Chinese importers advised to stop buying Australian barley, sugar, red wine, timber, coal, lobster, copper ore and copper concentrates. Foreign ministry says moves are justified and blames Canberra for downward spiral in relations.
Beijing said Canberra should “reflect on its own deeds” as it began imposing a raft of punitive restrictions on imports from Australia on Friday.
Chinese importers were advised to stop importing barley, sugar, red wine, timber, coal, lobster, copper ore and copper concentrates from Australia. A ban on Australian wheat could follow, the South China Morning Post reported earlier.
The latest import restrictions come as relations between the two countries have plunged to the lowest point in decades and follow earlier Chinese trade actions including anti-dumping duties on Australian barley, beef export suspensions and a new anti-dumping investigation into cheap Australian wine.
Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin on Friday said Beijing’s moves were justified and that Australia was to blame for the rapidly deteriorating bilateral ties.
“I want to stress that the Chinese relevant authorities’ measures on imports are in line with Chinese laws and regulations and customary international practices,” Wang said at a regular press briefing. “They also protect the safety of consumers and the legitimate rights and interests of domestic industries, and are reasonable, legal and inculpable.”
China’s actions have been criticised as a violation of World Trade Organization rules as well as the free-trade agreement it signed with Australia in 2015. Australian Trade Minister Simon Birmingham in a statement on Wednesday called on China to “play by the rules” and address the concerns of businesses.
Wang said such criticisms were unfounded and he instead accused Australia of violating bilateral trade rules. “Since 2018, dozens of Chinese-led investment projects have been banned by Australia on ambiguous or baseless national security grounds, including Chinese companies’ participation in the Australian 5G network, infrastructure and agricultural sectors,” Wang said.
He added that Australia had launched 106 anti-dumping and anti-subsidy investigations against China, compared to only four such investigations raised by China against Australia.
China was angered in 2018 when Australia barred Chinese telecoms giant Huawei Technologies from its national 5G network over national security concerns. Relations further nosedived after Canberra pushed for an international inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus in April.
Wang said the latest import ban was consistent with President Xi Jinping’s pledge this week – made at an international trade expo in Shanghai – to make China an open economy for the world, and urged Canberra to create the conditions needed to improve ties.
“We have repeatedly emphasised that mutual respect is the foundation and prerequisite for cooperation,” he said. “We want to urge some people in Australia to earnestly reflect on its own deeds, do more to enhance mutual trust … and create the good conditions and atmosphere for practical cooperation between the two countries,” he said.
John Menadue, former Australian head of Trade and head of the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet, said the dispute with China was “pointless and quite unnecessary”.
“The damage to Australia is self-inflicted, led by our intelligence agencies and the media and followed by the government in order to ingratiate itself with [US President] Donald Trump,” he said. “The business sector is as quiet as a church mouse over all the damage that is being incurred. There has been no smart diplomacy. The anti-China hawks are winning the day.”
University of Sydney Professor James Curran, who specialises in the history of Australian and American foreign relations, said with the breakdown in mutual trust and a feverish debate on relations in both countries, bilateral ties were likely to continue to decline.
“Canberra will have to do more than just tell affected exporters in Australia to ‘diversify’. Easier said than done. Markets the size of China’s are not found around the next street corner,” Curran said. “A strong trading relationship with China will be essential to Australia’s post-pandemic recovery, so Canberra and Beijing need to find a circuit breaker.”
This article first published in the South China Monrning Post on November 6 2020 – link to original article here.
Su-Lin Tan joined the Post in 2020 after the Australian Financial Review where she covered housing and commercial property, Asian business and street talk and investigations. She is a qualified accountant and worked in investment banking and funds management both in London and Sydney before becoming a journalist.
Comments
7 responses to “China tells Australia to ‘reflect on its own deeds’ as it imposes new import bans (SCMP 6.11.20)”
Nick Rockefeller to Aaron Russo in the late 90s: ” In 2001 there will be an event, and following that event we will invade Iraq, Afghanistan, build a pipeline to the Caspian Sea and then go after Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.
And following those events, CHINA WILL CATCH A COLD” … (insert chuckles here)
So there you are voters…China Virus explained …no need to budget squillions for an inquiry.
No need to thank me …Just see if you can be first to cry “Conspiracy Theory!”
Many thanks to Su Lin for prresented the facts on Australia-China trade and the adverse effect on the Australian economy when we go all the way with DJT. This type of news is not available in the Murdoch press hence most Australians and the politicians think it is a computer war game with a reset button if we lose. American politics is swing back to the left and being such avid followers, we could simply change with them. The pipe piper has led us to the economic cliff and with a change of US administration, would the cliff jumping be arrested in term. Or like Jim Kable said, it could take a change of government to reset the relaltionship and this option is better for throwing out unnecessary legislation enacted with a cold war and McCarthyism mentality. Take heed, these issues are election winners!
Nothing new in anything said in this piece, so much so I wonder why it’s here. It’s more like a support China press release.
Yep, get that the way the gov handled the push for the cv inquiry was dumb, but all this China is wonderful and hasn’t done anything wrong, the uighurs are terrorists, HK demonstrators are criminals and Taiwan needs to go home just isn’t going to cut it.
Election winners? What do the polls say about how much the Australian public trust China, or to put it more correctly, distrust China? What do they also say about the level of support for the gov’s position?
It is dumb for Australians to blame the Chinese rather than themselves, for their woes, but very human.
Why whinge then. If you are a decoupler well its happening. You cant have ot both ways. Decoupling and trade. But rationality isnt in the Morrison government tool box. Diversify. Good luck with that. Get back to us next year when Australia is in a deep largely self inflicted recession regarding public opinion.
dne.
Well of course it reads like a Chinese press release. That is what it is intended to be ie a piece in the China focused media (SCMP) explaining to us westerners how China views the situation. We readers are I assume expected to read the piece and make a rational assessment of it. We will accept some points and dispute others. That is a good thing. Thanks to this site for publishing it.
The tailspin downwards in trade relations with China began as I saw it with Australia’s Foreign Minister going in to bat for the US blaming China (?) for the Covid-19 corona virus – the Trump-named Wuhan or Chinese virus. Morrison clearly pushed Payne into adopting an anti-China posture – certainly he never moderated it – his eye on his buddy Trump. The fact that Birmingham and others keep telling us they are in negotiations with their Chinese counterparts when it is clearly a Trumpian kind of “mis-truth” and in the meantime more and more of our exports to China are piling up on docks, in ports, on airport tarmacs – and nothing is being done to end this impasse – it is shocking. I am awaiting the big miners and the agricultural and fishing industries to march on Canberra and do something positive – but no – not so far. One wonders now that Trump will shortly be out on his golfing ear – and Pompeo put back into the bottle that he escaped from whether reason and some degree of sanity (Porter and Tudge aside) might push Morrison into eating a bit of humble pie and repairing the Chinese trade for Australia. Or maybe we’ll need a change of government to effect that?