HK Economic Times reported that Australia’s allies are biding to grab the China market shares lost by PM Scott Morrison

At least 60 countries, many of them are Australia’s allies in the West, are taking advantages of the current Beijing-Canberra hostility, by bidding to increase their market shares in China in respect of beef, grape wine, lobster, coal, grains and etc.

The politically neutral Hong Kong-based press HK Economic Times said so on 14 Dec 2020, (written in Chinese).

Merchants in France and the United States are working hard to ship more wine to China. Canadian exporters are seeking to sell more coal to China. Lobsters? Of course, it is Boston in the United States.

I feel sad to see all these. Personally, I have very good feeling towards Australians mainly because my two kids at high school in HK were very well educated and inspired by their teachers coming from Australia.

My daughter during her Grade 11, together with her classmates, joined an expedition led by her two Australian teachers to spend 4 weeks in Namibia.

Australians made up about half of the teaching staff at my kids’ school (others from England, France and Spain). For as long as ten years, I had numerous exchanges with the Australian teachers, e.g. at the parents’ evenings which were held three times a year. Alongside the topics on the kids’ homework and exam results, we very often talked about values and visions for kids. They were very open-minded and, more importantly, very China-friendly.

Many of them in fact traveled to mainland China frequently during school holidays and had lots of first-hand information and personal feeling about China. One of the most touching discussions was that they knew why and how they should appreciate the differences between the two nations. They are able to point out that China’s political philosophies and civic institutions are fundamentally different from the West in general and Australia in particular.

These differences, however sharp they may be, should not be deemed as a reason to say that China is evil. The Chinese Communist Party’s governance is part of the culture and traditions. It did not grow from Karl Marx entirely, but to large extent evolved from the beliefs and concepts already accumulated thousands of years lingering around the Yellow River and Yangtze River, with the water, source of life, flowing from the Himalaya to the eastern coasts.

Mutual respect and positive reciprocity are indispensably essential for productive relationship between China and Australia. Here, my role is small and my efforts are limited, but I write diligently to let non-Chinese English-speakers, hopefully including PM Scott Morrison and his ministers, to have a multi-dimensional understanding of China, its politics as well as culture. I also look forward to reading peer articles with balanced views on China News.

The opinions expressed are those of the author, and not necessarily those of China News.

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Categories: Trade & Investment

Tags: Australia, China, Scott Morrison