When China sneezes ..... !!!!!!

fulltimestudent

I'm being a smartarse with that title. Its a play on an old saying in OZland (Australia) which was, "When the USA sneezes, Australia gets pneumonia" Which was meant to describe the economic clout of the USA on the economic life of Australia.

But first, a (hopefully) quick personal story. Two weeks ago, I went with some Chinese friends to a house auction in Hurstville (A suburb in Sydney, which is now a popular suburb for Cantonese speaking Chinese). It was a very nice villa style property, close to a rail station and shops, and similar style properties had been selling for around A$900,000 - 950,000. My friend (a University lecturer) was prepared to go a bit over A$1,000,000. The bidding went up and up, until two bidders were left slugging it out. Both were ethnic Chinese. I asked my friends- Where do you think they're from? All three friends answered, the accent is Hongkong. The final successful price was A$1,233,000. I asked again, Why so high? The consensus was, Honkeys (Hongkongers) getting their money out of Hongkong.

I'm sure the vendors were thrilled with that price, but any Aussie wanting to buy a house will be unhappy with that outcome, as it just pushes house prices to impossible levels.

Its well-known that wealthier Hongkong people are getting their money out of HK, much of it going to Singapore. These people no longer see a future there. Of course, Hongkong still has a very busy port (It was in 2019 still one of the top 10 ports in the world - Actually 6 other Chinese ports are in the top 10- the busiest port of all is Shanghai). But the riots in 2019 convinced many HK residents that it was time to leave HK).

Adding to those fears, is an announcement by the Chinese government in 2018, that they would build a completely new port on the island of Hainan in south China. It will be a new style of a designated Free Trade Area, and is planned to be one of the largest ports in China and the world and likely to become the Chinese terminus of the Maritime Silk Road. It likely means that HK will become less and less important as an access point to China.

See American Shipper - https://www.freightwaves.com/news/copy-of-port-report-chinas-hawaii-is-coscos-newest-port-of-call

fulltimestudent

So if China sneezes can Australia catch pneumonia? Sadly yes (and I;m not talking about the illness caused by the Corv19 virus)

Australian Universities are highly dependent financially on the Chinese student market. In the past, some Aussie academics have expressed their opinion to me, that if there were no Chinese students, they would have to cut their post-graduate courses way down.

And, in the current crisis, in which the Australian government has banned all travel from China, a lecturer who teaches an accounting course, told me that he may start the new semester (starting soon) with only 3-4 students in his class.

The University of Wollongong (which seems to have a lot of Chinese students, who congregate in the Sydney suburb of Hurstville and travel down to Wollongong) seems to be the first to officially cut all expenditure as a result of Chinese students being unable to come to Australia.

Quote: "Staff at the University of Wollongong (UOW) have been ordered to slash spending after "a significant downturn in enrolments" of Chinese students due to the coronavirus outbreak.

In an email to senior staff last week, UOW chief operating officer Damien Israel ordered a clampdown on international travel, hiring consultants, equipment purchases and attending conferences.

He said it was due to a "worsening financial outlook" because of a "significant downturn in enrolments of Chinese students.""

ABC report: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-14/coronavirus-causes-sydney-uni-spending-reduction/11962812

But the 'economic' pneumonia could get even worse in Australia.

Listener

One of my sons completed a degree in Cyber Studies at a W.A. University. In the first year he would be up at midnight, worrying and so frustrated. They were making the students work in teams to complete assignments but they were pairing the Australian students with virtually either non English speaking Chinese Students or Chinese Students that were not capable of doing the work or were just disinterested.

In the end my son would either make them put him in a group with other Aussies or he would just team up with the one or two Aussies in his group and they would work very hard to do the whole assignment between themselves and basically exclude the Chinese.

This meant that my son and his fellow Aussies were able to get a lot more out of their studies than was ever intentioned. It backfired for the Uni's but was great for those like my son who were okay with putting in the extra work. He's getting well paid now.

We didn't understand why this was happening until we saw a TV documentary which explained that the Uni's were accepting Chinese students with very little English and putting them in groups with English speaking students so that they could learn English without any effort required by the Uni's.

fulltimestudent

Listener:

"We didn't understand why this was happening until we saw a TV documentary which explained that the Uni's were accepting Chinese students with very little English and putting them in groups with English speaking students so that they could learn English without any effort required by the Uni's".

Yup! I'd agree that some University's have not acted responsibly in connection with their Chinese students.

I'd also agree that some Chinese students (likely coming from wealthy families) have acted like spoilt brats - not attending classes etc.

My funny story here: Danny Kane (A former Australian diplomatic service veteran, and a Chinese language scholar) then head of the Chinese Department at Macquarie Uni. taught the Chinese language courses. Many Chinese students, seeing some easy marks, enrolled. Some worked hard, some did not. One particularly lazy student did not pass a lot of grammatical tests, so Danny failed him. The boy's father called from China, "My son speaks Chinese, how can you fail him?" Danny replied, "Because he does not speak Chinese correctly," and hung up.

Since my degree topics were essentially historical, there were few Chinese in them. And the only time I was teamed with a Chinese student in a tutorial class it went well,

I do not think this money making sausage machine will last much longer, anyway.

Why? First China now has about 1200 universities etc. Some very good.

Second, more and more Chinese unis are creeping into the global top 100 universities in the world.

Third, since many top-class global universities now have a campus in China, why should the typical middle class family in China send their kids overseas at a high cost, when its much cheaper to attend the Chinese campus of a top American or UK university.

Simon

We should be cutting off China, they're shits.

LoveUniHateExams

The Chinese can sneeze all they like.

However, they should stop eating bat soup.

road to nowhere

The world will get pneumonia. So many goods contain chinese parts a disruption will hurt. If you go to the hardware for a pack of screws theh ate likely chinese made. We cant make them because the machinery was sent to China.

I watched a show about the black death. It was a great economic boost to working people IF they lived; wages went up because the labor pool went down

Simon

They can rename coronavirus all they want, it'll always be known as "KungFlu"

Half banana

I know we like a good rant here but I think you are being insulting Simon.

Were all Spanish people "shits" because a strain of deadly flu originated there?

fulltimestudent

Half Banana: "Were all Spanish people "shits" because a strain of deadly flu originated there?"

It is not clear where the so-called 'Spanish Flu' originated, but it is considered most likely that the first infections were in Kansas, USA. in an army camp. The USA had now joined in the insane European desire to slaughter each other, and a contingent of American troops carried the disease to Europe - and to the rest of the world.

It was called 'Spanish flu,' according to the following video from Cambridge University, who still have a research team, following the history of that disease, because Spain was neutral in WW1.

The other interesting point from that Cambridge University team, is that they calculate the real toll from that "American" flu to be closer to 100 million deaths rather than the usual 50 million deaths.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3x1aLAw_xkY

The other flu strain to have an American run was the 2009 H1N1 infection. The Wikipedia entry summarises the resulting infections and deaths.

"The 2009 flu pandemic in the United States was a novel strain of the Influenza A/H1N1 virus, commonly referred to as "swine flu", that began in the spring of 2009. The virus had spread to the US from an outbreak in Mexico.

As of mid-March 2010, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimated that about 59 million Americans contracted the H1N1 virus, 265,000 were hospitalized as a result, and 12,000 died."

Note: Wikipedia has attached a note that the data may need upgrading.

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When China sneezes ..... !!!!!!

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