China gets warm welcome Down Under
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China gets warm welcome Down Under
TEXT OF STORY
Scott Jagow: President Bush just visited Iraq. Now he’s heading to Sydney, Australia, where anti-war protestors are gathering. They’d like to greet President Bush as he attends the Asia-Pacific Economic Summit. Officials in Sydney have put up a three-mile-long fence in the business district to separate the protestors from the summit. Inside that fence, the President and Asia-Pacific leaders will be talking trade, specifically with China. Scott Tong filed this report from Shanghai.
Scott Tong: Chinese President Hu Jintao is already in Australia cutting deals. Today he oversaw a massive natural resource agreement.
Australian firms will supply 20 years worth of natural gas to China, to help fuel the country’s industrial rise.
That rise makes some American politicians and workers nervous, but as far as trepidation in Australia . . .
Milton Osborne: Very little at all, if there is any at all.
Milton Osborne is with the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney.
Osborne: The prospect of continuing to sell raw materials to China is welcomed across the main political parties, both sides of the main political divide.
The Aussies are surfing on 17 straight years of economic growth, in large part because of resource exports to China.
Next year, when the Olympics come to Beijing, an Australian mining company will be supplying the medals.
In Shanghai, I’m Scott Tong for Marketplace.
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