HISTORY LESSON: Recalling Australian desire to form a free trade-association with China. A decade before the decision by Tony Abbott, New Zealand agreed to a very good trade deal with China, with the New Zealand players noting...well, China is the biggest economic market place on earth, and we are a really small country, and we got a very good deal! Very true indeed. For that decade Australia was told by the USA not to have a free-trade agreement with China, or suffer the consequences of the USA not being our friend...thus the USA had the opportunity, and took it, to sell all the same kind of stuff we wanted to sell to China without having us as a competitor. It was only when, after that ten years, that President Xi noted in a public forum that China WOULD sign a free-trade agreement with Australia that same year, and then stuck a $30/ton tariff on Australian coal until we agreed it was a good idea...as soon as the tariff was imposed, the then PM Tony Abbott flew immediately to China, signed the deal, and said it was a great achievement, and we were the best of friends, whilst the US Secretary of State, at the time, Hilary, said we shouldn't have done it. It interfered with USA export profits to China. How was Australia a friend of the USA if also a competitor? The "Smart" Australian view was to basically 'ride two horses, with one foot on each'...unfortunately, they didn't notice that the horses were going in opposite directions. Not Smart, Australia. Best to have gone one way or the other, way back then. Too late now. 2020: Australia: Broke both legs....and no real friends.