Want to know the real reason Australia has fallen out with China? The US State Department, led by former CIA boss Mike Pompeo, paid the Australia Strategic Policy Institute, or ASPI, to stir up criticism of China, it was revealed last week.

America raised its ASPI donation by 367 percent this year, investigative journalist Marcus Rubenstein reported. US allies such as NATO and the UK boosted their contributions 30-fold compared to the previous year. Weapons manufacturers also gave cash to ASPI, he said.

The massive cash infusion turned ASPI into an extremist anti-China foghorn. Result: Australia's broken relationship with China - which will be a disaster for small businesses Down Under, but is great news for weapons manufacturers.

What a happy world we live in.

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People who actually live in Xinjiang this weekend circulated photos showing that places labeled "concentration camps" by ASPI were mostly schools and municipal buildings. The BBC and most of the Western media printed ASPI's allegations last month, but who printed the corrections? No one.

Adrian Zenz, the researcher presented by the international media as the world expert on Xinjiang, has never been there.

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Australian Ted Tratt defiantly announced on Friday that his country could sell its wines to the huge 1.4 billion population of India instead.

But a reader named Alistair pointed out a problem: "India drinks less wine than Hong Kong."

It's true. Some years, tiny Hong Kong drinks twice as much wine as India. [And that's probably just at the Wednesday Ladies' Nights at the Lockhart Road bars.]

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There was much grumbling in Hong Kong legal circles at the weekend after the Financial Times printed an obituary for the judicial system here - without explaining that its main source, Philip Dykes, was infamous for his pro-Western, anti-China political activism. "It was like thinking Donald Trump is a reasonable person to profile Joe Biden," a senior lawyer told us.

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Wags on Twitter have now started using the words "State Media" for the FT, the BBC and other Western media because of the way they have abandoned balanced reporting to push political agendas.

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Way back in early June, the FT featured financial strategist Sebastien Galy predicting that the Hong Kong dollar's peg would be removed "within the next four to eight weeks."

Oh really? Reader John Henry Marchant sighed: "Six months later we are still waiting."

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In most countries, binge-drinking is seen as a bad thing, but these posters, spotted in North Point, seem to approve of it wholeheartedly.

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Young readers keep writing to me asking: "When will the whole Covid-19 thing be over?" I usually reply: "Let me check with my sources at the labs in China and get back to you."

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UK rightwinger Benedict Rogers announced at the weekend that he was starting an organization called ARC which would help his fans leave the war-torn ruins that used to be Hong Kong and emigrate to the glorious utopia of Boris Johnson's UK.

People who believe Rogers' wild allegations are so dangerously gullible they make US anti-vaxxers look sensible. The Hong Kong government should offer to bus the lot to the airport.

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This is the first holiday season where I have dug out my turkey thermometer and wondered whether to use it on the dinner or the diners.

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Strewth! Aussie wine needs a new home