China - US Trade War: Opportunity for Australia?

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On the surface of it launching a trade war between two superpowers is lunacy, but there are silver linings for Australia if we position ourselves correctly. Years of Government lobbying for closer ties to the ASEAN bloc may help us in coming years.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05...na-not-helping-washington-or-beijing/11114886

and sparked fears the global economy could be derailed.
But despite all the losers, there are some winners.

Parag Khanna, a leading global strategy adviser whose TED Talks have been watched by millions of people, has been following the trade war closely.

"South-East Asia wins the trade war between the US and China because so much more outsourcing and diversion of investment is now going to ASEAN that is not going into China."
Mr Khanna has a PhD from the London School of Economics and has just published his sixth book, titled The Future Is Asian. He said the trade war was bringing Asian countries closer together.

Can we actually take advantage of our unique position?
Our ownership of rare earth minerals means that globally we are of strategic economic importance and many of our natural resources will be extremely important in the post-carbon global economy.
 
I don't understand where our edge will be.

The SE Asia manufacturing sector will benefit because of greater interest in producing low tier consumer goods, provided sourcing these goods from China will become too expensive for US consumers.

Europe will benefit because Chinese business will look to source more professional services, technology and machinery from there, provided sourcing it from the US will become prohibitively expensive.

We don't make iPhones and we don't make airliners. What opportunities does this create for our mineral wealth that aren't already being exploited?
 
I don't understand where our edge will be.

The SE Asia manufacturing sector will benefit because of greater interest in producing low tier consumer goods, provided sourcing these goods from China will become too expensive for US consumers.

Europe will benefit because Chinese business will look to source more professional services, technology and machinery from there, provided sourcing it from the US will become prohibitively expensive.

We don't make iPhones and we don't make airliners. What opportunities does this create for our mineral wealth that aren't already being exploited?

Not much short term

Fwiw the relocation of cheap manufacturing from China to SE Asia has been happening for about five years now, driven by rising Chinese wages. The tariffs are just accelerating the process.

For us, if the se Asian middle class grows so will consumer spending, but that's long term change
 

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Yeah I don't see how Australia can benefit either. Maybe a few specialist services to china? Wont make any difference to out US trade.

Any benefits would be more than outweighed by the economic damage to our two largest trading partners.

We're not really in ASEAN.
 
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But maybe Mofra was right?

https://www.theage.com.au/business/...d-australian-miner-lynas-20190521-p51pnq.html

Must say I had no idea that the US was so heavily reliant on Chinese minerals
Japan is just as reliant as the US.

I have followed the Lynas story and briefly was a shareholder, there are serious environmental concerns with rare earth mineral extraction which is why the project has been so contentious to the local communities over the years but the value of the minerals and the strategic importance meant it was always likely to get up.

There are a few junior miners looking to get projects off the ground as well.
 
The U.S Trade war has been totally ineffectual.

China has circumvented all the tarriffs by just assembling their Huwaii phones and whatever else to 95% complete then shipped them off to Vietnam to be completed before being sent to U.S without the onerous taxes.

It's an old trick, even the Yanks us to do it themselves, but it's very effective.

China is way too smart an forward planning for the West now.

This is their century.
 
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