How has it come to this? Here's how
Duncan Calder, MD, Contour Capital
"How has it come to this ... ?" is Page 1 of today's The West Australian. Sadly, the opinion piece "China fix a two way street" that attempts to answer the question misses the point.
It is simple how we got in this mess. We chose to "spearhead the crusade" on behalf of Trump/Pompeo, even when it was evident to anyone with half a brain that to be the bayonet on the US' rifle was not in Australia's national interests. It has worked well for the US with US farmers picking up the trade Australia has lost. It has badly damaged Australia and we will feel the pain for years to come.
We chose to start 100s of anti-dumping actions against China, we chose to argue for a politically driven COVID-19 investigation, we chose to raid Chinese journalists & academics without charge or explanation, we chose to ban Huawei to please Trump, we chose to accuse China of cyber espionage without evidence, but worst of all we chose to allow members of our Government to compare China to Nazi Germany without criticism. Where was our righteous indignation then?
It will take 2 sides to fix this, but Canberra has so damaged trust that China sees no urgency to heal our relationship. We started the fight, we have to fix it. The journo is correct in one thing - we need innovative thinking!