China – Global Farmer in Australia

Australia Cannot Feed Itself.

Australians are seriously dependent on other countries for the food they eat every day. Most of that food arrives by sea. Any interruption to supplies would materially affect the diet of the nation to the point of hunger.

It is an absolute fallacy and a hugely deceptive piece of propaganda propagated by farmer organisations and politicians to claim that Australia is self sufficient in food. Nothing could be further from the truth. In 2020 food to the value of $22 billion was imported into Australia, an increase of nearly 10% on the previous year. The retail value of that food is about $44 billion.

The food processing industry in Australia is a mere shell of what it used to be. Over the last twenty years food processors in their droves have closed their doors or left the country because they could not compete on price with food imported into this country, but grown and processed in America, New Zealand and the EU including the UK, countries who all have a standard of living equal to or better than Australia.

These three advanced economies sell to Australia, at a profit, food worth over $10 billion a year (over 50% of all food imports) and increasing annually. This food is now part of the staple diet of Australians. It is worth repeating, if for any reason the supply of this food is interrupted, the diet of all Australians would be severely stressed.

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Australia’s Total Dependence on China.

The new Albanese Labor Government in Australia in pursuing its political ideology on climate change rather accept that Australia is now totally dependent on China for a range of goods, which are critical to the economic security and defence of Australia. Should supply discontinue for any reason, Australia would be quickly and severely damaged.

Prime Minister Albanese must make up his mind whether he wants to let Minister Bowen continue to pursue his governments uncosted ideological objective to achieve a 43% reduction in emissions by 2030, or whether his government should tackle a grave situation which challenges Australia’s sovereign nation status.

The Five Eyes nations, Australia, New Zealand, Britain, America and Canada, who cooperate in the collection of military intelligence, have been told by former MI6 Chief Sir Richard Dearlove’s Henry Jackson Society, that it is now evident that China’s goal over the last decade or so has been to make national economies dependent on China in critical economic and defence sectors. The Five Eyes nations have been told that China has achieved its goal. Dependence on China must be broken, the Five Eyes must now cooperate to prevent China expanding unopposed its authoritarian vision for the world. In other words, the time has come for coordinated economic warfare against China.

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Can Australia Survive without China?

Previously in the The Global Farmer ‘ I posed the question Is China to Australia what Russia is to Europe?’ I discussed Australia’s reliance on China for being by far Australia’s biggest export market. The heavy burden of dependence that the economy of Australia places on its mining industries is not often talked about by the majority of Australians. Maybe that is because it can cause a few uncomfortable thoughts, mainly what would happen if China stopped buying from Australia? What would be far worse though, is what would happen if China stopped supplying Australia?

The Five Eyes nations gather and share intelligence from around the world.

A study by a UK think tank, the Henry Jackson Society, last year examined the dependency of the Five Eyes countries—the US, the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand— on China and found that Australia was by far the most exposed. The Strategist.

Europe is Exposed and it Hurts.

The political leaders in Europe, when they signed up to be reliant on Russia for fossil fuels, they gambled the welfare of some 400 million people and their industries, on being treated ‘properly’ by the communist Vladimir Putin and his Russia.

Europe knew full-well what Putin was like, they must have calculated the odds; they knew the character of the man and what he was capable of, but they trusted him just the same. Now Europe is being forced to accept a high price for trusting an ex KGB officer who became the ruler of the biggest country in the world.

Why Angela Merkle of Germany, Emmanuel Macron of France and the leaders of the other 25 countries in the EU trusted Putin, only they know. Apart from the Balkans War in the nineties there hasn’t been a major war in Europe for eighty years or so, but Europe knows war, it is written deep in their history, it is as if it is in their DNA.

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Is China to Australia what Russia is to Europe?

Is this the end of Globalisation and Interdependence? What it Means for Australia’s Future.

The world has been thrown into turmoil by the brutal Russian invasion of Ukraine. Every day as the Russians retreat, the bodies of men women and children, summarily executed, are found in mass graves or buried in back yards. Men with their hands bound, women raped; by the day it looks less like war and more like genocide. Europe is in shock because it cannot survive without Russian gas (LNG), coal and oil. Europe is Russia’s biggest customer for fossil fuels.

In an attempt to frustrate Russia’s invasion the world has placed sanctions on Russian exports of everything except fossil fuels. The world has frozen the accounts of Russian banks and all currency transactions. All Russian imports and exports have been stopped. The international community has frozen or repossessed the property of all the Russian billionaire oligarchs and their families, together with the assets of Russian politician’s and their families.

Russia is threatening to cut off gas (LNG) supplies to Europe unless they are paid in Russian roubles instead of Euros and Europe has said no, the contracts are in Euros. Europe knows the gas won’t be turned off because Russia needs the money.

Since the invasion began EU countries have paid the Russians €35 billion for gas compared to €1 billion it has given to Ukraine to defend itself. There is ample evidence that many countries in the EU are finding their own way, not Brussels way in this crisis and there are concerns that this show of independence may reduce the long-term value of the EU as a political force.

So much for interdependence and globalisation, particularly in Europe. It should keep national leaders awake at night struggling with the distressing realisation that they are funding the Russian invasion of Ukraine and so funding the killing of men, women and children, and at the same time they are sending rockets, missiles, ammunition and other articles of war to Ukraine, so they can kill Russians. How mad can the world get when you cannot manage your life without imports from your enemies?

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We Must Not Give Our Birthright Away.

Henry David Thoreau, circa 1850. ‘*I trust that I shall never thus sell my birthright for a mess of pottage.’*

For the sake of future generations, Australia must not give away its birthright for a mess of pottage.

I wrote the following after a long on-line discussion. It was the culmination of a larger debate about the real cost of renewable energy. I have tidied up a few phrases for clarity.

Thank you for your considered replies. I am in my eighties. My profession is agriculture from farming to science to agribusiness.

I have watched this country change substantially over the last 50 years or so. That we have largely lost our ability to be self-sufficient in some of the vital parts of our economy concerns me greatly.

Manufacturing jobs have been exported, it started way back when, when it was to Japan because their labour was cheaper than ours. Then there were others others like Taiwan, Singapore, Korea and Russia for wool. Now we have China.

Fifty years ago , even twenty years ago we were self sufficient in oil, now our position is strategically fragile because the majority of our oil has to make two trips through the South China Sea and there is tension on that sea as China builds artificial islands.

There was a time we were self sufficient in food, now we rely heavily on imports, our food processing and manufacturing industry has fled due, in the main, to high power costs, much of it has gone to NZ, where they now process Chinese produce and then send it here — we eat frozen Chinese fruit and vegetables.

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The China Paradox and Wolf Warrior Diplomacy.

China buys 30% of Australia’s exports.

The news that China accounts for thirty percent of Australia agricultural exports demonstrates how reliant the Australian rural economy has become on the People’s Republic of China.

That news caused some to question the wisdom of the marketers of Australian food and wine in placing such a heavy reliance on just one customer.

That is valid question, but did you know that China buys 30% of everything Australia exports.

Agricultural exports are just a mirror image of what is going on in the rest of the country. In 2017-18 Australia exported goods and services worth a staggering $123 billion to China equal to 6.7% of the Australia Gross Domestic Product.

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Building for the Future

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts.

Winston Churchill.

There now seems to be a general consensus within the community and especially within the agricultural community, that Australia’s reliance on China has lulled us all into a false sense of security. We have been complacent. We have been happy to accept the contribution China has made to our standard of living by making available to us a range of ‘goods’ at prices that have been more than acceptable.

We have been more than happy to receive their tourists in their tens of thousands and a similar number of students without whom some of our universities, especially the regional ones, cannot manage. There could well be cold economic winds this winter on some campuses.

China has infiltrated our lives to the extent that there is an argument that we cannot now manage without them.

But manage without them we must; we must change. China’s aggression towards Australia is a sober reminder that they are a communist totalitarian regime intent upon the control and subjugation of others including Australia.

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Beer – Beef and China.

“An economic rule states that one should never underestimate the inability of free marketers to use common sense,”

K J Galbraith 2006. Lincoln Journal.

One of the interesting aspects of the current debate on the behaviour of China towards Australia, after Australia asked for an enquiry into the source of Covid19, is that many of those who are well known as journalists and commentators, and even some hopelessly naive Australian politicians, and we have our share of them, have shown most clearly that they know little to nothing about the art of negotiation or as many of us know it by another name ‘bloodless warfare.’

It is well known that when it comes to selling their wares farmers around the world are weak, some weaker than others. It is also well known and oft quoted the statement by President J F. Kennedy “The farmer is the only man in our economy who buys everything at retail, sells everything at wholesale, and pays the freight both ways.” These days we would say ‘person’ but the statement remains correct. The question is what have farmers done, particularly in Australia, to redress what is an iniquitous situation?

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China friend or ? Episode 2

Preamble.

Since I started this look at China and our reliance on them for some of our vital goods and equipment, as well as our reliance on them to buy our raw materials like coal, iron ore, beef and wine; the relationship between Australia and China has deteriorated considerably.

The outburst by the Ambassador of China, threatening our beef, wine and tourism relationships, simply because our government made a valid request that a pandemic that has brought this world into lock-down should be investigated and the source found, was nothing short of Imperial bullying from the Middle Kingdom.

The United States sent its war ships into the South China Sea a few days ago. Whether in retaliation or not, reports are that China has sunk a Vietnamese small boat, probably fishing; has rammed boats from Malaysia and locked its radar onto a Philippine warship, which is hostile and usually means you are about to be fired on.

This means that China is quite prepared to escalate tensions in the South China Sea in an effort to distract the world away from asking the question China must answer regarding the origin of Corvid19 from Wuhan.

It must be determined whether Covid19 came from the wet market, or escaped from what appears to be a very insecure laboratory in Wuhan. China owes that information to the world.

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Is China our Friend or ?

In 2018 Australia imported goods from China to the value of US$57.7 billion or A$77 billion with an average exchange rate of .75 That is nearly $6.5 billion a month, every month.

It came as a shock to almost everyone to learn recently that we import over 90% of the medicines we use and most of them come from China and America. If China doesn’t make the final product they do make many of the ingredients. This alarming fact may never have come to light without the outbreak of the COVID19 corona virus. If China stopped supplying us and or America with medicines, what would we do?

We no longer live in a world of ‘It can’t happen here’ Because we know it can. We rely on China for so much; over US$13 billion in electrical goods — that must be most of our TVs and phones surely? Is this a danger to our independence and sovereignty?

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