Understanding Beijing's aspirations requires us to comprehend its strategic imperatives
The call on this page by Linda -Jakobson and Andrew Parker for a national debate on Chinese investment (25/2) omitted much in terms of what needs to be discussed on this crucial question.
The implicit argument, that Chinese investment in Australia should be further facilitated, is -nei-ther unexpected, given one of the authors makes a living through such investment, nor supported by the arguments presented.
Jakobson and Parker suggest the "poorly informed and inflammatory commentary" on the Landbridge deal for Darwin Port, the State Grid aspiration to control NSW electricity transmission and the objections to the sale of Australia's largest agricultural holdings to China are scaring off investment and are disadvantageous to Australia - rather than being insightful comment on the security threat some Chinese investment potentially presents. 
The $3 billion purchase of Australia's Pacific Hydro by China's State Power Investment Corporation is not mentioned but is -worthy of scrutiny, as are efforts by Chinese electricity companies to extend their influence over our electricity networks through tenders. David Irvine's comment that China already has the cyber capacity to shut down Australia's electricity network is cited as a basis for no longer needing to care about who owns our strategic -infrastructure.
Averring that China, as the fifth largest foreign investor in the country, offers little threat, the authors ignore that China is one of few nations, and certainly the -largest of such polities, which is openly utilising its financial clout globally to facilitate expanded strategic leverage. Chinese capital is, without doubt, being employed as a strategic tool. The expansion of Chinese control of ports across Southeast Asia, Oceania and the Indian Ocean is one example of "commercial" operators serving strategic needs through domination of infrastructure.
But Jakobson and Parker choose to depict China as a state like any other, where private investment decisions are taken on a business basis, and where the flow of capital is simply a commercial imperative. Occasionally eliding "Asian" and "Chinese" capital, they completely ignore the marked difference between these categories. They then, however, go on to admit that "every senior business person in China is closely connected to the party". Rather than proceeding to the obvious conclusion of this recognition - that business decisions are intimately tied to the interests of the party-state and in many cases have immediate or long-term strategic imperatives - the authors instead choose to lambaste political discourse in Australia and reasoned objections to some Chinese investments. The problem is, they claim, Australian ignorance of Chinese business structure, rather than the state--directed nature of Chinese capital.
The authors advise us that "capital, ultimately, goes where it is wanted". This is an uninformed and unsubstantiated claim, obfuscating the political and strategic nature of Chinese capital. While Chinese capital may not all be state-controlled, there is no doubt it is all potentially state-directed, precisely because of the party-state links the authors happily concede. Capital, it must be clearly recognised, goes where the Chinese state wants it to go.
It is thus neither realistic nor prudent to see capital from China as being like capital from Japan, the US, Britain, Singapore or New Zealand. A state intent on pursuing the China dream of national revitalisation and reassertion of regional dominance utilises its capital with long-term aims.
China is also happy to use the capital of other polities for its needs and its brilliant strategy of establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank will allow it, without any concerns about veto, to use capital from Australia and many other countries which have agreed to join the bank. The -collective funds allow China to pursue its plans for achieving increased economic reliance on China by regional economies, resulting in expanded strategic leverage.
Australia requires external capital, particularly for the development of the north. However, the carte blanche attitude adopted in respect of Chinese capital by the Abbott administration, where lists of key infrastructure projects in which China might like to invest and subsequently control, were handed over to China's National Development and Reform Commission, suggested a ganglion gone somewhat awry.
In fact, China also concurrently produced a plan for its anticipated role in Australia's northern development, submitting to Northern Territory Chief Minister Adam Giles in   April 2015, the China-Northern Territory Planning Co-operation Report, produced by the China Development Bank. Given this history, how ironic it was to see Tony Abbott in Tokyo last month lambasting China over the other prong of its regional -strategic leverage expansion - the building of, and installation of weapons on, islands in the South China Sea. The Turnbull admin-istration fortunately appears somewhat less sanguine about Chinese investment. The Treasurer's recent approval of Chinese--controlled Moon Lake Investments' purchase of the Tasmanian Land Company, including the Van Diemen's Land Company, was provided subject to unprecedented tax conditions.
This suggests the government has major concerns about the manner in which Chinese investments in important tax-providing industries may potentially hurt Aust-ralia. The administration is also indicating it is not happy with the Abbott government's excessive reliance on Chinese capital for developing Australia and has clearly been trying to broaden the source base of foreign capital.
The Senate has referred an inquiry into the foreign investment review framework to the Senate Economics References Comm-ittee. One can only hope that more unified, stringent and systematised processes of foreign investment review will result from the report.
Reference might be made to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, which reviews those inward investments which they call "covered trans-actions". Through access to a wide range of intelligence, commercial and security agencies, the committee is able to both review the security implications of potential investments and employ a spectrum of "mitigation measures" -including restricted access to non-citizens, tracking systems, reporting requirements, and third party audits to try to ensure potential risks of foreign investment are minimised.
In short, yes we do need a national conversation on Chinese investment. However, we should not be as parochial as some commentators urge and restrict this discussion to only Chinese economic activities within Australia. Understanding China's aspirations requires us to observe and comprehend Chinese investment practices and strategic imperatives in a regional context.
Only thereby will the scope of Chinese aspirations to achieve strategic leverage through capital be clearly manifest. Deciding on how we want to deal with Chinese investments will become easier when we observe the processes already -ongoing, particularly within the economies of our northern -neighbours.
Also, to pursue such a dis-cussion, we need data and I have already urged the establishment of a publicly accessible database which records China's economic, political, defence, cultural, media, technological and human movement relations with Australia, the countries of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.Geoff Wade is a visiting fellow at the Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University.