IMO this article is kind of misrepresenting what this story is actually about for the purposes of fitting it into the global “China bad” narrative. It’s a domestic political issue about corruption of state level politics, really not anything of interest to a global audience. There was clearly a wide range of aspects to the corruption but the most significant aspect was pork barrelling and misallocation of government grants. None of the domestic reporting in Australia is telling this as a “China bad” story, despite the fact that Australian media absolutely loves telling “China bad” stories. That should tell you something I think.