Nice try, China, but I’m proud you think I’m a scumbag

Lunar New Year is as good a time as any to commend your friends and threaten your enemies, all in the spirit of festive goodwill no doubt.

Wang Xining, China’s deputy ambassador in Australia, spoke last week at a dinner hosted by the Australia China Business Council in Canberra on the topic of how “It Is So Difficult to be China’s Friends in Australia Today”. The audience, if anything, would have been quite sympathetic and understanding – nothing spells friendship, after all, like billions of dollars being made in bilateral trade and business deals. But for all the rewards of the friendship that the attendees so richly share, there is a high price to pay, as Mr Wang observed:

Currently, the friends of China are…