In six and a half years I witnessed a dark pivot in China

There was a constant stream of Australian executives marching through Shanghai. No one seemed too worried that China had detained three Australians working for James Packer's Crown just two years earlier, a story I broke with my predecessors Angus Grigg and Lisa Murray. That was seen as an isolated incident linked to a broader crackdown on gaming. The country could not get enough of Australian iron ore, wine, vitamins and infant milk formula. Inside China, foreign brands were embraced in the world's largest consumer market by shoppers wary of locally made products. Tech giants such as Tencent and Huawei were…