China watch.

I did hear from a member in Qld that they have also bought the fishing rights for rock lobster in PNG - guess that means our prices will continue to drop, whilst they rape the seas off PNG.

I agree with this and ygidorp re foreign aid to our syrategic neighbours, ot os a necessary expense to foster national defence.

We spend 4 billion total as a foreign aid budget. (compared with a 43 billion defence budget and 82 billion on health.

I reckon the problem with foreign aid is assessing how much tangible value it provides. I suspect a lot of it supports corrupt officialdom and private interests in the countries where it is spent. Even if my suspicion is unfounded, that means foreign aid has an image and marketing problem - we don't know what it really does.

“In the 1970s, after the Damansky Island clashes, a joke began circulating: 'Optimists study English; pessimists study Chinese; and realists learn to use a Kalashnikov.”

I think last I checked foreign aid accounted for 0.2% or 0.4% of the Australian budget.

Fair point though about assessing tangible benefit.  Maybe we should have considered something similar, but not quite as draconian as the Chinese model (viz loan money at times the other country needs it the most, but charge an interest rate they cannot afford to repay and use it as a negotiation tool to secure territory).

Practically everyone who has been a student in a top-tier Chinese university + most people who have been in second-tier universities, plus anyone who went to any university before the early 2000s is pretty much guaranteed to be a party member. If I remember correctly, most civil servant positions also require party membership too.

Reality is that most people become party members because it was always seen as a guaranteed way to improve their status in society, get good jobs in state-owned companies etc. Equating party membership with espionage activities is a pretty low bow to draw.

Having said that, its practically impossible to leave the party once membership is gained, so any Chinese-born and -university educated politicians in Australia should be assumed to hold party membership, even if they say they have left.

Not good, but people can't work out why Australia is so against China --- the info the govt is putting out is that Australia has been causing all sorts of problems for China for no reason. The fact that China has been unduly tariffing Australian products is not mentioned. Just that the Australian government is acting in bad faith.

To be fair, the comments I've seen in some of the main WeChat accounts followed by Chinese in Australia have become fairly muted though. A lot of Chinese in Aus are involved in export to China, so have now seen first hand that the Chinese government bans things for no reason and have realised that maybe what the CCP are telling the populace is not the full story (they do all blame PM Morrison though, who they see as "causing trouble for ordinary Australians by being America's lapdog").

Yep, which is why I wondered about a certain senator from a few years ago when all that foreign parents stuff came out last year. Seeing as you practically can't leave the party when you're in China, I wondered what documents he had to prove it. Just innuendo and supposition on my part...I'm sure the alphabet agencies did their homework.