by Mark Lawson
February 1, 2021
The events might come from a Hollywood script. School bully (China), annoyed over being left out of games (lucrative overseas contracts) and about comments passed in the schoolyard, decides to make an example of the weedy kid in the corner (Australia) in front of the other schoolkids.
But after flailing the weedy kid with trade restrictions the gigantic bully unexpectedly reels back with a bloody nose.
Meanwhile, the other kids in the schoolyard (the rest of the world) who have previously paid little attention to the weedy kid as a remote, uninteresting teacher’s pet with few internal problems, express quiet sympathy for Australia.
The schoolyard scrap continues, and Chinese trade restriction blows have caused painful dislocation in sectors such as thermal coal, beef, wine and lobster fishing. But after decades of economic reform emphasising free markets combined with immense resources wealth, the weedy kid’s economy has proved strong enough to absorb these blows, and even have them rebound on the attacker.
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