Australia decided decades ago, at a time when only the World Bank foresaw how China would take off, the deep complementarity between what Australia can sell and what China would need to buy. Decades later, that has paid off handsomely for the big corporations that dominate Australian grains marketing, gas production, iron ore extraction, wine and many other commodities. For decades we Aussies subscribed to the Washington consensus that we are in a rules based order and China is rapidly becoming just like us. The wheel fell off that approx three years ago, as Australia timidly, tentatively succumbed to pressure from DC to dare to say the UNCLOS ruling on South China Sea nine dash man made islands was a breach of international law. It's steadily come undone since then. So Australia was merely keeping pace with Washington and the Five Eyes co-ordinated refusal of Huawei etc; we aren't used to being world leaders, and tend to shrink from such. Now, seemingly to our surprise, we are ahead of the pack and being selectively punished for it. The real turning point came when China policy was taken out of the hands of the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade, and the security agencies and think tanks took over. Now China appears to be baulking at taking our coal, which is amazing, as the coal used in steel making in China's furnaces is exactly what they were built around: low sulphur, low ash. Such high grade coking coal is not so easy for China to source either domestically or globally, and certainly not at the price paid for bulk Aussie shipments. So this sis tarting to look real serious.