The first cracks appeared in Clive Palmer’s China story about four years ago, when he collided with the glamorous daughter of the former premier, Li Peng.
Until then he was happy to sing the Communist Party’s praises while party executives signed opaque iron ore deals, sometimes with the aide of mystery middle men.
The Sino Iron investment in the Pilbara became famous in China as the single most disastrous outbound investment deal in Chinese history and turned Palmer into one of Australia’s richest men.
But “Mr China’s” luck ran out when he tried to replicate the trick, with even bigger sums, this time with Queensland coal.
In February 2010 Palmer flew a team from China’s sovereign wealth fund from Hong Kong to Beijing in his private jet.
He ushered through the VIP airport lounge and tunnelled them through the city’s notorious traffic with a police-led cavalcade involving 25 black Mercedes Benz.
He entertained his guanxi connections at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, including the heads of some of the biggest infrastructure companies, most notably China Metallurgical’s Shen Heting.
He regaled the titans of China Inc about his dream of fuelling China’s future with Queensland coal carted via Chinese-owned rail and ports.
But when Palmer told the market that he signed ''Australia's biggest export contract'' to provide $60 billion of coal to the behemoth run by the premier’s daughter, Li Xiaolin, some of his advisers were growing nervous.
''This is being done in a very Chinese way,'' said one, explaining why reputable bankers were preparing their lifeboats.
And then Ms Li, the premier’s glamorous daughter - who Chinese media had portrayed as a cultured, creative, sensitive, spiritual, smart, patriotic, self-made, modest and unusually intelligent woman-of-the-people - sank Palmer’s coal dreams by revealing that the $60 billion deal had largely taken place within Clive’s head.
Palmer tried to recover from his naive effort to use a princeling’s name in vain by saying whatever he thought Beijing might want him to say.
China had no interest in controlling overseas investments; it presented no security threat; and any obstacles that prevented the Chinese state from owning Australian infrastructure should be seen as a racist threat, he said.
“They've brought in things like the Foreign Investment Review Board in Australia, which is an outstandingly racist legislation designed to slow Chinese growth, and it's a national disgrace,” said Palmer, in March 2011.
And now, as Chinese executives left holding the can for the Sino Iron deal are chasing Palmer for the money their colleagues have squandered, Palmer’s racist comments today will carry as much weight as his anti-racist views back then.
There are legitimate questions that should be asked about China's human rights record, its military ambitions and the integrity of some of its investments in Australia.
But Palmer’s claims that “the Chinese” are “mongrels” and “bastards” who “shoot their own people” are probably not among them.
