As the Australia-China relationship deteriorates, a $200m PNG ‘fishery’ deal raises eyebrows

Amid the din and racket of politics at the end of what has been, by any measure, an extraordinary year, the continuing and growing deterioration in our trade relationship with China has lost its novelty value.

More tariffs on Australian wines this week? More restrictions on meat and timber? The gradual but relentless closing down of trading opportunities with China has reached that stage in the news cycle where you struggle to remember which sanctions are old and which ones are new and, besides, there isn’t much expectation that anything is going to emerge to break the stalemate any time soon.