When my mum took us to department stores, she'd carefully shepherd us past the porcelain - 'mind the china'.
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There's been a bit of that on a national scale recently.
We sell them our resources, they assemble our smartphones.
But when they get heavy on a journalist suddenly we're up in arms? Or if they start spying on our vaccines and military hardware.
China's been persecuting minorities in their country for years. Racial. Religious. Uyghurs, Christians, Tibetan buddhists.
But the naivete (or greed) behind economic theory has presumed they'll get more democratic as they get richer.
Not. One. Bit.
And while China has happily pressed on in pressing into its minorities, we've held our tongue and opened our wallets.
We only complain when it affects us: COVID-19, journalists, governance, finance.
We don't want to love our neighbour. Not really. Not much. Not if there's nothing in it for us.
Our economic theory is just a fig leaf we use to cover our naked self-interest.
Minding China is not our biggest problem. There's a far more insidious virus at play than even COVID-19, it's selfishness and self-interest and it does not discriminate by race, creed or religion. We're all infected.
- courtesy of St Paul's Anglican Church, Katherine.