As we know, Albo is the Manchurian Candidate, fed by Sinophiles in his party to the point of nausea.
Let’s recall what the G7 did when China attacked Australia unilaterally.
The U.S. and its allies are grappling with how to pare their economic relationships with China, attempting to limit ties in certain sectors they view as strategic while preserving broader trade and investment flows with the world’s second-largest economy.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine changed how Western powers think about their strategy toward China, another geopolitical rival and a close partner of Moscow. Russia throttled natural-gas exports to Europe during the war, destabilizing global energy markets.
The Group of Seven advanced democracies are growing concerned that China, a dominant supplier of many goods and materials, could similarly cut off key exports in the event of a conflict or another pandemic, according to top Western economic officials. They also worry that Western investment and expertise, if left unrestricted, could help develop Beijing’s military.
“So the lesson learned from that for all of us has been: Let’s do that hard work now on the front end,” said Wally Adeyemo, deputy Treasury secretary.
…“The big strategic choice that we have is whether in seeking to strengthen our supply-chain resilience…we do so in a way that tumbles the world back into protectionism,” Jeremy Hunt, the U.K.’s chancellor of the Exchequer, said in an interview last week in Washington. He said Western allies should “work together as fellow democracies to improve that resilience.”
G-7 officials said last week they had agreed to new initiatives for bolstering supply chains on the sidelines of the semiannual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. The step followed a recent commitment by the U.S. and its allies to develop new policy tools to counter hostile economic measures.
…The European Union’s executive body, member governments and parliament last month agreed on a draft “economic coercion instrument” that would lay out steps for consultation and retaliation against a country deemed to engage in economic coercion. The subject is expected to be on the agenda for the G-7 leaders’ summit in Hiroshima, Japan, next month, and a bipartisan pair of U.S. senators has drafted legislation on the topic.
Since then, China’s Labor patsy has gone soft. Today, the G7 needs our support.
China’s decision to unveil unprecedented export controls on the rare-earth supply chain dominated meetings at an annual huddle of global economic chiefs in Washington this week. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent hinted at an emerging coalition, saying US officials were “speaking with our European allies, with Australia, with Canada, with India and the Asian democracies,” to form a fulsome response.
Japan’s Finance Minister Katsunobu Kato called for Group of Seven countries to “unite and respond” to China’s moves, while his German counterpart touted a potential joint response of the bloc. Australia’s prime minister will head to Washington next week in the hope of negotiating a deal over critical mineral supply chains, as countries seek to diversify.
All that marks an abrupt U-turn from six months ago when President Xi Jinping was rallying countries to stand together against the highest American tariffs unleashed since World War II. While China justified its latest curbs as a response to an expansion of US controls, the measures demand even foreign exporters get permits to ship products anywhere in the world containing traces of certain Chinese minerals.
But no, even though the China ban will disable the Western military-industrial complex for several years, sinking Ukraine and allowing the autocrats to run wild, Albo is going the grovel once more.
Jim Chalmers has pushed back against the US call to decouple from China, declaring Canberra’s relationship with Beijing is “well understood”.
“We engage with our major trading partners in good faith and in Australia’s national economic interests,” he told reporters in Washington.
“And I think it’s well understood here in Washington DC, that Australia has put a lot of effort into stabilising that key economic relationship with China, and that’s been a good thing for our workers and our businesses and investors in Australia.”
It is well understood. We crawl around the world on all fours, apologising for the worst regime in the world, for cash.
We are all Dan Andrews now.
