Anti- China Government Policies Having An Effect

 Written by: Ned K. on 17 July 2021

The Morrison Government has moved further into the US camp as rivalry between the US and China intensifies, particularly in the Asia Pacific region.

The Murdoch press ran a story on a recently released KPMG report on Chinese investment in Australia. The report says that Chinese investment in Australia is the lowest it has been since 2007 and that it has declined by 83% since 2016!. 

The KPMG said this decline was following a trend of Chinese decreased investment in OECD countries overall. Concerns by the Morrison Government about "national security" (read "protecting US interests in Australia") were given as one of the main reasons for the reduction in Chinese investment, particularly by large state-owned corporations from China.

The Morrison Government will no doubt get a pat on the back from the US imperial power about these latest figures. However, it may come back to bite the Morrison Government if China goes one step further and sources iron ore from another country. Iron ore exports to China have been the Morrison Government's saviour in terms of balance of trade figures, especially with the Covid-19 caused decline in the export industry of overseas students paying an arm and a leg to study in Australia.

Many workers in Australia tend to welcome investment from any overseas corporation provided it creates jobs but are equally unwelcoming of overseas corporations when they withdraw investment and that withdrawal means workers lose their jobs. The car industry is a case in point.

The impact on employment in Australia with the decline in Chinese investment is not mentioned in the daily press articles about the KPMG report.

The history of China itself in the years 1949 to 1979 (before the Deng restoration of capitalism) show that the best job security for workers of any country is economic self-reliance and minimal, selective reliance on overseas investment.

This path is the way forward for Australian working people as well.

Foreign investment in Australia has shown that the investors take out much more than they put in, and put the people's lives at risk by setting up military bases here to protect their investments. This is the history of British and US economic dominance over Australia over the last 100 years. Would any other big power that became the dominant investor in Australia act any different? I doubt it.

Independence and socialism the only way forward.