I think this must be the most-seen three-word phrase in the history of humanity:
Made in China
Unlike liberte, egalite fraternite, or love thy neighbour, Made in China crosses national boundaries with ease, creating only a minimum of tension.
Australia, however, is in the unusual position of running a merchandise trade surplus with China.
This graph shows merchandise imports and exports from Australia’s perspective. Somewhere around 2009, our exports to China started growing much much faster than our imports from China.
So far, so nice. But the imbalance in our relationship has another aspect.
Far more Chinese visit Australia than Australians visit China. This is intriguing.
Should we be worried about this? What does it imply about our level of interest in our #1 customer?
Do Australians not even care about the culture and the people of China?
Or is this just the result of there being 60 times more Chinese people than Australian people in the world? Certainly it is the case that the 23 million richest Chinese are richer on average than the 23 million richest Australians. (That’s all of us).
What will be interesting to see is if there is any correlation between the exports of merchandise and the exports of tourism services. When the taste for our iron ore drops off, will our hotels suddenly lie empty?
IN the meantime, I strongly recommend Beijing, especially if you can get there on a day when it’s not too smoggy.
Thomas the Think Engine 
