China watch.

As usual, the CCP is thinking long term whilst here in Australia we think it's a good idea to have our 'strategic reserve' of oil on the other side of the world.

... and in breaking news ABC just rushed out its last two journos out of China overnight. That's not normal.

Communists don't like a free press. Even the ABC isn't bolshy enough for them.

Sounds like they wern't far off it happening to the point they had to hide in the embassy for 2 weeks

And things get deeper

www.news.com.au/finance/economy/australian-economy/trilateral-trade-agreement-that-could-change-australian-relations-with-china/news-story/742fd80eef13fe3a68cae317e12297d7?utm_campaign=EditorialSB&utm_source=news.com.au&utm_medium=Facebook&utm_content=SocialBakers

I agree - let's take our eggs out of 1 basket, and look to other trading partners.
One billion + people in India;

 India is now adding hundreds of new millionaires every year. In 2000, India had 39,000 millionaires. Now a Credit Suisse report has revealed that the number of dollar millionaires in India has gone up to 3,43,000. www.indiatoday.in/business/story/india-adds-7-300-new-millionaires-in-one-year-18-billionaires-women-10-takeaways-1371214-2018-10-19#:~:text=Fructifying%20that%20aspiration%2C%20India%20is,in%20the%20dollar%2Dmillionaire%20club.

That's a huge market opening up to us.

If we could just convince all the hindus that our beef is just red tofu, we'll do well.

This is a very smart move by India. Economically they are where the CCP was in the 1980s. They have a big axe to grind against the CCP and aligning with two large trading partners who are both very wary of Beijing will go down well internally. Modhi can be seen as both standing up to the CCP and securing a lucrative trade deal.
Japan has been very focussed on the Trans Pacific Partnership, which has taken a big hit with Trump's disinterest in it. They'll also be looking for another deal.

If only we’d stop arresting them as well and raiding whistleblowers and having secret courts.

Our gov and news loves to bash China, but then our gov will do the same when it suits them and everyone just carries on like nothing happened who cares it didn’t effect me.

Countries are abandoning China because China is a legitimate military/secuirty & economic threat  with a non transparent ruling body. 

It steals technology massively and spies extensively. So letting that nation carry your sensitive data on its  govt subsidised 5G network would be lunacy. You see they can afford to do things on the cheap when they dont have to pay the time & $ for R&D For all the tech they steal.

Microsoft apps & the like have to be compliant with US regulations Chinese apps like tiktik do not. The requirement to be compliant with US regs helps  prevent illegal data harvesting. Hence the Chinese apps & 5G are able to serve as extensions to the Chinese  govt surveillance/influence network.

Its smart of the Chinese to make their surveillance apps and hardware socially, technologically and financially attractive. It enables them to establish a significant user base which enables the apps and hardware to be very effective at harvesting information & enabling offensive cyber activity.

There is little basis for comparison with Aussie journos being arrested in connection with leaked classified documents and then processed within a  fair judicial System and foreign journos being detained arbitrarily and processed in accordance with the whim of an authoritarian government pursuing its global economic objectives.

As for BRI 'we' made the mistake of allowing state level decisions to get involved in BRI programs ANd now the federal govt is trying to undo those mistakes. As other nations have found out, BRI is evil and when they cant pay the debt they had to hand over parcels of their sovereign territory to China. how would you like it if you lived next door to a chunk of land which suddenly became Chinese sovereign territory because your government couldnt pay the bills?