Push for Australian Government to Back China's Belt & Road Initiative

Prior to leaving policy institute China Matters last year, I gave a speech to an AsiaLink Business - CPA Australia forum in which I called on the Australian Government to back China's Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) in two ways. First by signing an MOU with Beijing on BRI projects in Australia, and secondly by appointing a BRI Trade Commissioner to pursue opportunities for Australian businesses stemming from BRI projects in third countries. These elements of the speech were reported by Glenda Korporaal in The Australian of 2 December 2019 under the title "New push for business to back China's Belt and Road" (note that a subscription to The Australian may be required to access this article).

The full speech, which was delivered in Sydney on 29 November 2019, also looked at opportunities for Australian business that would emerge from China's continuing economic growth and rising middle classes, and the country's emerging super regions and city clusters. The full speech can be downloaded here.