At least Tony Abbott is prepared to admit he screwed up: what he once boasted as a “history making” trade deal with China, and one of his great achievements as prime minister, was a mistake based on “wishful thinking” and a “very benign view” of China.
Similar mea culpas haven’t been forthcoming from the Coalition’s stenographers and cheerleaders, alas. Paul Kelly has never admitted he was wrong in lauding the deal as a “moment of transformation” of global significance, pointing the way to a “glorious future” in which an “astute Xi” would “pull Australia far closer into China’s orbit in coming years”. Greg Sheridan, who lauded the deal and insisted “there is not the slightest evidence that any Australian tradie would be a loser under this agreement”, was a leader of the Coalition/News Corp campaign against Labor for daring to question the deal — to question any aspect of the agreement with China was xenophobic and protectionist.
News Corp and the government now insist exactly the opposite, that Labor is too soft on China — indeed, had fallen into China’s trap, in the words of an Australian editorial in December. Sheridan’s reversal has been particularly risible. In September 2015, he was lauding Daniel Andrews to the high heavens for defying federal Labor’s opposition to the trade deal. Last year he was complaining that Andrews had handed China a propaganda victory for signing up to a Belt and Road agreement.
Sheridan isn’t the only one at the Oz to undertake a humiliating reversal — the editorial writers have gone from declaring “under ChAFTA we welcome Chinese investment in Australia” to cheering the government’s blocking of Chinese investment.
The Australian entirely reversing its position to keep attacking Labor is of course all part of what Kelly rightly calls its “working rule”, that “centre-right newspapers back centre-right parties”. But Abbott’s comments, reported by Nine’s Latika Bourke, are worth exploring a little more. The former prime minister says he was naive in thinking that there would be “not just economic, but political liberalisation in China”, and that “I think the Chinese government and its actions have changed”.
And that’s the standard excuse now offered by those who once cheered for the trade deal: that the mask has now come off, that the Xi regime has shown its true colours, that it was always an aggressive dictatorship determined to impose its will externally, but now it is making no effort to hide it.
The argument is self-serving rubbish — the brutal nature of the Chinese Communist Party was always apparent. Its external aggression was always apparent. Australia was already complaining about China’s large-scale annexation and militarisation of islands in the South China Sea well before the trade deal. It was already beset by Chinese hackers — it was Chinese hackers who broke into Parliament House’s email system in 2011. But its aggression and brutality were readily overlooked because of the lucrative opportunities of access to Chinese markets dangled by its government — for which the likes of Kelly and Sheridan fell hook, line and sinker.
But Abbott also refers to the persistent argument — first heard in the ’90ss from the Clinton administration — that economic liberalisation would inevitably lead to political liberalisation. China is now exhibit A in why that thinking is utterly fallacious. But it always represented a triumph of neoliberal fantasy over common sense. For neoliberals, freedom has magical powers that can change economic and political structures. And freedom can’t be stopped, or confined — once people enjoy it in one sphere, they demand it in another. The obsession with freedom always made neoliberalism as much a moral as a political philosophy — and drove Western belief that the Chinese regime would be just another domino to fall to the triumph of free markets and neoliberal wisdom.
But there never was any special relationship between freedom and neoliberalism. The world’s corporations generally don’t like freedom. They prefer their workers un-unionised and without rights. They prefer opacity and secrecy for their financial transactions. They prefer oligopolies and monopolies over the brisk environment of competition. They prefer influencing and dictating government policies rather than allowing electorates to do so. Their idea of the rule of law is being able to buy legal outcomes through relentless, expensive litigation against under-resourced opponents.
Right now the Xi regime is cracking down on private education providers, along with tech companies, food delivery companies and property developers — along the way inflicting US$1 trillion in losses on investors, who are now wondering where the crackdown will end. It seems counterintuitive to investors that the Chinese government would inflict such colossal losses on investors in the name of political objectives. In fact, investment, markets and profits were always secondary to the maintenance of the party’s control. And that’s always been clear, even if some one-time Sinophiles now profess to have seen the light.
The apparently illusory benefits of free trade agreements is one thing. Bernard’s apparently reflexive hostility to the way the Chinese people organise their society – coming as it does from a perspective of unquestioned of moral superiority – tends to tedium.
The Chinese government have brutally declared that education is the right of all, that provision of education should be a non-profit activity and that money will not buy privileged access to educational opportunities. Considering the inequities in our own education system I think we could see a little more of that here.
China FTA Disadvantages
No tariff reductions for sugar, rice, wool, cotton, wheat, maize or canola
If Chinese imports of beef or milk powders exceed certain limits, China has the discretion to apply additional customs duties
Abbott has signed the ISDS provisions in the China FTA and the ramifications are grave for this nation, but excellent for the Coalition hip pockets and slush funds.
Threshold for Foreign Investment Review Board screening of Chinese investments in “non-sensitive sectors” (ie. excludes agriculture, media, telecoms and defence) rises from $252 million to $1,094 million
Chinese firms will have some rights to sue Australian governments for policy changes that adversely affect their interests
Chinese investors in projects valued over $150 million will receive additional rights to bring in temporary migrant workers to Australia without local labour market testing
China First.
Hockey handed over two Australian energy companies to China.
The communist owned State Grid Corporation owns 19.9 per cent of SP AusNet and 60 per cent of SPI Assets, which trades as Jemena.
The communists own the electrical transmission and distribution networks in Victoria and as well as electricity, gas and water assets in eastern Australia.
Thanks, Allan. Your comments are often more informative than the people working for Crikey.
I have got vast files on an enormous range of subjects.
You working in the PMO Registry?
Nah, but that would be a great gig for dirt. Decades of political life.
No doubt ‘Allan’ you will be pulling apart those other FTA’s we have (in particular the one with the US) at some time in the future? I look forward to that
https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/resources/investment-statistics/statistics-on-who-invests-in-australia
Some hisotry:
Fraser kicked off the globalization ball in 1982 concluding the CER FTA that was then signed in 1983
”Australia has nine FTAscurrently in force with Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Singapore, Thailand, US, Chile, the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) (with New Zealand) and Malaysia and China as of November 2014.
The Singapore deal, signed in 2003, has left us with a trade deficit of $8.9 billion, growing at 15 per cent a year.
The Chile deal, completed in 2009, produced a trade deficit of $954 million, growing at the same rate.
And the US deal, sealed in 2005, has gifted a $22 billion deficit growing at 4 per cent annually.”
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2015/10/10/malcolm-turnbull-trade-deals-and-penalty-rates/14443956002474
Singapore, US, Thailand, ASEAN, Malaysia and Chile were all negotiated by Howard and he signed off on most
AANZFTA is the first comprehensive FTA signed by ASEAN and it occurred under the Malcolm Abbott Coalition.
One of the Agreements ‘highlights’ is the Rules of Origin in AANZFTA allow for ‘cumulation’.
This means New Zealand goods used in products made in ASEAN countries or Australia are considered as local content.
Cumulation makes New Zealand products an attractive supply option for businesses in the region.
So that means Australians when they read made in NZ, or from imported ingredients don’t have a clue which ASEAN nation produced the goods.
Korea , Japan and China FTAs are the work of Malcolm/ Abbott.
The TPP negotiations commenced in 2010 with Gillard continuing the Labor imperative of not agreeing to any ISDS provisions this shocking agreement was signed complete with ISDS provisions by Malcolm Turnbull…another man admired for his dexterity with profit and loss Cayman Island tax haven tax records.
Malcolm Abbott signed away our sovereignty and the ISDS provisions with Andrew ROBBer being given a job working for the communists in China in return for services rendered to the Chinese Communist State Party.
The Singapore deal, signed in 2003, has left us with a trade deficit of $8.9 billion, growing at 15 per cent a year.
The Chile deal, completed in 2009, produced a trade deficit of $954 million, growing at the same rate.
And the US deal, sealed in 2005, has gifted a $22 billion deficit growing at 4 per cent annually.
Good business for somebody, of course. The Mafia would be proud.
https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/opinion/topic/2015/10/10/malcolm-turnbull-trade-deals-and-penalty-rates/14443956002474
dfat does not do economics, it does all sorts of activities which are mostly secret, not even MP’s get to see their trade deals unti it’s a fait accompli
I understand that Australia has the largest trade deficit with the United States of any country!!!!!
Yep, has been for decades and not just because of our reliance on them for heavy agricultural machinery (IH) and weaponry.
Guess with which country we have the largest trade surplus.
Annals of free trade: will TPP learn from our NAFTA past, or are we condemned to repeat it?
The dispute settlement process, at least according to a leaked draft, makes the agreement appear more like a “Trans-Corporate Partnership” with quasi-privatized panels that ignore conflicts of interest. And these bodies would have the power to undermine domestic legislation that protects consumers enacted by elected bodies.
As Joseph Stiglitz noted, “the real intent of these provisions is to impede health, environmental, safety, and, yes, even financial regulations meant to protect America’s own economy and citizens.”
When it comes to healthcare, TPP provisions could prove catastrophic to millions. We need to take seriously the concerns of Deane Marchbein, president of Doctors Without Borders USA, who writes, “TPP, in its current form, will lock-in high, unsustainable drug prices, blocking availability of affordable generic medicines, and price millions of people out of much-needed care.”
When it came to labor and the environment, however, the details were relegated to side-agreements that were nonetheless hailed as the strongest and most progressive to date, including by then-President Clinton. But the accord excluded the core issue of the right of workers to form independent unions and has had weak to nonexistent enforcement for what it did cover.
https://theconversation.com/annals-of-free-trade-will-tpp-learn-from-our-nafta-past-or-are-we-condemned-to-repeat-it-42005
ACTU Library?
Of all that goes into FTAs, most is froth and bubble. ISDS provisions are the dagger in the heart in all of them. How a federal government routinely signs over sovereignty over policy decisions is beyond me.
Neither the rodent Howard nor Labor signed up to ISDS provisions. But Abbott Turnbull couldn’t get enough of it. And yes the ISDS provisions are the sale of our nation’s sovereignty to global corporations and states. To be expected from Turnbull who prefers the Cayman Islands like Adani.
And then there’s the little heard of acronym TISA
TiSA “is the largest component of the United States’ strategic ‘trade’ treaty triumvirate,” which also includes the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP).
1.TiSA would “lock in” the privatization of services – even in cases where private service delivery has failed – meaning governments can never return water, energy, health, education or other services to public hands.
2.TiSA would restrict signatory governments’ right to regulate stronger standards in the public’s interest. For example, it will affect environmental regulations, licensing of health facilities and laboratories, waste disposal centres, power plants, school and university accreditation and broadcast licenses.
3.TiSA would limit the ability of governments to regulate the financial services industry, at a time when the global economy is still struggling to recover from a crisis caused primarily by financial deregulation.
Require acceptance of financial products not yet invented. Despite the pivotal role that new, complex financial products played in the Financial Crisis, TISA would require governments to allow all new financial products and services, including ones not yet invented, to be sold within their territories.
4. TiSA would ban any restrictions on cross-border information flows and localization requirements for ICT service providers. A provision proposed by US negotiators would rule out any conditions for the transfer of personal data to third countries that are currently in place in EU data protection law. In other words, multinational corporations will have carte blanche to pry into just about every facet of the working and personal lives of the inhabitants of roughly a quarter of the world’s 200-or-so nations.
If TiSA is signed in its current form – and we will not know exactly what that form is until at least five years down the line – our personal data will be freely bought and sold on the open market place without our knowledge; companies and governments will be able to store it for as long as they desire and use it for just about any purpose.
5) Finally, TiSA, together with its sister treaties TPP and TTIP, would establish a new global enclosure system, one that seeks to impose on all 52 signatory governments a rigid framework of international corporate law designed to exclusively protect the interests of corporations, relieving them of financial risk and social and environmental responsibility. In short, it would hammer the final nail in the already bedraggled coffin of national sovereignty.
Under the Coalition’s ISDS provisions, Chinese firms will have some rights to sue Australian governments for policy changes that adversely affect their interests. Even Howard refused to sign up to ISDS provisions, and his treason and hate of this nation is well documented.
China FTA: Chinese investors in projects valued over $150 million will receive additional rights to bring in temporary migrant workers to Australia without local labour market testing
China First is the Coalition slogan for the new found comrades.
And any ISDS court action will NOT be part of our judicial system; it will be the system set up by the huge corporations which exists now. The dispute resolution mechanism is overseen by arbitration bodies dominated by private-sector adjudicators utilising contract law to rule on market access issues.
By the way, you need to get out of the history books and into the present era, where money power and privilege are every bit part of the game in China. Who do you think gets to buy an endangered species pangolin for dinner in the wet markets!
Allan – re your 2nd para – I have a brother-in-law (BIL) on construction sites in Perth. He says tradies who need a licence, ie sparkies and plumbers, are qualified in Australia. Other trades, ie painting, tiling, plastering, conceting are done by Chinese labour. BIL claims the Chinese are on student visas but all are signed up as members of the CFMEU so unions are in on the racket. BIL said the Chinese borrow from family to pay a broker in China to be recruited to work in Aus and most of their wages go in paying back the loan. If they are injured on site, they are flown back to China – no workers compensation.
I find it odd that Twiggy Forrest, whose Minderoo Foundation sponsors the anti-slavery, anti-human trafficking NGO “Walk Free”, has not shown any interest in something happening right under his nose.
Nothing odd about Andrew Forrest and his fake foundation, the man is every bit a slaver is all the others.
BIL claims the Chinese are on student visas but all are signed up as members of the CFMEU so unions are in on the racket
Unions are some of the most ardent supporters of getting justice for exploited foreign labour, not the Shoppies, but the RAFFU, the ETU and even the CFMEU
Pre the rebadging of the 457 visas:
…on websites like Gumtree employers are exclusively searching for people on 457 visas [since rebadged] – some requiring no experience at all – makes a mockery of the scheme.
it is not just the 457 visa class, but the 417 working holiday visa, and other temporary work programs which allow about 1.1 million foreign nationals to work in Australia.
The latest case of 457 visa abuses was uncovered by the Electrical Trades Union and the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union in Melbourne.
While following up a complaint about non-payment of wages by Schneider Elevators Australasia, they discovered a group of migrant workers who had been forced to sleep rough on after being left high and dry by their employer.
The workers arrived in Australia between December and January, but have allegedly not been paid for six weeks.
“They were brought here on a promise of good wages but in reality have been paid well below local industry standards,” said ETU organiser Howard Worthing.
“They have been living in backpacker accommodation and when their money ran out they had to ask to sleep on the office floor because they had nowhere else to go.”
Meanwhile, two officials from the Construction Forestry Mining & Energy Union who in January uncovered serious exploitation of migrant workers in regional New South Wales are now being pursued by Fair Work Building and Construction over their right of entry to the sites where the abuses took place.
The two CFMEU organisers discovered the plight of the 41 workers from China and the Philippines on three sites in late-January. The workers had been underpaid, with some receiving as little as $4 an hour, and were living in cramped and sub-standard conditions, including a shipping container.
This was written when Abbott and Andrew Robb[er] were busily signing away our sovereignty in the ISDS provisions
We identified six ways in which CHaFTA is different to any other free trade agreement signed by Australia with any other country before it – even those signed by John Howard.
First, it includes 457 visas for semi-skilled workers. Australia has never before permitted 457 visas for semi-skilled workers in a Free Trade Agreement deal – either under Labor or the Coalition.
CHaFTA also includes new Infrastructure Facilitation Arrangements (IFAs), which is unprecedented. While IFAs are superficially similar to Labor’s Enterprise Migration Agreements Labor never embedded them in a Free Trade Agreement with a foreign government.
The IFAs under this Agreement are very different to Enterprise Migration Agreements (EMAs brought in by Labor. The threshold for EMAs was $2 billion with a workforce of at least 1,500. The threshold for IFAs in CHaFTA is only $150 million and no minimum workforce size.
EMAs were also restricted to major resource projects, whereas IFAs are available for many sectors. EMAs required justification for skill shortage and mandatory labour market testing – neither of which are required under IFAs.
CHaFTA includes unprecedented provisions granting Chinese citizens new rights in the standard 457 Visa program while removing Australian worker rights, including a radical new clause that removes labour market testing – the obligation for employers to look for qualified local workers first – for all Chinese citizens entering Australia for temporary work.
In previous Agreements, this was restricted to limited and defined categories listed in the Agreements, and did not extend to all skilled workers in the entire standard 457 Visa program.
CHaFTA also contains an extraordinary broadening of ‘labour market testing’ and new built-in mechanisms for even further liberalisation of the 457 visa and other temporary work visa programs.
An unprecedented side-letter to this Agreement removes mandatory 457 Visa skills assessments for Chinese citizens in 10 skilled trades, and commits Australia to removing these assessments for all other listed trades within 5 years.
And finally, the CHaFTA includes an historic, non-reciprocal ‘Work and Holiday’ visa agreement that provides ‘up to 5,000’ 462 visas each year for young Chinese to live and work in Australia for a year with no reciprocal visa arrangement for any young Australians to visit and work in China.
All Chinese 462 visa holders will be eligible for 457 visas, with no obligation on their employers to first look for qualified local workers.
Claims that the unions are running a xenophobic scare campaign are scraping the bottom of the barrel and show that the Abbott Government has nothing left to defend its Free Trade Agreement with but grubby accusations.
Allan – thanks. Love your work. I will forward to my brother-in-law so he can see for himself why things are as they are.
yes, all animals are equal in China, but some are more equal than others.
The only thing missing in China under this madman is the industrial-scale murders
Seeing that Abbott has just realised what people at time were telling him, how about we halve the dumb son of a bitch’s Parliamentary Pension and perks?
Maybe that will send a message to all the other jerks who make a mistake despite being told (The March of Folly by Barbara Tuchman) then come out with “I take fill responsibility” and nothing bloodywell happens.
“full” not “fill” 😉
Keane has written such a good article without all the fluff and tip toeing around the dog whistling race card holders who scream racist as soon as someone dares to criticize China or India etc. as a way to close down discussion, scrutiny and a topic that is tipping us over into a feudal state of the globalized corporate oligarchs and their tacky little boutique winery makers, grain growers, iron ore miners, coal miners etc etc
But there never was any special relationship between freedom and neoliberalism. The world’s corporations generally don’t like freedom. They prefer their workers un-unionised and without rights. They prefer opacity and secrecy for their financial transactions. They prefer oligopolies and monopolies over the brisk environment of competition. They prefer influencing and dictating government policies rather than allowing electorates to do so. Their idea of the rule of law is being able to buy legal outcomes through relentless, expensive litigation against under-resourced opponents.
In fact ‘freedom’ and neoliberalism when joined together are oxymorons
Like SPA Sustainable Population Australia complains round the NOM?
I say export him to China under a container of iron ore
Bushfire ravaged and Drought stricken Southern Downs Region farmers Qld, were sold out by their own party, the LNP’s Campbell Newman who is planning a comeback to wreak more havoc upon the nation and Qld.
Chinese water mining company
The Cherrabah Resorts Joyful View is owned by Chinese investors and brothers, Wenxing and Wenwei Ma and it has just been given approval by the local LNP controlled council to install the infrastructure for water extraction and purification facilities which is surrounded by drought-ravaged farming properties.
Hillsong’s Shirealive Snotty Clapper is trying to hose down the rage of farmers over the LNP 100 year water mining approval. And this is what the LNP controlled Southern Downs Regional Shire council plan to do with the $2mill, worth a look! Bridgette McKenzie inspired no doubt.
https://freetimes.com.au/news/2020-01-16/councils-priorities-for-2-million-from-feds/
Back to the Chinese water mining of the LNP controlled Southern Downs Shire Region.
The owners of Cherrabah Resort, Joyful View Garden Real Estate Development Resort Co., [the Chinese company] were granted a water allocation in 2008 by the then Labor state government, based on the Chinese brothers proposal to develop the area and create a 4 star large scale resort! Jobs jobs jobs was screamed.
The water extraction licence was increased to 96 megalitres of water a year in 2010 and under the one term utterly corrupt LNP Campbell Newman government, it was extended to automatically renew for nearly a century, until 2111.
And Morrisin’s.
A quartet of Australian grazier families has offered a $386m bid for the S Kidman and Co land sale, bettering an offer from mining boss Gina Rinehart and her Chinese partner Shanghai CRED.
Shanghai CRED Binjiang Real Estate Co., Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of China Vanke Co. Ltd. Its largest shareholder is China Resources; which is the State Communist Party of China – ” lefties”, the reds under the beds which are chocka full of blueblooded National and Liberal MPs and businesses, .
Tom Brinkworth, Sterling Buntine, Malcolm Harris and Viv Oldfield have said under their offer, Kidman would stay wholly Australian owned, the sale would not require approval from the foreign investment review board, and they would triple the size of the cattle herd marketed under the Kidman name.
An election was coming so Morrison shelved the approval to sell off the iconic Kidman properties that stretch from the coast of WA to the coast of Qld until after the elections. And of course they were sold to the CCP and Rhinehart not the Australian buyers.
No objections from Dutton, Hartcher, ASPI, and the rest? Why wasn’t IPA looking after Gina?
The IPA IS Gina, she’s the biggest donor and has been for donkeys
ABC Investigations can reveal the Premier’s office was warned about Mr Liu and UWE in an email from a state government MP in June 2018.
Ms Berejiklian’s office received the correspondence from former Albury MP Greg Aplin a month after her last known call with Mr Maguire about the businessman.
Mr Aplin shared a plea for help from his local constituents, hay farmers Cherilyn McKeever Bird and Broughton Bird, who were owed more than $150,000 by UWE Hay — a joint venture between UWE and a Chinese government-owned company.
Good article BK
Bloody good article. Over at The Guardian if you dared criticize China the forum would go off its rocker.
Abbott: “if Bill Shorten and the Labor Party try to reject the China-Australia free trade agreement, they will be sabotaging our economic future and they will be turning their back on one of the greatest opportunities our country has ever been offered”.
Round up all News Limited personnel from the top down and transport them to Christmas Island detention centre; put all their phones, tablets etc through a mulcher before they go.
Kelly’s comment reveals the truth – he and Sheridan don’t actually do any analysis or independent thought – they just back the centre-right party, because that’s what they are there for – it’s what they do. Like dogs lifting a hind leg for a pee
Anybody else recall Bill Shorten being pilloried by the same Kelly and Sheridan for saying he didn’t know what Gillard said, but he agreed with it?
DF those Murdoch chappies you mention are (like a number of the Fairfax/Costello mob) better termed ‘Stenographers’
Correct you have nailed it
Anthony Galloway of Fairfax comes straight to mind ‘Allan’ – Murdoch ‘sacked’ the experienced (and more costly) Journos who had life experience and an ability to analyse and replaced them with the cheaper version
Yes and the intellectually stunted but malignant steroid enhanced Peter Costello has just sacked John Hewson.
News Corp drones’ “humiliating” reversals? Not humiliating for them. I’m pretty sure that’s a feeling or sense not known to or experienced by them – they’d have to possess integrity and lack extreme hubris to experience humiliation.
Can I please just throw something else out there about the current pile on, on China? Isn’t it the case that the neoliberal push for market-driven everything and it’s handmaiden, “free” trade, with all the attendant dismantling of tariffs and other protections, saw Western companies decamp in droves to China and other then developing nations to exploit the dirt cheap labor and other production costs, and revel in the increased profits? So, now we’re complaining about the wealth this generated for China transforming it into a supposed threat and meanwhile the manufacturing and other industrial sectors of many Western economies, the US, UK and Australia among them, have been left wastelands and it’s been a case of goodbye well-paying manufacturing jobs, hello the sh*t wages of the so-called service sector eg aged and disability care.