The Australian relationship with China is highly complex. As a nation, we have had an extraordinarily successful period of supplying raw materials to China, we had an education sector relying on overseas student income that suddenly stopped. It is fair to say, we had an over-reliance on one market segment. Personally, I have no issues with Chinese students, or Chinese in general, we just need a broader student cohort.

The coal sector was hit hard, there is coking coal and thermal coal, Australian coal was still apparently getting through via Indian sources. From Chinese news sources, power outages were hurting residents, they had trouble heating their dwellings, that hurt the people, they are the ones that pay for the reckless government behaviour. This has really damaged Chinese power and prestige, they believed they could crush a much smaller nation in Australia and they failed to destroy the Australian economy.

Iron ore is a required commodity, that was never going to be sanctioned, Chinese industry relies on Australian iron ore. Whilst Brazil supplies iron ore to China, West Africa is seen as a future supplier of iron ore but is some time off supplying the required volumes. So, the CCP has no option, Australian iron ore is their primary supply partner. Their actions have driven up the price of the commodity and delivered record profits to Australian miners – thanks for that.

With a change of government we have a change in direction of the partnership. This offers the CCP to back down without losing face to the international community. What Australia has to do is repair the relationship without making excessive concessions, the new government needs to hold firm to protect Australian national interests. Likewise, what the government needs to do is not act in an arrogant or belligerent manner and allow China to extract itself from this situation.