Re: The US extension of economic sanctions on Chinese banks due to this Ukrainian war
Our chief concern should be that if this US wants a full blown trade war with China that the US will compel us to do ditto.This US threat to cut out Chinese banks out of the US dollar system is a serious escalation of US high tech exports ban to China. Two years ago the US bullied the Netherlands into observing the US export ban of high tech to China which should a warning to Aus.
If the US compel us to stop exporting IO & met Coal to China it would wreck our economy given that there is over 30% of our trade China dependant.both in exports and imports.
That probability has not been politically or economically discussed nor do we have strategies to diversify trade away from China . Lets face it the US does not want a million ton of Aussie IO, coal or Megalitres of LNG nor does it want 100s of thousands of tons of Aus grain and food. In fact the US is one of our global competitors in those global export commodity markets
We have had the warning shots already. The US wrecked our Froggie Subs deal and by ScoMo aping Trump in anti-China rhetoric we saw the plethora of Chinese trade tariffs on select Aussie exports to China; some of which exist today.
So the solution for Aus is: -Ceasefire in this silly Ukrainian war -A negotiated/prompt settlement (This would temporarily cool down these threatened economic sanctions on China ) -Then we need to pull out a finger and get on with downstream processing our own minerals and supply global markets that China is currently supplying with finished and semi-finished products even if that means SOEs or SO SEZs where exclusively Aus owned manufacturing industries can operate (we saw what happened to our car manufacturing...once off the taxpayers' drip, they buggered off!
IMO this Ukraine war has simply advanced the inevitable: that is a US war with China to stymie China's rise preceded by an all out US economic war on China of which we are seeing the prelude euphemistically called" the US decoupling from China."
And what are we doing? Zilch....high on mineral & energy exports to China as if there is no tomorrow. Before we knocked back China's BRI membership we should have had our own "China decoupling strategy" instead of shooting from the hip and shooting Aus in the economic foot in the process !...how silly was that?
The US sanctioning of Chinese banks is merely the China Hawks lead in to another Trump presidency and guess what.....we'll see more Trump China deals like his Jan 2019 trade deal with China which led to displacing Aus grain , beef, wine, fish & lumber exports to China with Yankee stuff and we sleepwalked into it! (NB US investment interests in Aus then were not impacted)
By proposing an immediate ceasefire & a negotiated settlement is not asslicking Putin as some binary/bigoted commentators maintain; but instead putting Aus & Aus economic interests first. We simply dont want an "economic Gallipoli " where we are economically slaughtered looking after the hegemonic interests of a foreign power.
