At the AFR, Jennifer Hewitt is living the high life. Fresh from a splendid Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association funded trip to Perth, she’s travelled:
…to Boao as a guest of Fortescue Metals Group.
I’m not actually sure what it means to be a guest of FMG. Perhaps the paper could be more specific.
Hewitt’s panegyric journalism has soared to new heights:
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang didn’t exactly say his country was “open for business”. He didn’t need to. No one could mistake his blunt message of reform – including Tony Abbott, sitting next to him in the front row for the Boao forum’s official opening.
To visit China even briefly is to appreciate the breadth and depth of the economic revolution unfolding and constantly changing shape. Despite the regular alarm in the West about excess credit in China and various distortions in what is still a largely closed market, the government so far has been able to create a self-sustaining miracle of steady growth. And now a clear and accelerating momentum for reform and opening up of the economy.
…That’s obviously good news for Australian businesses keen to address some of that market, extending well beyond the traditional trading reliance on resources exports. Not that demand for Australian resources is showing too many sign of slowing.
…Mr Li talked at length, for example, about the need for rail and transport links in the west and central provinces of China and the intention to attain much higher rates of urbanisation. All of which requires continuing massive steel production.
Li also declared very firmly that there’d be no stimulus but, as we know, the Australian plutocratic circle knows China much better than it knows itself.
