Thought experiement
It would be interesting to see what would have happened if Australia just decided to pull the plug and go, you know what stuff it. No more trade with China! And instantly pull the plug on all exports to China. It would do a lot of really strong harm to the Mining industry no doubt, and probably to the Agriculture industry as well, but it would absolutely cripple some Chinese industries in response.
And the thing with Mining and Agriculture is that they would rebound pretty quick, other markets would pick up the slack (especially in agriculture), but the next level industry that relies on that stuff, tends to break down pretty fast without supply and sourcing new stocks at the levels Australia deals with China would be hard to source at competitive prices. Not to mention all their power plants that are reliant on Australian Coal...
It could have been a very interesting scenario. Still in this day and age, no one seems to be quite willing to play that sort of game. But a mislaid report suggesting it as a nuclear option, that just happened to be picked up by Chinese agents, well, it could have had an effect...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
