• Chinese Influence On the Rise in Australia and New Zealand
    9 replies, posted
From a hill overlooking Canberra, Australia's landlocked capital, Clive Hamilton points to the National Carillon, a bell tower that happens to be striking noon, then to a massive glass and concrete monolith. "That's where ASIO lives," he says, using the common shorthand for Australia's intelligence agency, the Australian Security Intelligence Organization. He then points out Australia's federal police building and to a compound in the middle, where China built its embassy. "They picked that spot, and they have a lot of clout, they have a vast compound, and they kind of get what they want around here," he says. When Hamilton, a professor at Charles Sturt University, first tried to publish his new book, Silent Invasion: China's Influence in Australia, the fear of China's Communist Party crept in, he says. Hamilton's original publisher, Allen and Unwin, informed him last November that it was canceling the book's publication because it feared legal action from what it called "Beijing's agents of influence." "I was shocked," remembers Hamilton. "I felt betrayed. We knew this was a difficult subject. We knew that Beijing has some powerful friends in Australia. We knew that the Chinese government would be highly critical of the book and of me. Of course, it was great comfort to have a really good, solid publisher behind me, and all of a sudden I was left out there on the battlefield, looking over my shoulder, saying, 'Where is my support?' " Australia And New Zealand Are Ground Zero For Chinese Influence Pretty wild story. Heard it this morning on my drive to work.
This is nothing new, its been an ongoing issue for a fair while and its a big reason the housing market is where its at right now.
In NZ National took on a Chinese MP who's got shady ass experience/studied at an 'elite chinese spy school' in 2011. This always dodged me out specially since the whole GCSB getting apparent access to our texts and emails without a warrant, I'm not well educated on the subject, I'm probably just paranoid. Got to add too that whole not being able to publish books in Australia that are seriously critical of China's Communism is pretty fucking nuts.
This has been happening throughout the west for a long time. The west is up for sale to the highest bidder. The chinese buyup the housing and make it unaffordable for residents, the saudi's influence mass immigration of refugees to the west yet take in none themselves and then build infrastructure, mosques in the west while buying up assets, the Russians money launder and buy up assets. Western countries allow all this to happen because money talks and people walk. Uncapped capitalism is the worst, the government and money should work for the people, not foreign entities. Democracy is failing us because the west has developed to be tolerant to those who are intolerant who do not support democracy. China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, all have human rights violations and yet because of their influence they are able to get away with it and prosper, like sharks slowly eating away at it's prey ( The west ). How long until it's fatal and democracy as we know it is gone.
Fucking hell. I'm really not happy with how cosy our government is getting with China. I may not trust the US government a whole lot but at least they're not authoritarian and are beholden to the people.
Eh, just give it a few more years.
I wish people would stop peddling this myth. Foreign investment makes up about 4% of the Australian housing market. Obviously this has some impact on the market, but not nearly enough to make it one of the primary causes of rising house prices. Personally, I consider the issue to be caused primarily by stagnating wages, artificial scarcity, negative gearing, the capital gain tax, cheaper credit due to financial deregulation, state governments limiting the supply of available land for housing, as well as property regulation which encourages urban sprawl over densification. As for China's influence over Australia. It definitely exists, China and the U.S. both consider Australia to be geographically significant in order to further their interests in the Asia-Pacific region. They've been in a tug-of-war over Australia for a while now. In my opinion, Australia would benefit most from establishing itself as the middle man in the situation rather than siding with one side or the other.
When figures like this get plastered all over new sites its hard to believe much else, I unfortunately don't have the time to research every single news article I read. https://edge.alluremedia.com.au/uploads/businessinsider/2018/05/FIRB-foreign-investment-2016-17.jpg
I feel this is a bit of an oversimplification. Western reaction to China and Russia is limited because they are indeed nuclear superpowers, they also have veto power on the UN Security Council, and China is a very valuable market for western exporters. But even then, Russia has been hit with sanctions over the years, and the US regularly performs freedom of navigation exercises in international waters which China claim are their own. And ignoring or threatening the influence of Saudi Arabia would be a sure way to repeat the 1973 oil crisis. Chinese ‘buyup the housing’ happens, but it’s substantially overexaggerated as in the minds of most people, it’s easier to blame ‘the foreigners’ than it is to accept that when you have an increased demand by residents for housing right in the middle of a capital city, where it’s virtually impossible to increase housing supply, that supply v demand dictates that prices will skyrocket.
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