At a crossroad or well down the track ?

I don’t live in a ‘western’ country and we don’t have Tories but still the local ownership seems to be going down down down. I guess might is right is the way it is going now. That and our high wage structure- if people can get the service for half the price then they will go to whichever country offers it. Not much patriotism when it comes to the dollar.

I wasn't advocating a non-democratic system but our MPs pre-occupation with a 5 year electoral cycle is unhelpful. Getting to the top in China obviously takes ability of all kinds. Getting elected as leader of the Tories and thus PM doesn't compare.

Grantanow

Rather than moaning about Chinese development should we not be asking what they do that could be applied in the UK and other Western countries to get us out of the hole the Tories have dug?

I suppose we could start by living in totalitarian state and elect a leader for life. But hang on, we have no say in the leader, do we, i fact we don’t have a say in anything.

Rather than moaning about Chinese development should we not be asking what they do that could be applied in the UK and other Western countries to get us out of the hole the Tories have dug?

Most of our large shopping malls are Chinese owned. They are very good, I have to admit but it would be nice to think Australians owned them or at least part owned them. The British are moving into the health systems ( BUPA, Specsavers etc). The Americans, by contrast don’t seem to supply or own so much now ( Fords, Costco). Nearly all the clothing, pottery, kitchen goods, plastics - made in China. We still have our own fresh food except the other day I looked at garlic- from China. Of course it was much cheaper than ours and that is the problem.

China is everywhere and is using soft power to integrate into pretty much every continent by providing capital for infrastructure, buying into essential services eg healthcare and manufacturing and generally making itself indespensible or cornering the market for essential minerals etc. It has built ports all over the world. It wants Taiwan because it manufactures 90% of the highest performance computer chips! I worry more about China than I do Russia!

FarNorth it feels as if it’s shrinking by the minute in terms of influence?

ronib

FarNorth - thought Uk was spending quite a lot on transition to green energy? Seems illogical to me.

The UK is minute in comparison to the world.

nanna8
It was always on the cards, wasn’t it?
They now own a country in Europe: Macedonia. I’ve been following these developments for years.

globalvoices.org/2023/03/09/behind-the-scenes-chinese-influence-in-north-macedonia/

FarNorth - thought Uk was spending quite a lot on transition to green energy? Seems illogical to me.

'the world' doesn't seem to care about global warming / environmental concerns, just narrow self-interest.

nanna8 in what way is Australia owned by China?
I know that newly built Uk property is advertised for sale to Chinese investors on Chinese tv and this is appalling.
I know that there’s been some controversy over donations by Christine Lee to a member of the Labour Party-£450k approximately and £5k to Ed Davey. But it was reported in the Daily Mail.
I know that manufacturing has been outsourced to China which confuses me - it’s so far away and surely transport costs are high ? Also China is not into environmental impact and why is the world buying from them given the global warming/environmental lobby etc.
Interesting questions.