane Caro's of this country to demand we cave in to the CCP bullies and human-rights abusers so we can sell our stuff there.
Do they have shares in wine companies and vineyards?
Wine is just the latest commodity and people here will lose jobs and growth. China is reality and short of invading the country with our big friends we aren't going to change anything.
The question here is why we are the ones leading the charge ??? Sure it plays well to the local reactionary wrought but what's the end game here. Is anyone lining up with us, taking reciprocating action against China. No, on the contrary they're jumping in to pick up the trade we're throwing away.
Now that we're finding our moral compass, China will watch how we deal with the alleged atrocities committed in Afghanistan. God it's hard to be humble...
A rampant special operations group killing a few dozen civilians is nothing in comparison to the historical and present-day crimes of the Communist Party of China. If it was the Chinese committing those atrocities in Afghanistan it would have been permanently buried - they would have shot all the family members and witnesses just to make sure no bad news got out.
As a nation we uncover that bad behavior and investigate it making it public - that simply doesn't happen in China.
Anyway I find myself in agreement with you that we can't change the outcome anyway - but not that we're 'leading the charge' - far from it, we're just being picked on entirely due to being in the wrong place at the wrong time. The reality is that the Chinese are singling us out because:
- We're much more vulnerable than any other western liberal democracy with 40% of our exports headed for China;
- A member of the 'five eyes' Anglosphere intelligence group;
- A close ally of the USA with the ANZUS treaty having been in place for almost eighty years;
- We also have American military installations on our territory.
All these things make us a likely target for their experimental treatment - they're doing stuff to us that they lack the courage to do to the United States because the USA will follow through with Trump's threat to set up an entirely separate trade bloc, although with Mister Magoo coming into office its likely that they'll get a softer reception to their aggression (not sure at this point, we'll have to see).
Referring their unfair barley and wine tariffs to the WTO as I noticed Simon Birmingham is doing on the news is going to be completely futile - what action will the WTO take against the behemoth that is China? Slap them with a wet lettuce leaf?
The Chinese have been getting extremely wealthy thanks to the largess of the west allowing them into the WTO without forcing them to follow the rules - they're not prepared to try out their new-found punishments on the rest of the liberal democratic world (not yet anyway). We're a test case to see how the west will react... probably just with mealy-mouthed platitudes like the Labor Party have been doing.