We need to "diversify" our trade?

I was surprised to read our Foreign Minister is saying that. Why on earth would we want to diversify. We have a major trading partner. We really don't need to concentrate on anything else. Oh, we can throw a few crumbs in other directions perhaps but we really don't need to trade with anyone else.

No, of course I don't believe that. I have been saying for years that we really do need to diversify. The Senior Cat said it and so did others. The idea that you would put all your trading eggs in one basket alarmed us. 

Trade with China looked as if it was going to be easy. They were eager to get what we had to offer. We could get things cheaply from them. There were sneaky Communist leanings in the government of the day. Nothing was said too loudly because Communism was not considered acceptable by many but the leanings were there. They were used. 

We would "become part of the Asian region". We would concentrate business in Asia. It was a growing market. It would mean making sure the items we exported were what they wanted, that we imported their more cheaply made items and that we taught Asian languages in schools - mostly Japanese and Chinese. 

And we almost forgot the rest of the world existed. Yes, there were a few hardy souls who were trying to do business with Europe, the Middle East, Africa and the Americas. Those hardy souls were few and far between. They were not particularly successful. Government grants were not available for the likes of them.

My nephews here went to a school where Chinese was compulsory. That they came from a family where most adults spoke Cypriot-Greek and there was a mix of other European languages thrown in was beside the point. The government wanted people who could speak Chinese.  My nephew and niece in another state were informed they would, like it or not, be doing Japanese. None of them speak Chinese or Japanese. One of them can remember enough Chinese to be polite but not because he trades with China. 

We all talked about it once. The two descended from Cypriots can speak a minimal amount of Greek - probably a little more than their cousins but not much. One of them can remember some polite phrases in Chinese - and he was usually second placed in his form. The other two say they can remember nothing. They come to me if they need help with anything. "Who do we ask?" They don't need Chinese or Japanese but they have asked about French because they were going on holiday in a French speaking location in the Pacific.

They don't need Chinese or Japanese because business is conducted largely in English - or, sometimes, French. A few polite phrases will go a long way towards initial pleasant relations but business relations will often involve more than one country. Even inside China not everyone uses the same form of Chinese. It might have been "simplified" but China is a vast country and there are equally vast language variations.

All this has been happening while we have been ignoring Hindi, Spanish, Arabic and Portuguese - all of which have well over 200m speakers. Even Indonesian - which might be considered an "Asian" language - has not had the consideration Chinese and Japanese have had.

Of course we can't teach everything in schools. Students cannot learn everything.  We might get away with not teaching Hindi because English is a second language in India. We cannot get away any longer without teaching Spanish and Arabic and the potential for trade with Brazil is so great we cannot ignore Portuguese either. But we don't have the resources to teach those things. Unless the government changes the Asia-centric approach and accepts the need to diversify what is taught in schools any attempt to diversify trade may be doomed to failure.

Our Foreign Minister is of Chinese-Malay heritage. She may speak Bahasa Melayu and Hakka Chinese but she apparently does not speak French. I wonder how she gets on at all those international meetings where, if English is not being spoken, then French is being spoken.  

Yes, we need to diversify - and we need to start with language.