Why on earth would we do this?
Anthony Albanese will be the first prime minister to visit China in seven years after formally accepting an invitation to travel to Beijing this year, as the arrival of a high-level delegation boosted expectations the ruling Communist Party will soon lift sanctions on Australian wine.
Meeting delegates in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi welcomed the Prime Minister’s impending visit and called on Australia to “leave the baggage behind and hit the accelerator” in its relationship with China.
We can’t leave the baggage behind. It is all ahead. The division with China is structural. Albo kidding himself about it, is setting the nation up for failure.
Why are we exposing the economy ever more to China?
We know what Beijing wants. It would like us to be a grovelling satrap in thrall to Xi Jinping with Pilbara gulags to ensure it.
We don’t have any economic hedge for China. AUKUS is not it. It is strategic.
Thus, there is no upside in deepening trade ties. Only down.
On exports, the Chinese economy will march backwards into Japanifaction from here. We can look forward to ever less for our dirt.
On imports, are we mad? Do we want to hobble ourselves entirely in the event of an open conflict with the US?
Do we need a larger expatriate Chinese community to make any conflict an internal security and social nightmare?
Do we need more Chinese money corrupting parliaments?
Do we need to be undermining putative global liberal alliances?
Not even Canada’s extremist globalists want a bar of China:
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there’s no room for “rapprochement” with China as President Xi Jinping’s muscular foreign policy has made a normal relationship between the countries impossible, for now.
This trip is a pure act of Labor narcissism to celebrate 50 years of China grovelling.
Albo should just stay there.
