Aussie CCP Wine War

[RPCV]

Interesting article from the BBC:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-australia-55167882

Comical that China is accusing the Aussies of dumping practices. On the good side for US consumers, perhaps we will see more Aussie wine here next year.

[Claudius2]

Folks
Well I’m totally pissed off with China’s bullying and arrogance.
When it comes to self-serving hypocrisy and pig headed stubbornness the CCP make Trump look like a beginner.
The dumping allegations were made with nil evidence and the tariffs were slapped on entirely as an act of political bastardry.

In the last few years China has tried to bully every country it has come into contact with. The dumping allegations are crap and I’ve been a shareholder in Australian wine companies for some decades. Whilst the volume of Aussie wine to China was high the average value was not.

Another pig headed CCP decision was to stop hundreds of millions of dollars in Aussie minerals - mainly coal - from being unloaded on the basis of it failing quality control. Interesting as no checks on quality were ever done. Amazing it must be telepathy. Nobody ever sought to even see the holds of the bulk ships.

Not only have they wrecked HK and done it in complete disregard for all commitments as part of the handover, they are pushing Taiwan around and just about every country in Asia from India to Russia (I mean the eastern part).

China never honors any trade or diplomatic agreements and quite honestly sees itself as being the Middle Kingdom again.
I extensively studied China’s trade deals as part of a PhD thesis some years ago and I quickly realized that the CCP willingly enters agreements with the complete disregard for them. It expects others to follow them of course.

Part of the issue if that the CCP thinks it IS China and the salience of that idea cannot be under-estimated.

[Jay Winton]

One of many mistakes our EX president made was adopting a go it alone stance on trade with China. I hope Biden seeks cooperation from other countries as I think it might be much more effective. Tariffs alone are not the answer.

[AKR]

Biden will be probably be more effective in dealing with China, even if he doesn't have the gut instinct that they are not the friends of the West. Hopefully he'll ignore his billionaire China apologists (Larry Fink, Ray Dalio etc.)

Kyle Bass is a good person to listen to in this dimension, and his recent writings on China are insightful, well studied.

I'm not sure the Aussie low end wines would be able to compete again in the US fighting varietal category. Arg, South Afrika and some other really cheap FX nations have some huge advantages there.

[Claudius2]

Guys
The idea that who the President is (Biden, Trump, or anyone else) will solve the China issue is a false narrative.
I say that as China does not respect other nations, does not co-operate unless it has to, and will seek to develop bi-lateral and not multi-national strategies as it sees itself as being the Middle Kingdom once again.
The attitude of the CCP is to let foreigners serve China and that is an immutable paradigm.
The CCP is not much different to the old Soviet Union - only smarter.
The problem is not "fixable" in the sense that the CCP is not interested in a win-win situation. That is not part of their philosophy and never was.
They love sabre ratting and insults against foreign powers as it drums up nationalist support among the populace.

Sorry if this sounds like a rant but it is simply crazy to think that the CCP cares less what anyone else thinks. It has never met its obligations under all sorts of trade and political deals and would laugh at anyone suggesting it should act in good faith. To the CCP, that is a just a sign of weakness.

Let me go back a few decades.
Deng realised that totalitarian control was becoming tenuous and secondly, the ideology of the Mao era was getting stale when he took control in 1978. After Mao's death (1976) there was a LOT of social as well as economic problems and a lot of pressure for real change. He pushed for socialism with some aspects of free enterprise, and economic reform started in 1979. Much progress started soon after with the west pouring in billions after the creation of Special Economic Zones.

The west was desperate to get China into the world economy in the 1980's and there was hope that as they watched the collapse of the USSR, China would change course both politically and economically. Now, capitalism is great if the communist government can run it all and then blame the west for all their own failures. And that is the central problem.

THE HOPED FOR POLITICAL CHANGE NEVER HAPPENED AND HAS RECENTLY BECOME MORE AUTHORITARIAN.

The Chinese people who make your TV, fridge, phone and/or kid's toys are not the enemy. The west did however miss a great chance in the last 30-40 years by expecting and hoping rather than driving meaningful structural change. China did little if anything to meaningfully meet the conditions of trade agreements, and it got away with it. Emboldened and drunk on its own ideology, it has done the same with the takeover of HK, despite legally valid agreements ensuring the two-systems until 2047.

If the west had been serious about China as a mutual partner rather than a wayward or prodigal son, that would never have happened. Desperate not to cause a fuss, China was allowed to act with impunity. Just about every western country and a lot of the remainder are now realising that they were wrong about China. Dead wrong.
And since China has experienced no consequences as a result of failing to honour trade agreements, ignoring the HK treaty with the UK ("one country two systems"), is now trying to pinch land from various nations, and is aggressively threatening just about everyone, it is testing its power again.

The only way things will change is if the rest of the planet convince China that it cannot threaten, bully and pick fights with everyone without pushback. The longer it takes, the harder and more painful it will be.
Sure, a multi-lateral strategy of containment and fair trade will help, but China will try and use any measures (eg, the Belt and Road initiative and other economic influence) to tie up individual countries. Just ask Sri Lanka, Montenegro, several African States, central Asia..... I won't go on.

There are now so many things China is doing to persecute its own people and exert control over other nations.
If you want to know what it is like living in communist China, ask Wendy or any of the Chinese born friends we have here.

SO Australia is just a small fish in a big sea to China and at the moment, Australia lacks any coherent strategy to deal with China, though I have to say, no other nation seems to have one either.

[DavidG]

The only way things will change is if the rest of the planet convince China that it cannot threaten, bully and pick fights with everyone without pushback. The longer it takes, the harder and more painful it will be.
Sure, a multi-lateral strategy of containment and fair trade will help, but China will try and use any measures (eg, the Belt and Road initiative and other economic influence) to tie up individual countries.

The above is where hope lies for a path forward. A Biden administration offers the possibility of the US rejoining with traditional allies in a coordinated containment strategy. The first step on a journey of a thousand miles.

[Claudius2]

David
I really wish that would happen, but China is an expert in divide and conquer.
If it does happen, it will take decades noting that China always plays the long game.

Yet in the meantime, many nations are deeply in debt to China and it is really now the world's manufacturing center.
So China works to pick off countries one by one, using any means available, whether it political, economic, military power or any other measure.

On another note China has become much more brutal toward its own people in the last decade.
The same Mao era political rhetoric (nationalism, anti-western, anti-USA, whatever) has re-appeared in a big way, meshed to the social credit system, mass surveillance (which is unbelievably detailed), the new gulag archipelago in Xinjiang (and to an extent in Tibet), its squashing of HK, aggressive stance toward Taiwan, border disputes including military measures against several nations, massive increases in military spending and attempts (which are largely successful) to take over all waters in the South China Sea and quite frankly, the Pacific Ocean.

There have been numerous internal political changes as well, and Xi Jinping has taken on a dictatorial role for life, and like Stalin and Mao, will not stop at any measure to both hold onto power and build more.
In short, he will do whatever it takes. That even includes totally banning Winnie the Poo in China (yes, I am not kidding).

At the moment, a few countries have started the long march toward containment but it will not happen in any rational sense of the term unless the west and China's border states co-operate to stop its land and sea stealing.
Even here in Singapore, our own territorial waters are not respected by China.

When people say to me that China is not a totalitarian communist country, I laugh.
I show them numerous documents from the past and the present, and I find it sad that rational people seem to think that the CCP is not the bad guys it used to be under Mao. It is.
When Xi reached power in 2012, he stated that his aim was: “to exert control at home and expand its influence overseas.”
He has done a good job based on that claim.
And the real meaning of that comment has largely been ignored or misunderstood outside of China, and partly within it.