Nicknamed the ‘Land Down Under’, Australia is an ‘island continent’ economy that strongly benefits from its close proximity to the vast manufacturing markets of the Mainland China, Taiwan and Japan which together represent over 40% of all the Australian export foreign exchange earnings.
From a global perspective, Australia shipped US$ 272.4 Billion worth of products worldwide during the year 2019. That US dollar amount reflects a 42.5% increase since 2015 and a 7.3% gain from the year 2018 to the year 2019.
Applying a continental data analytics lens, 79.9% of Australia exports by value were delivered to the Asian countries, while only 9.2% were sold to the importers in the entire Europe including England. Australia exported another 5% worth of goods to North America and fellow Oceania nations led by New Zealand and Papua New Guinea, (PNG – 4.3%). Smaller percentage of exports went to the African continent (1%) then Latin America excluding Mexico but including the Caribbean (0.6%).
If India and other Quad partners with Australia, it can produce specialty steel, if it decides to become a world leader replacing China in the next few years, if not decades. For that, democratic world would need to partner amongst itself and manage resources for mutual benefit, societal good and overall prosperity.
Japan can invest right away in this regard, changing this vital trade for good in a short period of time. The Japanese government is giving incentives to its global giants to wind up manufacturing plants and shift to safer manufacturing hubs either in India or in the Vietnam. Financial grants and subsidies are being given for such locational shifts.
Quad is a world grouping which was setup to help during the severe distress which occurred due to Tsunami and which damaged and devasted Sri Lanka and parts of India in the IOR Indian Ocean Region ring nations. For many years Quad group remained dormant but after Modi became the PM of the India, impetus has been given to fight the menace and imperialism of the Mainland China also called the Peoples’ Republic of China and in short for PRC.
This group has galvanised into QUAD Plus and smaller nations, which have been petrified by China’s bullying tactics have also joined this front to fight the rising impact of the Chinese virus and entering the nations either through back door tactics or BRI and overhyped projects and loan diplomacy and sharks.
Australia may give land and mineral resources, Japan may give the technology to produce the finished goods along with Indian manpower and Indian IT knowhow. India have excellent engineers working on the shop floor to produce and finally ship the finished goods to US or other European nations, which are not nations supporting BRI like Italy.
It’s time to bleed China with thousand cuts economically!
