Originally Posted by
Lead Balloon
Is that a good thing or a bad thing?
And before you say “it’s a fact”, it is, in fact, a choice made by a few and thrust on the many. It may be that the many are willing to sacrifice self-sufficiency and instead rely on a communist dictatorship in return for ‘economic prosperity’, but the many weren’t asked. And despite the ‘economic prosperity’ the actual standard of living of the many in Australia has been going backwards for quite a while.
The flying training schools churning out foreign pilots remind me of the folly of allowing exports of herd cattle to China. Short term gain in return for a business grave in the long term.
Any reliance on China needs to be assessed on national security grounds. But how is training pilots at the most elemental civilian level a national security threat?
In a decade, forecast trade with Indonesia and India will be significantly greater. Do we pull the pin with these guys because bogans don't like Asians or colours on our city streets? Do we not increase military cooperation with both those countries, or Japan for instance, as a counter to an aggressive China?
China in some ways is trying to do what the Japanese navy could not do in 1942. Isolate Australia from a weakened America so its rise in the Pacific is unfettered. We will need a strong economy, as well as a sense of decency, beyond the ridiculous notion above of bogan fair go, to face the upcoming challenges.