The Asian Century took off with gusto in Australia, with Chinese investment skyrocketing in the past decade, spurring a raft of resource, commercial and agricultural ventures.
But public opinion here has not kept pace with the Chinese juggernaut, with Curtin University professor Fuming Jiang citing 2012 research that 60 per cent of Australians were opposed to investment from the Middle Kingdom and less than a quarter approved of it. 
By comparison, American corporate investment in Australia has 38 per cent support and 43 per cent disapproval.
The raised eyebrows come amid claims that Chinese investors are knocking Australian firms out of the supply chain, destroying local steel manufacturing and undermining metal trade and engineering jobs.
Concern about the Chinese buy-up of Australian farmland is well documented and new KPMG research shows our cities are popular too, with 46 per cent of China's investment in this country last year in commercial real estate.
But is this direct investment by Chinese firms a threat or an opportunity for Australian businesses? 
The question was posed by Professor  Jiang at a recent WestBusiness Curtin University Outlook series about Chinese investment.
Professor Jiang said the capital provided opportunities in some sectors and challenges in others. 
He said there was widespread acknowledgement that as a mid-sized economy, Australia needed foreign investment to grow. The Chinese injection was particularly useful at a time of tight global credit.
He claims that for now at least, local knowledge and resources gave WA firms a competitive advantage compared to Chinese firms, making them more likely to win contracts on new projects. He said Chinese firms continued to struggle with Western institutional structures and corporate governance regulations.
But unionist Steve McCartney said Chinese investment was a boon for St Georges Terrace, and a disadvantage for blue-collar workers, who have witnessed a jobs downturn with the increase in Chinese funds.
"We believe your contribution to society should match the profit going out of the country, and we believe your contribution to society should be jobs for Australians," he told the panel.
"When we have Chinese investment in this country, nine times out of 10, what they're really trying to do is master the supply chain. 
"They invest in a country so they can make sure their manufacturing gets into the country, and what it successfully does is cut out steel and other manufacturing work in Australia. 
"You can tell by the manufacturing decline in WA, in the middle of boom ... over 15 years. Manufacturing has gone backward over 35 to 40 per cent."
Mr McCartney, who heads the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union, said China's purchase of agricultural and commercial real estate had done nothing for the average person but "change the landlords".
He blamed successive governments for failing to protect WA from foreign investment, with local metal shops winning only 23,000 tonnes of steel manufacturing work on Chevron's 395,000-tonne Barrow Island LNG project, and none of the 400,000 tonnes of steel on the Wheatstone project.
He said Australian governments -- unlike most OECD countries -- had also failed to help the economy make the transition from steel fabrication, in the face of cheaper competition from Asia, to high-end engineering and related manufacturing.
Such help could have come through minimum local content requirements, the use of Australian standards in contracts and government-funded research and development to stimulate a transition to high-end engineering.
Paradoxically, it is this eventual transition to a more technologically advanced economy which some believe will see Chinese investors step in where where successive governments have failed.
Nicholas Henderson, manager of partnerships and development at Asialink Business, said China was likely to support Australian entrepreneurs as the economy moved towards commercialising technological innovation.
"I think the nation has always relied on foreign investment to grow, and ... the next phase of our economy, it's innovation led," he said. "It's going to require a lot of capital ... and the ability to capitalise or commercialise innovation. 
"I think China can play a role in that, through investments, manufacturing and partnerships in commercialisation."
Mr Henderson said Chinese investors who shore up Australian innovation will not only help get products to market in Australia but provide opportunities among their one billion countrymen.
Testimony to the special relationship between the two countries was the China-Australia Free Trade Agreement, which he said afforded Australia preferences that had not been given to the US and Europe.
An extra way to boost benefits was to value add before exports, to help exporters cash in on Australia's quality reputation. 
But can Australia maintain this investment relationship if it begins stipulating greater protections for local companies?
Lu Yongfeng, the Perth-based managing director of China National Offshore Oil Corporation, believes that if the investment is an attractive option, Chinese investors will accept the extra protections for local companies, which was already happening in other parts of the world.
Mr Yongfeng said local labour was desirable anyway because they had crucial knowledge and experience in the area which Chinese workers lacked. 
However, he conceded business was always a balancing act. "The main focus is to make a business profitable and socially responsible -- it's now very important for business survival," he said.
Any change may come too late for the steel industry. James England and Paul Shelley, both from the Australian Steel Institute, claimed their sector had been virtually excluded from the supply chain.
Mr Shelley, who also runs steel fabrication business, Donhad, said the sector was comprised mostly of small businesses. He said he had noticed Chinese business people were patriotic to their home country and they favoured big Chinese suppliers. He said even Africa had started helping local firms into the supply chain in recent years.
Mr England, ASI's State manager, said the Australian steel sector appeared relatively expensive from the front end but the high quality saved money on repairs and maintenance. 
He said this was evident at a remote WA site where local workers were currently changing the bolts on foreign-fabricated equipment.
"We just get overlooked time and again because we look expensive ... until you are changing the bolts on a mine site, and then we start to look very cheap," he said.
WA Federal Labor MP Alannah MacTiernan said the increase in Chinese investment had been useful in some sectors. "When Baosteel wanted to invest and took a big position in FMG, that was a perfectly sensible and welcome investment because it was going to be a major customer, and that totally makes sense," she said.
But Ms MacTiernan said success -- for society as a whole rather than a small group -- had to be measured against job creation.
"Where investment is going to enhance our ability to sell our products, it strikes me as being clearly sensible," she said. 
"Jobs are what gives the ordinary working person the opportunity to participate, so investment that isn't going to translate into jobs is not really something that we see as necessarily beneficial."
She called for independent analysis of job creation from CHAFTA.
The message we hear all the time is that Australian prices are too high.
 Fuming Jiang 
What we don't want is to be is a country of workers that fit modules built in China.
Steve McCartney 
The next phase of our economy is innovation-led. It's going to require a lot of venture capital. I think China can play a role in that.
Nicholas Henderson 
If corporations are sitting around without an Asia plan at board level they are negligent, because it is a massive opportunity and risk market.
Paul Shelley 
We look at the supply chain and manufacturing capacity world-wide. This is a hot topic, a sensitive topic, in Australia.
Lu Yongfeng 
There is this false dichotomy whereby if you question the detail of an agreement you are somehow anti-trade. The devil is in the detail.
Alannah MacTiernan 
The steel industry is not protected by policy, it is arguably attacked by policy. Policy has done nothing for us for the last decade.
James England