The Lectern: Rise/fall of China?

I'm in Australia to give a keynote speech at a procurement conference and to visit my older daughter Jody, who has a Fulbright scholarship at Sydney University and is studying Australian immigration/refugee police. On the plane coming over from the US, the airline gives out a toiletry kit in business class, which includes toothbrush and toothpaste. However, on this flight, they separately handed out a toothbrush and a small tube of Crest (US brand) toothpaste. The staff explained that the toiletry kit had contained toothpaste made in China, but this had been removed because of safety concerns. So that's China's problem. On the other side, many professors in Australia have business cards where the reverse side of the card is printed in Chinese. The reason, I have been told, is that so many Australian professors spend so much time in China (there are also huge numbers of Chinese students studying in Australia) that they wish to have cards in Chinese for use over there. Although it takes eight hours to fly from Sydney to Singapore, and ten hours to Shanghai, Asia is very much a presence in Australia.