What Australia has That China Needs

Your editor's fingers are a little rusty after a full week away from the keyboard. But our hands were not idle! We rediscovered the pleasure of discovering information the old fashioned way last week, analogue style! More on the benefits to your brain of reading books in a moment.

But first, this whole "Asian Century" thing is getting quite complicated, isn't it? We took a week off following the "After America" conference to ponder what it all meant. Is America done for? Can China liberalise its currency without destroying its banking system? And will former Treasury Secretary Ken Henry include a copy of our DVD in his forthcoming report, "Australia in the Asian Century"?

To be honest, the fact the Australian government has commissioned a white paper on the whole subject makes us nervous. Nothing says "stale and uninteresting idea" like a government white paper. In fact, it leads us to one of the ideas voiced at our conference that there won't be an Asian century at all. The whole premise might be flawed. Read More