The ongoing conflict between Israel and Palestine has captivated and polarised international opinion. While Israeli fighter jets were pulverising buildings with "precision weapons" and Hamas was firing rockets at Israel, they were also waging another all out information war on social media.

Pro-Palestinian left-wing journalists and American evangelical Christians are exchanging verbal slingshots with hash tags such as #israelunderfire or #prayforgaza. Gilad Lotan, the chief scientist at Betaworks, created a fascinating coloured network graph of Twitter traffic after the Israeli bombing of a UN school in Beit Hanoun.

The graph shows “pro-Palestinian” tweets clustering around the BBC and former Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald. On the other end, blue lines representing “pro-Israeli” social media posts crowd together around pro-Israeli media as well as American Tea Party supporters.

Though there has been considerable discussion about the Israeli-Palestinian social media war in English-language dominated social media, there has been little discussion of another information war being waged on Chinese social media.

Considering China’s increasingly important international stature and its close connection to the Middle East, it is not surprising that Israelis are pouring resources into winning the war of opinion in the Middle Kingdom.

Michael Anti, a prominent Chinese blogger looks at this intriguing issue in his latest column in Caixin, a respected business magazine.  He observes that Taiwanese social media users are generally supportive of the Palestinian cause while many mainland Chinese are rooting for the State of Israel. It is an interesting reversal of their countries’ official positions, Taipei is generally considered to be pro-Israel and Beijing pro-Palestine.

A Taiwanese student Zhang Gengwei thinks his countrymen are sympathetic to Palestinians because of their equally hopeless situation; both “states” are diplomatically isolated and facing a strong adversary at their doorstep. In China, the rising popular backlash against Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism is helping Israelis  win hearts and minds.

China has suffered a string of deadly terrorist attacks recently and many of them are connected with Jihadist inspired separatist groups in Xinjiang. This puts China at a diplomatically awkward position as the country has traditionally supported Arab national liberation movements including the late Yassar Arafat's Palestinian group. 

Like the ground war in the Middle East, Israelis have been engaging in a large scale asymmetrical information war in Chinese social network against Palestinians. The Israeli embassy in Beijing maintains one of the most popular social media accounts among diplomatic missions in China, with close to 850,000 followers. By comparison, the US embassy has 890,000 followers.

Israeli president Shimon Peres is also one of the few Western leaders who maintain a social media presence in China and he has more than 450,000 followers. Official Israeli posts are attracting a lot of sympathetic comments, for example, a recent Israeli embassy post which compares Hamas to the notorious IS terrorist organisation is drawing many sympathetic comments.

The latest comment on the post says “Israel, you must control the population in Gaza, otherwise it is impossible for you to win. You should ditch your humanitarian principles and the only hope for you is to fight evil with evil.” Though there are comments condemning Israeli killing civilians, the majority of comments support Israelis attack on Hamas.

There are also many popular pro-Israeli tales doing their rounds on Chinese social media such as one that says Israel has been secretly transferring military technology to China as a gesture of gratitude for China sheltering Jewish refugees during the World War II.  Some suspect it is the work of an Israeli public diplomacy effort.

Michael Anti argues that social media is playing an increasingly important role in shaping public opinion -- especially at a time when a lot of Chinese citizens are relying on social media platforms such as Weibo and WeChat to get their information.  

For example, Beijing’s hardline foreign policy towards Japan is also partly driven by the rising tide of nationalism on social media. Denny Roy, an American foreign policy expert explains that authoritarian governments such as Beijing are not immune to adverse public opinion. In some circumstances China’s leadership faces pressures comparable to democratic national leaders who seek re-election.  

Israel’s successful effort in winning the social media war in China against its bitter foe is an important lesson for Australia. Maintaining a robust relationship with Australia’s largest trading partner is more than sustaining official links, Canberra should consider investing more resources in bolstering its social media presence in China.

As my colleague Fergus Ryan argued late last year when foreign minister Julie Bishop was engulfed in a bitter row with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi over China’s establishment of an air identification zone, “Julie Bishop needs to understand the full array of diplomatic tools available to her. Getting on Chinese social media should be a priority for her now”. 

Conservative soulmates Narendra Modi and Shinzo Abe have declared ties between India and Japan were moving to a "new level", during a summit pregnant with promise for a relationship they hope will offer a counterweight to China.

Modi's first foreign visit outside the Indian sub-continent has been a relaxed display of personal chemistry between the leaders of countries that bookend an ever-more assertive Beijing, and which both have prickly relations with their giant neighbour.

Despite falling short of launching a "two-plus-two" security framework of foreign and defence ministers, the two men hailed the transformative potential of the partnership between Asia's second and third largest economies.

"The world knows the 21st century is Asia's century," Modi told a joint press conference on Monday after the summit.

"But its shape and quality are not yet clear. This will be decided by how Japan and India work together," he said, adding: "I think our relationship is moving to a new level."

Abe also lauded a tie-up he said was "the one with the most potential in the world".

"Together, working hand-in-hand with Prime Minister Modi, I intend to fundamentally strengthen our relationship in every field to elevate our relationship to a special strategic and global partnership," he said.

Both nations are wary of China's growing ambition to be seen as the regional keystone and are keen to curb its activity in the East and South China Seas and in the Indian Ocean.

Tokyo and New Delhi have separate long-running territorial disputes with Beijing, which is widely seen as having pushed its claims more aggressively in recent years.

Underlining the point, Chinese coastguard ships briefly sailed into waters off the Japanese-controlled Senkaku islands on Monday, officials said. China calls the islands the Diaoyus.

While neither man directly addressed the Chinese elephant in the room, Modi left little doubt it weighed heavy.

At a speech to business leaders earlier in the day, he lambasted the expansionism of yesteryear and said it was not a viable model for Asia.

"There are 18th-century-style ways and thinking that involve expanding (geographically) by taking away the land of another nation and going into the seas," he said through a translator, without making any specific reference to modern-day China.

"If Asia is to become the leader in the 21st century, Japan and India should lead" and promote a path of peaceful development, he said.

Washington is eager for the two countries to step up their co-operation by way of offering a regional balance to China, at a time when its own military commitment around the world is being questioned.

U.S.-based food processor OSI Group spent more than two decades and US$750 million building a business in China that served McDonald's Corp. and other fast-food chains.

That all collapsed in July after a Chinese television report showed workers in the company's Shanghai plant allegedly making chicken nuggets and patties from expired meat. OSI's operations across China now are paralyzed, after state media excoriated the company and customers throughout the country cut ties.

Meanwhile, OSI has become a lesson in the perils faced by foreign companies in China, when their operations are under unprecedented scrutiny by regulators and state media and negative publicity can destroy a business almost overnight.

Reaction to the OSI broadcast by state-run Dragon TV on July 20 was swift and severe. Authorities closed the plant and ordered an investigation. The city's Communist Party chief was quoted by Xinhua, the official news agency, as saying "all companies that break the law will be punished by the law."

OSI Chairman Sheldon Lavin within days issued a statement saying that what happened at the plant "was terribly wrong, and I am appalled that it ever happened in the company that I own."

But the company's global customers weren't taking chances. Burger King Worldwide Inc. and the operators of the KFC and the 7-Eleven chains cut all ties with OSI's China operations. McDonald's halted orders from the Shanghai plant, then suspended OSI's supply to the hamburger chain's 2000-plus restaurants across the country. McDonald's said last week that it is reconsidering its relationship with OSI in China altogether.

On Friday, a month after the initial TV revelations, Shanghai authorities announced the arrest of six China employees of OSI's Shanghai plant on accusations of selling expired products.

Authorities still haven't announced the results of tests conducted on meat from the plant. Several people briefed on the situation said the tests haven't revealed any safety problems. There have been no reports of illness from the incident.

Meanwhile, OSI's China plants effectively have ground to a halt, the people briefed on the situation said.

An OSI spokesman said the company's 10 facilities in China are all open for business. The company declined to comment further.

OSI said Monday that it hired an outside company to oversee OSI's vegetable processing plant in the southern city of Guangzhou.

OSI is the latest in a growing list of foreign businesses falling afoul of regulators in China, in industries such as dairy, technology and pharmaceuticals.

Chinese regulators last month levied 1.24 billion yuan (US$202 million) in fines against 12 Japanese auto-part makers for alleged price manipulation. BMW, Volkswagen AG's Audi and Mercedes-Benz parent Daimler are awaiting possible punishment following similar probes. Microsoft Corp. and Qualcomm are being investigated for potential monopolistic activity.

BMW, Audi and Daimler responded to the investigations by cutting prices. Qualcomm has said it is cooperating with authorities; Microsoft has said that it abides by laws in China and is cooperating with investigators.

The actions are deepening the impression among some foreign businesses that they are being harshly targeted. The American Chamber of Commerce in Beijing reported in March that 41 per cent of 365 companies surveyed said the business environment is less welcoming than it used to be. Some 61 per cent of European companies that have operated in China for more a decade said doing business in the country is getting more difficult, according to a survey this year by the European Chamber of Commerce.

Legal experts said OSI may have violated a regulation issued in March that made tampering with production dates and expiration dates illegal. But they said the fallout has been harsh, given the apparent lack of food-related sickness.

"The real question is why is such heavy-handed action being taken against any company?" said Lester Ross, a Beijing-based attorney with U.S. law firm WilmerHale.

The China Food and Drug Administration and Shanghai's municipal FDA didn't respond to requests for comment.

Experts said Beijing could be sending a message to domestic companies by going after high-profile foreign businesses. "Officials are going out of their way to target the most visible companies," said Ben Cavender, a senior analyst at China Market Research Group.

OSI qualifies. The company began operations in 1909 in a suburb of Chicago and in the mid-1950s became a supplier to McDonald's. When OSI arrived in China in 1991, fast-food sales were just taking off. The company invested in ranches, hatcheries, feed mills and slaughterhouses. It is now one of China's biggest poultry producers, capable of processing more than 300 million chickens a year. It also supplies pizza toppings, hamburgers and the lettuce that goes on them. OSI doesn't disclose how much of its revenue comes from China.

The repercussions from the OSI incident has threatened sales at McDonald's, which considers China a key growth market, and KFC parent Yum Brands Inc., which generates more than half its sales in China.

The Dragon TV exposé opened with an anchor standing in front of a photo of a McDonald's Big Mac. "Occasionally we eat Western fast food because it's convenient and even more because these enterprises are all large, we think their standards are high," she said. Later scenes showed OSI Shanghai plant workers handling chicken that had passed its use-by date, picking ground meat off the floor and working on production lines with no gloves.

Dragon TV declined to comment on the source of its video footage.

McDonald's said last month in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that its global comparable sales forecast for this year is at risk because of the issue.

The People's Daily, the voice of the Chinese Communist Party, highlighted articles on the Shanghai plant on social media using the hashtag "McDonald's and KFC's Shady Suppliers." The police department in Anhui province announced on its microblog that officers had seized expired products from KFC and McDonald's in three cities. Attached was a cartoon hamburger with flies coming from it.

Some Western executives in China have complained that their companies are blamed for industry shortcomings caused by poor regulation. They said they are held to a higher standard than their Chinese counterparts.

To protect themselves, some foreign food companies are taking supply-chain oversight into their own hands, driving up costs in China.

Wal-Mart has said it tests at least 600 products daily in China to catch flaws before the food is sent out to stores. Chicken processor Tyson Foods Inc. has spent hundreds of millions of dollars in recent years to build its own farms in China so that it can control the safety of its entire supply chain, from chicks hatching to the grocer's shelf.

Russia President Vladimir Putin said Monday the Kremlin may let China have a share in one of the largest Siberian energy projects, the Vankor oil and gas field.

"Vankor is one of the biggest production operations today and very promising. Overall, we take a cautious approach to letting in our foreign partners, but we of course set no restrictions for our Chinese friends," Mr. Putin told China Vice Premier Minister Zhang Gaoli.

According to the transcript of the meeting, published on the Kremlin website, the idea of inviting the Chinese came from the chief executive of Russia's largest state-controlled oil company Rosneft.

"The state authorities support this idea and we would welcome your participation," said Mr. Putin.

For more than a decade now the Kremlin has been increasing the state's hold of Russia's vast oil and gas resources, driving both local and Western energy companies out of developing the large hydrocarbons fields.

However the Russian oil and gas industry needs money and expertise, and state-controlled company Rosneft, which owned the Vankor field, is keen on accepting foreign companies, including ExxonMobil, BP and Indian state-run ONGC, as junior partners in new projects.

As the West is pondering a new set of economic sanctions against Moscow for stirring up the armed conflict in Ukraine, the Kremlin is keen to show that it has more options eastwards. Russia's gas monopoly Gazprom in May signed a US$400 billion deal with China National Petroleum Corp. which envisages a supply of an average of 38 billion cubic meters of gas annually for a period of 30 years to China.

The construction of the pipeline was opened Monday in the presence of Mr. Putin and Mr. Zhang.

The mammoth Vankor field was discovered in eastern Siberia in 1988, just before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The field has oil reserves of 3.8 billion barrels of oil and 95 billion cubic meters of gas.

After almost two decades of different Russian and international companies' attempts to get hold of the giant field, or at least part of it, Russia's state-controlled Rosneft started production in 2009.

Lowy Interpreter

In Systems of Survival, Jane Jacobs describes the two moral codes that co-exist in modern life: the merchants and the guardians. Merchants trade, competing within the laws, and are open, industrious and pragmatic. Guardians are loyal traditionalists, hierarchical, expert; they command political, military, professional and civic power. Merchants seek profit while guardians value honour. The two castes co-exist warily, they need each other but effective law must separate and regulate them. It is easy to see that problems occur (especially corruption) when they mesh dysfunctionally.

In China, socialism was intended to be a guardian system, but collective ownership drew the guardians into business. Running state-owned enterprises (SOEs) was vastly lucrative. Jiang Zemin welcomed private entrepreneurs into the Party. The merchants and the guardians merged.

This is the ideological dilemma President Xi Jinping is facing. His SOE reform program has until now been confusing, even contradictory. But clarity has emerged in recent days.

At first, reforms emphasised 'mixed ownership', bringing more private sector involvement into SOEs. This was always questionable. While indebted local governments are gung-ho about privatisation, the private sector suspects 'a ploy for SOEs to draw in money.' Others worry the entire system is rigged against private investors. SOEs often struggle to serve both the state and the market: monopolistic central SOEs have become complacent and remain largely closed (Sinopec's restructuring is a notable exception), while smaller SOEs burdened by welfare obligations are hammered by competition. Without a clear profit mandate, SOEs have pursued scale, leading to over-capacity. There are suspicions that managerial carpet-baggers have looted state assets over the years. And previous reforms failed because insular SOEs struggled to hire professional managers from outside.

Some thought the solution was to pay SOE managers more. A State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission (SASAC) official beamed as he described his new opportunities: 'SOE managers, now permitted to fire workers, could be measured on profits, in which they could share.' A major bank said that it was 'urgent' to introduce stock options, a move which would surely be followed enthusiastically by rivals.

Yet in recent days a very different message has descended from the leadership: pay and perks for SOE executives are to be cut by as much as 50%. While not paid extravagantly by international standards, these bosses enjoy royal benefits. Their comedown will be publicly popular, and Xi Jinping may likewise be harnessing his widely supported anti-corruption campaign to force through reforms in the SOE sector. The campaign invokes 'shock and awe' so managerial resistance may be muted.

What aim does the President have in mind? 

I believe Xi is trying to mark a clear distinction between the administrative role of the state and the executive management of the companies it owns. His model is Singapore. At an operational level, independent professionals will be well paid in line with the market, while the government will appoint directors in a supervisory role. Like elsewhere, there will be a gap between executive and non-executive compensation. The Party-member directors will be paid less, perhaps much less, than the SOE executives they oversee. They will be paid as guardians, not as merchants. They will bear the honour of serving the people; those seeking riches should look elsewhere.

So much for the principle. The question is whether it can work in reality.

So far this administration has surprised many with its ferocity. The tough tactics have been mirrored in Xi's martial language ('reform wielding a knife,' for example). Indeed the very force of change, ruthlessly executed by his 'fireman' Wang Qishan, has caused unease that due legal process is not being observed and that law enforcement is politically motivated. Even reform cheerleaders are wondering where this is all heading, with Caixin's Hu Shuli plaintively reminding us that 'effective rule of law must be the endgame of anti-corruption.' There are some steps towards judicial reform but it's not clear if Xi can truly 'verticalise' legal power and simultaneously empower local judges with more independence, which seems to be his plan.

What is clear is that economic reform is being handled with a political iron fist. The leadership appears to have reached an anti-liberal reform consensus. Or perhaps Xi is merely guarding his ideological flanks. Or maybe there is no consensus and this is a naked power grab.

In any case, the guardians of China's party-state are being asked to rally for a higher purpose. For Xi Jinping the reform program, and the anti-corruption campaign subsumed within it, has an overarching goal of making China more stable, equitable, just and governable. Xi's language evokes a struggle of life or death. Just as Jane Jacobs predicted, properly separating guardians from merchants has become Xi's system of survival.

Originally published by The Lowy Institute publication The Interpreter. Republished with permission.

OSI Group LLC said it agreed to let an arm of U.S. food-service company Golden State Foods Corp. manage one of OSI's plants in China, as the company attempts to rebound from accusations that it sold past-due meat in the country.

The Aurora, Ill., food provider said Monday that Golden State's KanPak China unit will oversee OSI's plant in the southern Chinese city of Guangzhou. The plant supplies fruit and vegetables.

It wasn't clear whether the move marked a broader shift for OSI, which has 10 plants in China. OSI didn't respond to requests for comment.

The move came after OSI's business in one of its growth markets was shaken by a Chinese television report in July that accused the company's Shanghai Husi Food Co. subsidiary of repurposing expired meat and selling it to fast-food chains such as McDonald's Corp. and Yum Brands Inc. Chinese authorities said they began an investigation into OSI's practices in late July. The results of the Chinese investigation haven't been announced.

On Friday, Chinese prosecutors announced the arrest of six Shanghai Husi employees. One of the people arrested had been a plant manager.

OSI Chief Executive Sheldon Lavin apologized to Chinese consumers in late July and said he would focus on overhauling the company's China business, emphasizing quality assurance. "It was terribly wrong, and I am appalled that it ever happened in the company that I own," he said.

Yum, which runs the KFC and Pizza Hut chains in China, severed ties with OSI after the TV report. McDonald's, OSI's largest customer, has suspended OSI from supplying the chain's 2000-plus restaurants across the country and is reconsidering its relationship in China, a spokeswoman for the hamburger chain said recently.

The issue has taken a toll on McDonald's business after it faced nearly a three-week shortage of meats--including hamburgers and chicken nuggets--in many of its stores in China, Hong Kong and Japan. McDonald's has worked to replace OSI with other suppliers and solve shortages, but the food chain said it had been unable to find a suitable vegetable supplier for products such as lettuce. McDonald's didn't respond to requests for comment for this article.

China has been a focus for OSI as it seeks to grow by meeting the demands of companies targeting the world's largest market for chicken and pork. OSI said it previously supplied Chinese operations of Burger King Worldwide Inc., Subway, Papa John's International Inc. and Starbucks Corp.

OSI last year opened its ninth and 10th China plants, part of a $750 million investment to become one of China's largest poultry producers.

East Asia Forum

On 29 July, Chinese authorities announced the long-expected news that former security tsar and Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang is under investigation for Communist Party disciplinary violations. Simultaneously, it was revealed that the party plenum in October would -- for the first time -- focus on ‘ruling China according to law’ (yifa zhiguo).

Of course, Chinese authorities have little intention of building up legal institutions as a truly independent check on party power. Like his predecessors, President Xi Jinping remains committed to one-party rule. He has looked at Tiananmen Square, he has looked at the Arab Spring, and he has drawn his conclusion: weaken the political control of the Communist Party, and you jeopardise the entire edifice. Precisely this rationale is behind the repression Beijing is now directing at a wide range of legal activists, including figures such as Xu Zhiyong and Pu Zhiqiang.

But the plenum will almost certainly confirm some of the high-profile legal reforms launched over the past two years. Chinese authorities have formally abolished the controversial re-education through labour (laojiao) system used to sentence prostitutes, drug users and political dissidents to lengthy detentions without trial. Judicial transparency is being strongly emphasised, with some provincial court authorities striving to make all of their verdicts available online. And central authorities are reviving concepts of judicial professionalism that had gone into eclipse during the later years of Hu Jintao’s administration. One example is the attempt to separate out legal disputes and court cases from the poorly-defined petitioning channels many citizens use in practice to resolve their disputes. And they have attempted to insulate judges from interference by local officials. Experimental reforms in six provinces remove control over the funding and appointment of local judges from the hands of county authorities, vesting it instead with provincial courts.

Such changes appear aimed at fashioning the Chinese judiciary into a more institutionalised tool of party governance. It is not clear how effective this will be. Hu Jintao-era policies emphasising weiwen (social stability) at all costs continue to limit the ability of courts to decide cases according to law (or even party decree), and steer them instead towards doing whatever it takes to stave off impending protests -- including simply paying off disgruntled parties. And local judges themselves flag serious concerns regarding some of the reforms. As one put it, ‘if local officials no longer bear any direct responsibility for us, the next time we need their help -- executing a verdict, finding housing for judges -- they are likely to simply turn us down, or tell us to run to the provincial capital. How are we supposed to operate then?’

A more important question is whether the party plenum will set out a new orthodoxy with regard to the concept of law. Sweeping policy frameworks announced at such meetings affect the direction of government work for years into the future. For example, the recent crackdown on microblogging services such as Weibo and Weixin is a direct outgrowth of the 2011 party plenum statement vowing to strengthen control over social media sites.

If the 2014 plenum statement on law were to set out a new orthodoxy regarding law, what might it look like?

First, it is extremely likely to import language from recent Communist Party propaganda efforts (that is, the ‘China Dream’) that emphasise China’s cultural distinctiveness. Similar lines have already appeared elsewhere. Several months ago, Xi Jinping commented to the Greek prime minister, Antonis Samaras, ‘your democracy is the democracy of Greece and ancient Rome, and that’s your tradition. We have our own traditions’. Naturally, this would help ideologically cage the efforts of Chinese liberals who seek to push for deeper reform based on Western legal models and international standards (as was the case with efforts in the late 1990s to bring China into compliance with WTO norms).

Second, it is probable that central authorities will confirm a heightened role for the Communist Party’s own extra-legal disciplinary system. This apparatus has already been bureaucratically strengthened as part of an intense anti-corruption campaign, in part as a tool to remove supporters of Xi’s rivals. Expect to see the definition of ‘ruling China according to law’ appropriately stretched.

Last, it will be worth watching to see how Chinese authorities attempt to reconcile recent judicial reform efforts with their increasing invocation of extra-legal mechanisms taken straight out of the 1950s and 1960s. The past year has seen a parade of televised public confessions by social media celebrities, foreign corporate investigators and alleged terrorists -- rather than statutes and trials -- to send signals to society at large. Language regarding ‘confessions and self-confessions’ (piping yu ziwo piping) has re-emerged in party campaigns. Might a central reinterpretation of what it means to ‘rule according to law’ grant space to develop such methods further?

Carl Minzner is Professor of Law at Fordham Law School. Follow him on Twitter @CarlMinzner.

This piece was originally published at East Asia Forum. Reproduced with permission.

Foreign companies in China feel increasingly targeted for unfair enforcement of anti-monopoly and other laws and might cut investment if conditions fail to improve, a US business group says.

The American Chamber of Commerce in China's report adds to mounting complaints about a flurry of investigations of global carmakers, technology suppliers and other companies. It is a reversal for companies that welcomed plans unveiled by the ruling Communist Party in late 2013 to open the state-dominated economy to more private competition and adds to pressures at a time of slowing growth and rising competition from local rivals.

Almost half of companies that responded to a survey last week believe they are targeted for "selective and subjective enforcement" of anti-monopoly, food safety and other rules, the chamber said in a report on Tuesday. It said China faces a growing risk it "will permanently lose its lustre as a desirable investment destination".

"Many areas of regulation are overly focused on foreign multinationals," said the chamber's chairman, Greg Gilligan.

Out of 164 people who responded to the survey, 60 per cent said they felt "less welcome" in China, up sharply from a survey in late 2013 in which 41 per cent of 365 respondents expressed the same sentiment.

The ruling party under President Xi Jinping has promised to make China's economy more productive by opening more industries to private and foreign competition. But at the same time Beijing is trying to create "national champions" in fields from cars to telecoms to aerospace.

Business groups say that has led regulators to use a six-year-old anti-monopoly law and other regulations to shield domestic companies from competition.

The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China also expressed concern last month about the anti-monopoly investigations. It said it received reports companies were pressured by regulators to accept penalties without a full hearing and avoid involving their governments.

Trade officials from the United States, the European Union and Japan say they are watching the investigations, but have yet to announce whether they consider them a violation of China's free-trade commitments.

Industries targeted by regulators include pharmaceuticals, medical devices, high technology and cars, according to Les Ross, the American chamber's vice chairman. He expressed concern regulators might be "taking down" foreign companies to narrow the gap with Chinese competitors.

Beijing has announced fines totalling $US202 million ($A218.56 million) against 12 Japanese auto components suppliers on charges of price-fixing as part of a sweeping investigation of the industry. Officials say Mercedes Benz, Audi and Chrysler also will face punishment. In separate probes, Microsoft and chip maker Qualcomm also are under scrutiny.

Foreign business groups welcomed the anti-monopoly law in 2008 as a step towards clarifying operating conditions. Since then, they have said it is enforced more actively against foreign companies than against local rivals.

Regulators deny they favour domestic companies. They point to actions such as fines last year against two Chinese liquor producers for price-fixing.

"We believe the fairness of the law enforcement will be better reflected as the number of cases increases," said the director of the anti-monopoly bureau of the Cabinet's planning agency, Xu Kunlin, in comments on Tuesday in the China Daily, an English-language newspaper aimed at foreign readers.

Foreign companies used to have a "sense of co-operation" with regulators but believe that has changed over the past two years, said Kim Woodard, a former vice chairman of the American chamber.

"Now, what's happening is you have aggressive enforcement actions against selected companies," said Woodard. "That starts to look like another barrier to market access."

Beijing also is reducing purchases of goods from foreign-owned companies, said Ross.

Uncertainty over regulatory conditions adds to challenges for foreign companies at a time when China's growth is slowing and they face competition from ambitious local rivals. Growth of 7.5 per cent in the three months ended in June was barely half of 2007's rate of 14.2 per cent.

"Companies are increasingly cautious about future investments," it said.

In a speech to a Committee for the Economic Development of Australia function in Adelaide, Mr Stevens said the full ramifications of the continuing rise in the weight of China's economy and, eventually, its financial system in world affairs will be a long-term focus, noting that nearly 50 countries now count China as either their first or second trading partner.

READ: Population growth can't fuel the economy forever

"In short, the whole world is now more dependent on China than it was," he said. 

In a wry wink to the ongoing speculation about whether a property bubble exists in the Australian market, Mr Stevens remarked "Yes, house prices can fall, even in China." 

"That could leave the economy exposed to nasty shocks in the future.

After flirting with a five-year trough for the past week, the iron ore price has finally reached the unwelcome milestone overnight.

Continued concerns over a supply-demand imbalance led to fresh falls, with the latest retreat representing the 11th red session in the past 12. 

Benchmark iron ore for immediate delivery to the port of Tianjin in China is currently trading at $US85.70 a tonne, down over one per cent from its $US86.70 closing mark in the previous session.

The commodity has lost over 35 per cent this year, with its most recent slump seeing its price hit its lowest level since October, 2009. It has lost 8 per cent of its value during the past fortnight alone as Rio Tinto, BHP Billiton and Vale lift supply at a time when fears grow of a softening Chinese economy. 

The latest drop came after a widely-quoted research note this week from respected CLSA analyst Ian Roper, who forecast a $US75 a tonne price in the back half of next year.

Investors were also struck by comments from the head of mining giant Anglo American, Mark Cutifani, who warned the retreat could have further to run.

"There is a lot of [iron ore] supply coming on and it will impact profits -- and so I'm concerned," he said this week. 

While there are hopes that the price drop will reduce supply from marginal producers, particularly in China, Mr Cutifani cautioned this could take a while to impact the market.

"What I've found in this industry is that a lot of capacity can be really sticky," he said.

"My concern is the downside [to prices will be] more and longer than you anticipate." 

The share prices of BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto were mixed on the news overnight, with BHP yielding 1.5 per cent in a rising market, while Rio added 0.5 per cent. However, BHP's losses can largely be put down to going ex-dividend.

Rio and BHP both have market-leading cost structures that leave them turning a profit until prices sink below $US50 a tonne.

Such good fortune is not shared by the rest of the local industry as Atlas Iron has a breakeven price in the low $US80 range, while Fortescue Metals Group and BC Iron have breakevens of around $US70 a tonne, according to a recent UBS analysis.

The wall separating Western fund managers from Chinese stocks is starting to come down, confronting investors with new risks and rewards. 

Starting in October, overseas money managers will be able to buy Chinese companies listed in Shanghai via Hong Kong's stock exchange. Investors have poured money into funds that track these so-called A-shares in anticipation of the rule change, while some brokerage firms that operate in the region say they are hiring new staff to handle added trading. The Shanghai Composite Index, which tracks A-shares, is up 12 per cent since early June. 

China's decision to open its stock market to outsiders goes hand in hand with recent initiatives to liberalise the currency, the yuan, which is also known as the renminbi, and to boost the nation's influence on the global financial stage. The move will allow mainland Chinese firms to raise money from a wider pool of investors. 

A new surge of cash could breathe new life into a market that has lost more than 60 per cent of its value since 2007, even as the S&P 500, Dow Jones Industrial Average and other global stock indexes have hit record highs. 

At the same time, the shift comes at a time of uncertainty over the Chinese economy, whose growth has slowed in recent years amid a sharp rise in debt. The decision highlights investors' concerns about the nation's disclosure and corporate governance standards, which are broadly viewed as falling below Western levels. 

"It's sort of an unknown market because there's no access, and you don't quite know what you're buying," Simon Male, director of Asian equity sales at brokerage Auerbach Grayson & Co, said. "This is not going to be an overnight change. It's going to be a gradual evolution of the market." 

Under current rules, the only way to invest in China is by buying a limited pool of Chinese stocks listed in Hong Kong, or applying for a special license to make purchases on the mainland, a laborious process that takes months to complete. Buying is capped by a quota. 

François Perrin, head of greater China equities at BNP Paribas Investment Partners in Hong Kong, is using such a license to buy up companies in China that he expects to benefit from international investors flooding in. 

"It's going to be a game changer in term of international investors getting access to mainland China," Mr Perrin said. "Having investors willing to put money back to work in China, you need a strong catalyst, and this is potentially the catalyst that China has been waiting for." 

China is granting new licenses at a record pace this year, expanding the outstanding quota by 100.1 billion yuan ($17.5bn). But the new way of trading via Hong Kong will allow a further 300 billion yuan of foreign investment. 

Many big mainland companies have dual listings in Shanghai and Hong Kong, with shares trading at an average 7.4 per cent discount in Shanghai. Some investors are betting that gap will close as the two markets connect. Yuan-denominated shares in the mainland are known as A-shares, while their Hong Kong counterparts are called H-shares. 

"It is a big step forward," Miguel Canizares, a vice president of equity operations at Fidelity Investments, said. Mr Canizares says Fidelity is in discussions with brokers in Hong Kong to potentially add China A-shares directly to its mutual funds for the first time. He said he is still waiting for clear information about what regulations and taxes will apply to foreigners once the rules change in October. 

Deutsche Wealth & Asset Management started the first China A-shares exchange-traded fund in November, and at least four more have been launched since, according to Morningstar. These ETFs allow individual investors in the US to invest directly in domestic Chinese stocks for the first time. Deutsche's ETF received record net inflows in August of $US85.3 million ($91.2m). 

Only 1.5 per cent of China's mainland stock market is owned by foreigners, according to Deutsche Bank, compared with 30 per cent in developing economies such as Brazil and South Korea. 

Worries about opening up China's stock market are especially centered on the mainland's outdated trading technology, the opaque finances of some of China's companies and a history of scandals, where brokers sometimes trade ahead of big client orders in order to benefit from changes in prices. 

Developing countries are often cautious about liberalising their financial markets too quickly because doing so can lead to sudden inflows of cash and volatile price fluctuations. 

China is also strengthening financial ties with Hong Kong at a time when both sides are fighting for political control. On Monday, China's government said candidates for Hong Kong's top leadership post must now be approved by a pro-Beijing committee, sparking protests by democracy advocates across the territory. Analysts say control by China could dim Hong Kong's appeal as a global financial center. 

Still, Chinese brokerages such as Everbright Securities are planning to add staff to start covering Hong Kong stocks. 

Matthews Asia, a mutual-fund manager in San Francisco with $US27.3bn in assets, received in July its license to invest in $US100m worth of A-shares, after a four-month application process. The asset manager wanted to get access to A-shares so that it could invest in some of the more than 2,500 companies listed in mainland China. 

"It's a big market, and there's lots of potential targets that you can buy," Robert Horrocks, chief investment officer of Matthews Asia, said. "If you have confidence that the Chinese economy is growing...then it's a good place for a long-term investor." 

Beijing's denial of open elections for Hong Kong's next leader demonstrates the ruling Communist Party's desire for complete political control and its resolve to quash any opposition, whatever the cost, observers say.

The standing committee of China's rubber-stamp parliament on Sunday ruled out public nominations for Hong Kong's next chief executive in 2017, with candidates for the city's top job to be approved instead by a Beijing-backed committee.

The move by the National People's Congress (NPC) drew fury and pledges of a mass sit-in by Hong Kong's pro-democracy campaigners, who say Beijing is working to weed out any potential critics of the Communist Party.

But the authorities dismiss such protestations, insisting that a popular vote between the chosen contenders fulfils their pledge of "universal suffrage".

Some experts say any expectations Beijing would loosen its grip in the former British colony - where London appointed its leaders, and which returned to China in 1997 - were unrealistic in the first place.

The decision came as Chinese President Xi Jinping rolls out a national crackdown on dissent since taking office last year, with authorities suppressing online debate and detaining activists.

"The mainland has its view, which will not be shaped by the Hong Kong people," said Shen Dingli, a professor at Shanghai's Fudan University.

Mainland authorities, he said, "want to have a person that will listen to Beijing".

The pro-democracy activists, he added, "cannot persuade Beijing, because these people don't listen to Beijing".

China's political system is controlled by the Communist Party, and while it has long permitted elections at the village level, it typically keeps a tight grip on the process, with approved candidates often running unopposed.

There are no direct polls at higher levels.

The State Council, China's cabinet, reasserted Beijing's control over Hong Kong in a policy "white paper" in June.

Jia Qingguo, associate dean of Peking University's School of International Studies, said the NPC decision was "absolutely necessary" to end debate in Hong Kong.

"If the NPC makes its decision very clear, this will help stabilise Hong Kong," he said. "The NPC is China's most powerful organ, so when it speaks, it speaks with authority."

Residents of Hong Kong enjoy rights not seen on the mainland, including freedom of expression and assembly, as well as an independent legal system.

But there are signs some of those rights are beginning to be curtailed, especially media freedom, with physical and cyber-attacks on Hong Kong-based journalists critical of Beijing, and independent website House News shutting its doors last month.

Surya Deva, a professor at the City University of Hong Kong, said Beijing wants to "control the political governance in Hong Kong".

But the NPC's decision violated both the city's Basic Law and the 1997 joint declaration between the British and Chinese governments, he argued, and was "likely to prove counterproductive".

"Hong Kong is going to face a crisis of governance in the near future if the central government continues to behave in this way," he said.

The move is also likely to have repercussions in Taiwan, to which the defeated Nationalists fled at the end of China's civil war in 1949 and which Beijing considers a renegade province.

China is set to impose a limit on the number of foreign television shows that Chinese online video-streaming services can offer, according to people familiar with the new policy, in its latest effort to control foreign-media content.

Regulators as soon as Thursday could require that foreign TV shows eventually make up no more than 30 per cent of TV content on Chinese video-streaming sites, the people said. Currently, foreign shows make up more than half of the TV content of popular video sites such as those run by Youku Tudou and Sohu.com according to a report by a publication under China's broadcast regulator, the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television.

Representatives for the two companies declined to comment, as did a spokesman for the agency. It wasn't clear whether the 30 per cent referred to the number of titles of TV shows or the number of episodes. (The report saying foreign shows make up more than half of the TV content on popular video sites measured the number of titles.)

China keeps a tight grip on what its state-run broadcasters can transmit via cable or satellite, and foreign programming makes up only a small part of it. But until recently regulators put fewer restrictions on Internet companies that stream movies and TV shows to Chinese mobile phones, tablets, computers and set-top boxes.

That has made a wide range of foreign shows available to Chinese viewers, including "The Big Bang Theory," "2 Broke Girls" and "House of Cards" from the U.S.; "Sherlock" and "Downton Abbey" from the U.K. and the hit "My Love From the Star" from South Korea. "The Big Bang Theory," which until recently was streamed by Sohu.com, drew more than 120 million views a month, according to the company.

But regulators have taken an increasing interest in video-streaming, say executives at the companies. "The regulator has been collecting data about episodes of different online programs from major video sites for quite a while," said an executive with one domestic video site. "The agency has done quite a lot of homework for this policy."

In April, the state regulator pulled four hit U.S. series--"The Big Bang Theory," "The Good Wife," "NCIS," and "The Practice"--from domestic video sites in April.

Authorities haven't given a reason for those moves. But they come as Chinese leaders try to tighten regulation of information circulating via chat apps and on Internet sites. As well, China is seeking to build its own culture of television, movies and animation to counter what it sees as the soft-power influence of the U.S. In a government report released in March, Chinese government planners called on officials to "quicken development of public cultural undertakings including the press and publishing, radio and television, and literature and art as well as the culture industry."

Executives among Chinese video companies said the new limits could have a positive impact on the companies by cooling the bidding for licensing foreign TV shows. Video-streaming sites paid a total of 4.2 billion yuan (US$683 million) last year to license foreign and domestic programming, according to research firm EntGroup, up from 3.2 billion yuan the year before and compared with 300 million yuan in 2007.

An executive at a Chinese broadcasting company said producers of South Korean TV programs -- which are extremely popular in China -- were asking for prices of about US$200,000 to US$300,000 per episode of hit shows.

"For the foreign content production and distribution companies, they might not be able to ask for unreasonably high price in the future as some of them are doing now," the executive said.

Many of the Chinese companies have been developing their own content as a way to reduce licensing costs.

Small Chinese builders are following their larger brethren into the U.S., betting that the recovering American housing sector will help them expand as China struggles with its cooling market.

Landsea Green Properties, a Chinese home builder listed on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, has started residential projects spanning hundreds of planned homes in San Francisco, New Jersey and in Ventura County, California, near Los Angeles.

Also on the West Coast, Starryland USA, a subsidiary of Chinese developer Fuxing Huiyu Real Estate intends to build upscale homes in development projects in San Francisco's Bay Area; in Orange County, California; and near Seattle. Starryland's parent is listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange.

Executives of both companies said their houses will be built with American labour and mostly target U.S. buyers. "Our U.S. operation will function in every aspect like a U.S. home builder," said John Ho, managing director of Landsea's U.S. division, Landsea Holdings. "Our people all are local. The only thing that makes us different is that our equity and background is Chinese."

The builders will cater, at least in part, to Chinese buyers looking to move to the U.S., a category that has risen rapidly of late. A survey released in July by the National Association of Realtors found that Chinese buyers purchased US$22 billion of U.S. homes in the 12-month period ended in March at an average price of US$590,826, accounting for 24 per cent of home purchases by foreigners by dollar volume. That is up from US$12.8 billion, or 19 per cent, in the previous 12 months.

Many Chinese buyers are looking to park money abroad in case political winds change in China. Many also want to buy homes for children or relatives attending universities in the U.S. They are anticipating U.S. home values will continue to recover.

Chinese builders, meanwhile, are venturing abroad in part because of weakness at home. They are dealing with huge gluts of newly built but unoccupied apartments outside of cities like Beijing and Shanghai. Many have cut prices, which has crimped profit margins. And tightened credit standards in China have hampered demand.

"One of the reasons that we are looking abroad is for safer assets that offer steady returns in a mature market," said Jay Hu, a management consultant at Starryland.

To be sure, some U.S. home builders and developers also are targeting Asian buyers. FivePoint Communities, a joint venture of its chief executive, Emile Haddad, and home builder Lennar Corp, requires that builders in its California developments include such amenities as separate grandparent quarters in homes for multigenerational families.

Many of FivePoint's builders include feng shui design touches, such as prohibiting a home's sink and stove from directly facing each other in the kitchen, lest the homeowner encounter the negative energy of standing between symbolic fire and water.

Also, Landsea and Starryland are following bigger Chinese builders that have established U.S. bridgeheads. In June, state-owned developer Greenland Holding Group of China bought a majority stake in a 15-tower apartment complex under development in Brooklyn's Atlantic Yards project from Forest City Ratner Cos.

Chinese home builder China Vanke last year joined with Tishman Speyer Properties to build two condo towers totalling 655 units in San Francisco.

Still, Landsea and Starryland have the capital and experience to gain a foothold in the U.S. market. Landsea sold 12,000 homes in China last year and had revenue of US$1.85 billion.

In the U.S., both are based in the Los Angeles area, and both are light on U.S. employees -- with eight each -- because they are doing more development than construction.

Landsea intends to operate initially as a developer, buying land and overseeing projects but sometimes hiring other firms to handle construction. It has teamed with a division of Lennar to develop a 200-unit condo tower in Weehawken, N.J. It also is developing 109 townhomes in Dublin, Calif., and single-family and active-adult projects near Los Angeles.

Landsea made its name in the Chinese home-building market by focusing on environmentally friendly details such as rainwater-retention systems and geothermal heating and cooling systems. Landsea's Mr. Ho anticipates selling prices will range from US$600,000 to well into the millions of dollars, partly because it is building in particularly expensive markets.

Starryland's U.S. projects under development include 100 single-family homes near San Francisco, more than 200 homes near Seattle and a complex of more than 800 condos in Orange County, California.

Baidu invests in Finnish software developer IndoorAtlas

IndoorAtlas says China's leading search engine Baidu has invested US$10 million in the Finnish software developer, whose indoor mapping platform can help retailers track their customers' movements inside buildings.

IndoorAtlas was founded in 2012 by a group of research scientists at the University of Oulu in Finland. The company, which has offices in Oulu and in Mountain View, California, raised US$4.5 million from various investors in June.

IndoorAtlas's software platform helps people navigate and locate themselves inside buildings to an accuracy of two meters, according to the company, similar to how the Global Positioning System (GPS) enables navigation outdoors.

However, IndoorAtlas's technology doesn't rely on signals received from satellites like the GPS does. Instead, IndoorAtlas's software platform uses the Earth's geomagnetic field to pinpoint a smartphone's location inside a building.

In developing its product IndoorAtlas has drawn inspiration from animals such as pigeons and lobsters, which use magnetic fields for navigation, Chief Executive and Co-Founder Janne Haverinen said in a recent interview for a Finnish magazine.

IndoorAtlas's software is patented and available as a mobile application for iOS and Android devices. When the application is switched on in a smartphone, it generates data that retailers can use to track the movements of a person carrying the smartphone.

Retailers can then send alerts about special offers, for example, as the customer carrying the smartphone approaches specific locations inside a store.

The funding deal, announced in a news release, also grants Baidu exclusive access to IndoorAtlas's platform in China. The agreement means that IndoorAtlas won't make its platform available through any other distribution channel, said Monika Raj, strategic marketing adviser for IndoorAtlas.

"IndoorAtlas's accuracy and scalability is second to none and clearly complements Baidu's existing mobile Location Based Services and maps offering," said Baidu Vice President Liu Jun, who leads the company's LBS business unit.

Baidu's investment in IndoorAtlas is at least the second time within the past six months when a Chinese investor has put money into a Finnish startup. In March, China's IDG Capital Partners joined a funding round for the Finnish mobile game developer Next Games.

China will take part in the construction of Argentina's fourth nuclear power plant, officials in Buenos Aires say.

The China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) will pour $US2 billion ($A2.16 billion) into technical support and logistics to build Atucha III, the government said on its website following the signing of a deal in Beijing.

Two of Argentina's three current plants - Atucha and Atucha II - are located near Buenos Aires while a third, Embalse, is in Cordoba province.

Argentina largely depends on natural gas and oil for its energy needs.

Nuclear power only accounts for about 10 per cent of electricity production.

It is still unclear how much power Atucha III will generate.

China is in the midst of an investment spree in Latin America, and has poured about $US23 billion into oil and gas, mining, finance and food exports in Argentina alone.

The Conversation

Despite recent slumps in economic growth, (now at just over 5.4 per cent compared to 10.3 per cent in 2010) former Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh this year handed the new Prime Minister Narendra Modi a much more successful India than the one he inherited as Finance Minister back in 1991.

India is now Australia’s 5th most important export destination, with 1908 Australian businesses exporting goods to India, and a vibrant two way services trade.

Twenty years ago, India wasn’t even in our top ten trading partners. There was a view India was a closed economy that was naturally hostile to foreign investment and had economic nationalist tendencies. Just like the reluctance of our cricketers to tour India (Greg Chappell used to send Kim Hughes in his place as skipper and only played home tests), not many Australian exporters went to India either.

Today, India means much more to Australia than the three Cs – cricket, curry and call centres. It has been the two Us - uni students and uranium – that have dominated diplomatic relations in recent years. But both countries also have two new governments.

Abbott meets Modi

In India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP broke the shackles of the Congress Party and the Nehru-Gandhi dynasty and won a spectacular 51 per cent of all seats in Parliament. Modi has announced an aggressive “Made in India” push – commentators have said that doesn’t apply strictly to foreign ownership. Representatives of Indian defence companies like Pipavav that has strong ties to Swedish company SAAB explained to me Modi is keen to build Indian capability in key sectors like defence.

In Australia, Prime Minister Abbott also leads a (relatively) new government, now just a year old. The Abbott government’s trade and investment focus has been more on East Asia with an aggressive agenda led by Trade and Investment Minister Andrew Robb winning free trade agreements (FTAs) with South Korea and Japan and one with China on the cards (Clive Palmer notwithstanding). So Prime Minister Abbott’s visit to India will be more than welcome in New Delhi, especially given the time and resources already spent by Australia in Beijing.

Comparing India and China

But while India does not necessarily focus on Beijing (Japan is a big investor in Indian infrastructure), how does India compare to China?

In Australian export terms it’s like comparing a cricket test match to a Twenty20 game. As China opened up its economy early (Deng Xiaoping said let a 1000 flowers bloom in 1979 and Dr Manmohan Singh didn’t get economic reform going until 1991), China has moved up our export ranks steadily.

But India is a recent addition – largely on the back of education, tourism, professional services and the IT sector, and in 2013, trade between Australia and India actually fell by 14 per cent.

India may improve its relative trade position with Australia when compared to China because of both democracy and demography. The two countries share British democratic institutions, rule of law and language, all useful to growing trade ties. At the same time, India’s relatively young population – 50% of the nation are under 25 – will give India a demographic dividend, while China’s ageing population and one child policy means that it will grow old before it gets rich.

However, Australia and India do share some institutional frustrations too as well as strengths. The system of federalism and overlapping regulations affects business in both countries and the “licence raj” has still left a red tape legacy in India to deal with despite recent improvements.

Demography too can be an issue, as many of India’s young are in the east of the country and many jobs in the south and the west. There’s also an issue of raised expectations in the labour market as not everybody can be a rocket scientist or IT entrepreneur. But India certainly wants to move its way up the value chain in education, beyond call centres, so collaboration with Australian institutions in post graduate research and R&D is the name of the game.

One advantage India has over China is its success in building global brands, such as Tata, Mahindra & Mahindra, JSW Steel, Dr Reddy’s Labs, and Infosys. All these companies now have interests in Australia and will play an important role in Australian corporate life as joint venture players and investors.

But how do we lure more Indian companies to Australia? Despite the sophistication of the new India, it still comes down to cricket.

At next year’s World Cup, India will be based in Adelaide and will play Pakistan at Adelaide Oval. Cricket will be the venue, but business will be the name of the game at a business networking event to be held alongside. As Raju Narayanan, the South Australian government’s India business guru says: “To succeed in business in India, you first have to prepare the pitch well.”

Tim Harcourt travelled to India in his role as Adviser – International Engagement to the Premier of South Australia, Hon. Jay Weatherill, MP.

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

LinkedIn has admitted it “may have gone too far” and is reconsidering its policy of censoring content deemed too sensitive by the Chinese government.

“We do want to get this right, and we are strongly considering changing our policy so that content from our Chinese members that is not allowed in China will still be viewed globally,” LinkedIn spokesperson Hani Durzy told Bloomberg.

A spokesperson for LinkedIn China declined China Spectator’s request for details of the proposed changes.

The practice was first revealed in a China Spectator exclusiveon the eve of the 25th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre in June this year. 

That report revealed that LinkedIn was censoring posts on the international version of LinkedIn as well as people who are located outside of China.

The Mountain View, California-based company had flagged that it would be censoring posts in February but it was only until the policy was implemented that it caused controversy.

LinkedIn CEO Jeff Weiner said in a log post the same month that the company "fundamentally disagrees with government censorship," but that "LinkedIn's absence in China would deny Chinese professionals a means to connect with others on our global platform."

Following China Spectator’s report, more posts by users have been snared by the LinkedIn censors leading to increasingly vocal opposition and calls to boycott the service.

In an email to Rob Schmitz, a radio journalist for Marketplace, LinkedIn said that content posted from Chinese IP addresses would be blocked globally to "protect the safety of our members that live in China”.

Dealing with China’s strict censorship regime is a sensitive issue for foreign companies wanting to operate in the world’s second-largest economy.

In 2010, Google shut down its Chinese-language internet search to avoid being complicit in censorship.

China’s apparent property collapse has the usual suspects talking about another hard landing again -- for what must be the 10th consecutive year. Noting how frequently these calls are made, and noting how frequently those who make these calls are wrong, my own view is that I don’t think we have anything to worry about. That is, there isn’t a great risk of China falling into a recession at this point. Even if there was it probably would not even matter that much for Australia apart from a short-lived market panic attack.

Now I realise this isn’t the common wisdom, but then again, common wisdom isn’t all that wise most of the time. Especially when sprouted by economists or policymakers. According to that view it would matter a lot. We might even have that much called for and long-awaited -- with much relish -- recession. China is a $10 trillion economy after all and set to become the world’s largest over the next 10 years or so.

That’s not to say it wouldn’t matter at all. We might have some temporary confidence shock and our stocks and currency would sell off. I don’t think that impact would be sustained however, and looking through the noise, I think Australia would get along just fine.

Firstly, China is big -- but it is not the be-all and end-all. This is hype. To see this, consider that while China is our largest export market -- taking about 30 per cent of our goods exports, they’re really only our largest market for iron ore, copper and gold. For our other large bulk export, coal, Japan ranks ahead of China, and even then, exports to China are roughly comparable with exports of coal to India (coking) and South Korea (thermal).

Most importantly, for our soon-to-be booming energy exports, China is a minor player compared to Japan, and perhaps even South Korea going forward. Other than that, our financial markets aren’t especially intertwined, and we rely more on the US, UK and Japan for the bulk of our investment and capital needs. That is, a Chinese recession isn’t going to cause a credit crunch.

Now consider what an actual Chinese recession would look like. It is not going to be like what we see here or in the US. They’re not going to get negative growth anytime soon especially as the government’s balance sheet is pristine and policymakers have ample capacity to use their monetary levers.

Think back to the GFC in 2009 -- China was widely regarded as being in a recession with a growth rate of 6 per cent! And that was with a global credit crunch. Now, I don’t think we would ever get there, other than by policy design, but if we did, and from Australia’s perspective, that’s still strong growth and unlikely to affect our export position too much.

All through that last recession, exports of iron ore from Australia to China, continued largely unabated, down only 1 per cent for that year, and that was during a global credit crunch, when global trade froze.

In any case, in the ensuing year, ore export volumes surged 16 per cent. That’s still exceptionally strong growth over a two-year period during a global credit and trade crunch. Needless to say, a localised Chinese recession now wouldn’t be anywhere near as dramatic. So since that time, average annual growth in iron ore volumes to China has been something like 11 per cent. A recession now might see that slow to between 7 and 9 per cent or something -- that’s hardly a disaster.

Another way to think about things is with reference to the Japanese experience. Up until recently, Japan was our largest export market. Now over most of that time, Japanese growth has been extremely weak, lucky to average 1 per cent per annum. The lost decades remember? Indeed over the past five or six years, Japan has barely grown at all -- we’re talking a decimal point here, not much above zero. At the same time, Australian exports to Japan have averaged growth of about 8 per cent (4 per cent volumes) per annum -- and that includes the GFC.

Japan’s lost decade hasn’t really been a big event for Australia. We still export a lot of stuff to them, and the chances are they’ll be our biggest export market again once liquid natural gas exports fire up. This from a country that’s stagnant. How would a recession in China, a country three times the size of Japan’s, with a ‘recessionary’ growth rate of 6 per cent or so, then be harmful to Australia? It clearly wouldn’t. With that in mind, it’s not so much the case if China sneezed would Australia catch a cold. It’s more the case that if China sneezed would we even notice?

More than half of Australians view China as an economic threat.

The Australian National University's foreign policy poll has found that while many people see China's rise as overwhelmingly positive for Australian prosperity, 52 per cent view it as an economic threat.

The poll also found Australians were almost evenly divided on whether the United States or China was more important to the nation's future.

A third of people still believe the US is the most important country for Australia.

However, in a surprise finding a third said China is now more important.

The other third ranked the two countries equally.

ANU politics and international relations expert Dr Jill Sheppard said Australians are "fairly progressive" towards China.

"We're more embracing of China as a neighbour than are citizens of the US for example," she told reporters in Canberra.

More than 65 per cent said China's rise was a positive development for Australia, while only 30 per cent considered it to be a threat military.

The finding that 52 per cent of Australians counted it as a economic threat, was attributed to fears of China buying up local farms and real estate.

The Abbott government needs to explain away those fears, ANU international relations expert Andrew Carr says.

"(To) help people understand that owning large amounts of farmland or houses in western Sydney is not going to give China a national security weapon to use against Australia," Dr Carr said.

The ANU poll also found the ANZUS alliance with the United States was backed by 81 per cent of Australians.

Sixty per cent thought Indonesia had not assisted the fight against people smuggling, and almost 53 per cent said it had not helped combat the terrorism threat.

Meanwhile, support for foreign aid is in decline but still sat at lofty 75 per cent.

Three quarters said aid should be given on humanitarian grounds and not for commercial and political interests.

The finding raised questions on whether Australians will support the Abbott government's policy of economic diplomacy - which links aid to economic objectives.

The telephone poll of 1204 people was conducted in May by the Social Research Centre at ANU.