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Keywords: China

  • ECONOMICS

    Don't bet on the Australian dollar

    • David James
    • 08 February 2013
    4 Comments

    This week the Australian dollar reached its lowest point in three months. Tangible factors such as interest rates and trade with China influence its strength. But what really determines the direction of our currency is the whim of the currency traders. In that sense, the Aussie is is arguably the most 'unreal', or virtual currency in the world.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Broken shoes and dead ends in China's leadership transition

    • Binoy Kampmark
    • 14 November 2012
    1 Comment

    Australia's unimaginative perspective on China's growing power accords with Washington's. In Obama's terms, China can be an adversary or a partner. China is a complex leviathan, and the great challenge is how to integrate it into the global system without conflict.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    China's cupcakes and Australia's Asia fear

    • Michael Kelly
    • 31 October 2012
    8 Comments

    Looking at Australia from Asia, you quickly conclude that Australian approaches to the region are fickle and opportunistic. It's hardly news that the fastest growing economies and greatest opportunities for Australia are at our doorstep. But like kids at parties, we seem to focus more on the cup cakes than the host and guest of honour.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Communist China keeps a grip on the gun

    • Jeremy Clarke
    • 15 October 2012
    3 Comments

    Many people know Mao's famous dictum, 'Power comes from the barrel of the gun'. Fewer people know the second part: that 'the Party must control the gun'. The Party could allow last month's street protests because they unified the people against a hated enemy in Japan. But the protests were carefully controlled.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Diplomat priest built bridges to China

    • Camilla Russell
    • 14 May 2012
    11 Comments

    As the diplomatic crisis unfolded between the US and China over the fate of blind Chinese dissident Chen Guangcheng, hard questions re-emerged regarding how the West should best relate to China. A Jesuit missionary who died 400 years ago offers a tantalising alternative to the cycle of comprehension and mystification.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    The truth about China the climate scapegoat

    • Sean McDonagh
    • 14 December 2011
    12 Comments

    Countries including the US, Russia and Japan refuse to sign any binding treaty to significantly reduce their greenhouse gas emissions unless China does the same. Their simplistic argument that China is now the number one emitter in the world overlooks important data.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Sending a message to Gillard about the new cold war

    • Michael Mullins
    • 21 November 2011
    16 Comments

    If large numbers of Australians are worried about the threat to Australia's sovereignty posed by a few thousand asylum seekers arriving by boat each year, surely they would have wanted to be consulted on the use of Australia's territory in a potentially game changing US posturing exercise against China.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Gillard and Obama's mutual exploitation

    • Tony Kevin
    • 18 November 2011
    9 Comments

    Australia is now indelibly associated with Obama's strong messages to China in Canberra. We were used. But our government wanted this, because it will all be popular with the middle ground former Labor voters Gillard is trying to win back from Abbott and the Greens.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Not quite Saint Steve

    • Michael Mullins
    • 10 October 2011
    5 Comments

    Steve Jobs did not fear death. He had the inner freedom we see in mystics and saints. But he should be judged by his actions, which include ruthlessly calculated decisions to tolerate poor conditions for workers manufacturing Apple products in China.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Fearing America's national debt

    • Brian Doyle
    • 27 July 2011
    8 Comments

    America, my country, is teetering on the edge of a dark future. We cannot continue in this fashion, or we will enslave our children and grandchildren to ruinous debt; we will twist their lives in unimaginable ways, because we would not pay our bills or reduce the luxury with which we lived.

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  • RELIGION

    Are martyrs good role models?

    • Andrew Hamilton
    • 14 July 2011
    14 Comments

    To defend the dignity of the unborn, asylum seekers, prisoners, indigenous people, enemies in war, gay people or the unemployed will invite criticism and rejection. It might be unduly dramatic to describe this as martyrdom, but the example of martyrs can encourage constancy in hard times.

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  • ENVIRONMENT

    Opportunities on a crowded planet

    • Bruce Duncan
    • 05 July 2011
    14 Comments

    Unless countries are prepared to implement draconian birth-control policies like China's, realistically there is no alternative but to prepare for a world of 9 billion people. But the increase in global population need not provoke a catastrophe.

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