Asian countries are learning to cope with Chinese bullying

IF YOU ARE Australian and love lobster, it is the time to indulge. Fishermen are almost giving lobsters away off the back of their boats. High-class restaurants and banqueting halls in China once provided by far the biggest market for lucrative live exports, until the Chinese authorities instituted a sudden and unofficial ban in November. Shipments of crustaceans to China have since collapsed by nine-tenths. Desperate lobstermen say they are hanging up their pots. And lobsters are just one of several Australian exports clobbered by unexpected Chinese restrictions, including wine, coal, barley, sugar, timber and copper ore.

China often sends countries that cross it to the doghouse in some form. Sweden is there at the moment, for criticising China’s kidnapping and jailing of a Chinese-born Swedish citizen, Gui Minhai, a publisher of scurrilous books about China’s leaders. So, too, is Canada, after it arrested Meng Wanzhou, a senior Huawei executive (and daughter of its founder), at the request of America, which seeks her extradition on charges of evading sanctions against Iran. Norway was hit after the Dalai Lama, the spiritual (and once temporal) leader of Tibet, won the Nobel peace prize, which is awarded by a Norwegian jury.