Which CEOs are China flunkies?

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Via Domain come a survey of CEO attitudes towards China. Woodside chief executive Peter Coleman summed up the sensible view:

“The two go hand in hand, and you can’t have unbalanced relations,” Mr Coleman said. “You can’t deny the fact that China is a very important market for us but you can’t compromise on fundamental security issues. I think Australia is playing its hand well. We’re playing it hard but appropriately.”

…Eight said the current balance was about right. A further 16 were non-committal about the current balance but acknowledged that one had to be struck. Two said Australia needed to take a more security-focused approach and two said it needed to be less security-based. The rest declined to comment.

…Gerry Harvey, chairman Harvey Norman [said] “A lot of people are concerned that China will have a military base in the Pacific … Are they ever going to invade Australia and why would they? I can’t imagine it. I don’t think that’s as serious as some people do. I think it’s overplayed.”

China does not need to invade to take control. If it builds a Pacific military base it already has total control of Australia via its sea lanes. It can park an aircraft carrier off Bateman’s Bay with the implicit threat of leveling Canberra and dictate any policy outcome it likes. Perhaps Gerry is looking forward to the forced mass settlement of millions of Chinese nationals that will follow to boost high-res TV sales.

The other China bull was Andrew Basset of Seek which has big interests in China.

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About the author
David Llewellyn-Smith is Chief Strategist at the MB Fund and MB Super. David is the founding publisher and editor of MacroBusiness and was the founding publisher and global economy editor of The Diplomat, the Asia Pacific’s leading geo-politics and economics portal. He is also a former gold trader and economic commentator at The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, the ABC and Business Spectator. He is the co-author of The Great Crash of 2008 with Ross Garnaut and was the editor of the second Garnaut Climate Change Review.