Australia, like Canada, has been a loyal ally of the United States in its treatment of China.
However, the camp formed for the sake of interests will also fall apart in the face of interests.
At the beginning of 21 years, Australia and the United States staged such a good drama: when they first joined hands to suppress China, the two countries that were "as close as one family" turned around and directly turned against the United States because of market interests, and Australia, which launched a commercial war, was tragically surrounded and suppressed by the US giants, and could only work with its ally Canada to ask for help from India in South Asia.
So, what is the process of such a good play? The result?
Just joined forces, the interests before suddenly turning against each other
2020 is a rough year.
The sudden outbreak of new crown pneumonia swept the world, making Western countries chaotic, but China's anti-epidemic front was orderly.
In order to divert the deep-rooted contradictions in the country, Trump is committed to creating an xenophobic United States imagined by the "red necks" under the guise of the epidemic, but he turned around and encountered the US election.
And Biden, who is about to enter the White House, is also unable to stop the Sino-US trade war in the past three years, and under the infiltration of high tariff barriers and anti-China voices, the confrontation between China and the United States is intensifying day by day, and the anti-China wave is also rising and falling.
As a loyal member of the anti-China camp, Australia has followed suit and taken the lead in the anti-China actions launched by the United States.
As early as 2018, it coincided with China's 5G technology to overcome difficulties and seek markets.
Under the pretext of "national security", Australia quietly implemented the "Huawei ban" and banned Huawei from participating in its own 5G construction through discriminatory policies.
In July 2020, in order to cooperate with the United States against Huawei, the Australian side directly and publicly announced that It would ban Huawei from participating in its own 5G construction, and domestic companies were not allowed to use Huawei's 5G equipment and Huawei's 5G technology, which made Huawei's investment in the local area fall off a cliff, and the research center directly moved out of Australia.
This has directly caused the China-Australia relationship, which has continued to deteriorate in the past two years, to fall into a freezing point.
Australia has also tasted the bitter consequences of its own: Because of the demand to ban Huawei and independently investigate the source of the new crown virus, China has launched a trade ban on 20 billion yuan worth of Australian export goods, including barley, beef, coal, cotton, seafood, wine and timber.
The loss of funds, jobs and technology brought about by the banning of Huawei, coupled with China's trade ban, has made Australia, a major resource exporter, miserable.
It should be known that China is a major importer and major market for Australian wine, seafood and various agricultural products.
As Australia's main trading partner, Australia's agricultural exports to China reached $16 billion from 2018 to 2019 alone.
Take the wine industry as an example, with 200% tariffs making Australia's wine industry miserable.
In the Chinese market, the price of Australian wine has directly tripled, making more than 800 Australian wine export enterprises almost shut down.
In Australia under the epidemic crisis and economic crisis, this is even worse.
But who knows, "this side of the sea" also has enemies.
As the "pawns" of the anti-China camp in the United States, Australia and the United States should have "shared the same hatred and hatred."
However, the former never expected that when he faithfully fulfilled his anti-China obligations, he would be stabbed in the back by his "big brother", but he became a real "clown".
We know that China is Australia's largest trading partner.
The trade ban has kept Australian lobster, wine and various agricultural products out of customs, which has created a huge market gap.
At this time, the Western countries were like evil wolves swooping down, falling into the well one after another, ignoring the interests of the Australian side.
While trying to prevent Australia from reconciling with China, they are competing to seize Australia's original Market in China.
The so-called allies, at this time, revealed their true faces:
France currently accounts for a share of Australian wine in the Chinese market, the UK grabs seafood and beef, and even the United States has replaced Australian barley and lobster in the Chinese market.
The backstabbing of "allies" has made the economic prospects of the Australian side, which is already unclear because of its clamor for China, even worse.
Suddenly, the two countries were full of gunpowder.
However, under the epidemic situation, the open struggle between Australia and the United States has only begun at this time.
Australian legislation requires content to be paid
In early 2021, a new australian law bill is being heard by Parliament.
Under the bill, the Australian government required tech giants Google and Facebook to pay news organizations to access news services, thus firing the first shot in the business war.
Australia's bill is undoubtedly supporting its own media.
This conflict is the conflict between transnational monopoly media and local media, and the conflict between monopolistic transnational capital and conservative local capital.
Under the impact of the epidemic and the shift of audiences, Australia's own traditional media have been shrinking, and the advertising costs on which to survive are even less.
However, Google and Facebook have taken advantage of the "east wind" of technology and the epidemic and gained a large number of audiences.
With news resources that almost came from publishers such as The Australian News Group as a "free lunch", it earned a lot of advertising fees from advertisers.
According to statistics, for every $100 spent on online advertising in Australia, $81 was taken away by Google and Facebook, and local media could only get $19.
This naturally harms the interests of Australia's local news media.
As a result, the Australian side demanded in the draft legislation that Google and Facebook pay for media content for search and news feeds, and negotiate with local publishers and media about the price paid for news content.
If the two companies do not want to do so, they will be forced to submit to arbitration by the Australian Communications and Media Authority and decide on their behalf.
It is reported that the departure of each violation can be as high as $10 million, or equivalent to 10% of the local turnover of the technology company.
This is just the first step in Australia's battle for business media, and if the pay bill is passed, other technology companies must be involved.
At that time, the Australian government will build a high "paywall" for local media to deal with the surging multinational media companies.
The US giants encircled and suppressed, but the White House was indifferent
This demand undoubtedly threatens the interests of the two companies in Australia, directly angering the two monopoly giants of Google and Facebook.
Google has warned that if the bill is passed, it will have no choice but to stop offering Google search services in Australia, because "the principle of unrestricted links between websites is fundamental to search".
However, the search advertising business is the most important source of global revenue and profits, including not only google search engine ads, but also youtube advertising costs.
Therefore, Google has to weigh only the cost of payment and the loss of advertising costs caused by abandoning the Australian market.
Subsequently, Google also made its attitude clear with concrete actions: Google agreed to pay news fees to ten Australian news and publishing groups, including Murdoch News Group, to share advertising revenue through cooperation in building subscription platforms, and to put news on Youtube.
The Australian media thus got a piece of Google's market.
However, in stark contrast to Google, Facebook's attitude is particularly tough.
On February 17, 2021, the bill entitled "Guidelines for Mandatory Bargaining on News Media and Digital Platforms" was passed by the House of Representatives, and the Australian side immediately organized personnel to force Google and Facebook to negotiate paid content.
Facebook directly announced on the same day that it would impose a press ban and no longer provide news content on Australian services.
From the 18th, Facebook began to prohibit users from sharing news links.
The News Outlet's Facebook page cannot be opened in Australia, and even the Facebook pages of the Meteorological, Fire and Health Departments are banned.
This has directly interfered with the normal operation of Australia's administrative system, and even important news such as wildfire warnings and the new crown epidemic cannot be released.
In the civil society, the government has also been shouted at by the rioting people and asked to restore normal order.
Ironically, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison can only get angry on his Facebook account and scold Facebook for its "bullying" behavior.
A media directly challenged Australia, a sovereign country, and even its own people did not support itself, which can be described as a loss of face for the Australian government.
Not only that, but even the expected economic benefits have not been won.
According to data from Chalbeat, an extranet traffic analysis company, visits to Australia's major news sites have also decreased since Facebook banned sharing news.
But at the same time, Facebook has not been abandoned by the Australian people for reading the news.
That's because Facebook's news business is not its main source of profit, and news subscriptions account for only 4% of its total subscriptions, so it has more confidence to implement the so-called "news ban".
Interestingly, Canada, far beyond the ocean, was also inspired by Australia to announce that it would draft a similar bill.
It can be seen that the interests of this NEIGHBOR of the United States are deeply encroached upon by the American technology giants.
When the American technology companies represented by Facebook surrounded and suppressed Australia, the United States, as the leader of the anti-China camp, did not say a good word to Australia, but made it clear early and sided with its own companies.
On January 8, the U.S. side issued an opinion on "calling on Australia to repeal the proposed law" and "passing legislation to regulate the competitive position of specific players in the fast-growing digital market, which clearly harms the interests of both U.S. companies."
The lessons of the Australian government when it was subjected to sanctions for clamoring for China are repeated again.
Obviously, in the game between the United States and Australia, the United States has the upper hand with its strong transnational capital.
Australia and Canada hurried and turned to India for help
Desperate Australia, along with Canada, which is "following the trend", has to turn to foreign aid, hoping that the international community can give it some help.
However, the object of his appeal was a big surprise - as far away as India in South Asia.
Australian Prime Minister Morrison, the first time he was blocked by Facebook in his country, he sought out Indian Prime Minister Modi.
According to its claims, because India has as many as 320 million followers on Facebook, it hopes that Modi can represent India and stand on the same front as the Australian side in the confrontation with Facebook.
But it is clear that India does not want to cause trouble for itself, and the two countries have no common interest in this matter.
At the risk of being blocked by Facebook and offending the United States, the backer behind Facebook, Modi is reluctant to do so.
Modi's attitude was unexpectedly cold, and Morrison could be described as a hot face with a cold ass, embarrassed.
In the following days of consultations, the Australian side and Facebook made their own concessions, and after the two sides reached an amendment agreement, they lifted the blackout and added friends to each other, and the storm came to a temporary end.
However, after Biden took office, the US-Australia relationship, which implicates the interests of monopoly giants, will still be foggy.
Australia's road ahead is still foggy
In 2022, the road ahead is still foggy.
In May this year, Australia will once again usher in a general election, in order to win the popular vote, the current ruling party will not hesitate to "throw money".
On 29 March 2022, Australia's current ruling Liberal Party announced its budget for the 2022-2023 financial year, cutting the oil tax burden while allocating nearly 10 billion Australian dollars to issue a one-time cash grant to the public.
Whether this apparent "money-throwing" strategy, which lacks long-term considerations, will boost the confidence of Australians caught up in high oil prices and inflation remains unclear.
In international relations, Australia still pursues a traditional policy of taking sides and has not stepped out of the dual pattern of East-West opposition.
In terms of Australia-China relations, Australia still frequently makes anti-China remarks.
Although in the meeting between our senior officials and the Australian foreign minister, the other side sent a signal of intention to improve China-Australia relations.
However, under the pressure of the United States, whether Australia can make substantive changes is still not optimistic.
This is not an empty story, but based on the various actions of the Australian side.
As recently as April 1, Australia's defense minister also issued a statement that Australia would look for new buyers in the face of China's "economic coercion."
Obviously, it was the economic suppression initiated by the country first, but at this time, it first hit a rake, which painted an unpleasant color for the relationship between the two countries that had already fallen into a freezing point.
Not only that, after the end of the storm in 2021, Australia, which was backstabbed by the Us side, is still loyally and tirelessly carrying out anti-China acts.
During the previous Solomon riots, Australia had delusionally established its own regional hegemony over the archipelago, viewing the mainland's normal trade with the local area and police cooperation as an external threat.
At the end of March, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison directly refused to meet with China's new ambassador to Australia.
At the same time, it was also revealed that the plan to spend huge sums of money to build a new port and expand the army was even more pointed at China.
Therefore, as an important prospect for Australia, China-Australia relations are still difficult to be optimistic under the rigid attitude of the Australian side.
We often say that the lessons of the front car are the teachers of the back cars.
As early as Trump's term, Australia was backstabbed by the United States, and in this business conflict, the United States has clearly defended the interests of its own companies.
The so-called Western camp, which shares the same hatred and hatred, is nothing more than a false alliance, and once it is faced with the immediate struggle for interests, it will quickly disintegrate.
It can be said that there is only an eternal relationship of interest between countries.