There does seem to be a re-ordering of the world economic, industrial and military fabric...
China has the cash and the ability to conduct a long term strategy over more than a 3 or 4 year election cycle...
That can be a big advantage if the policies have some sense to them...
China also has a big advantage in that most of the west politicians are plainly for sale either directly or through intermediaries...
One obvious problem with farms, mines and oil fields in foreign countries is that the country can nationalize their assets at any time, or simply declare that those assets are forfeit to the state for some manufactured reason...
While it is not that likely in the case of Australia, who would even have thought that we would have an economy destroying carbon-dioxide tax based on the farcical scam of AGW... So really anything is possible...
