Caleb Bond: Australia is standing up to China while our allies capitalise

If only China had been as keen to crackdown on Wuhan airport as it is a South Australian meatworks, writes Caleb Bond.

China is giving the world a masterclass in having more front than David Jones.

Imagine unleashing Covid-19 upon the world and then having the gall to stop beef imports from a Naracoorte abattoir because there was an outbreak of the same disease among the staff.

And now they’re making Covid rule-breakers in their own country parade the streets in hazmat suits, with their photo and personal details displayed on signs around their necks.

If only they’d stopped planes leaving Wuhan for the rest of the world a little earlier when they knew Covid-19 was a thing.

There is no evidence that Covid can be transmitted on food or food packaging.

South Australia was momentarily home to a fake mutant pizza-box strain – but that was quickly discovered to be a sham and no scientist anywhere in the world has since shown it is possible.

This nonsensical import ban, also applied to nine other abattoirs where there was once a Covid outbreak, is simply another arm of China’s trade war against Australia for daring to question the communist country’s complicity and involvement in the spread of a virus that has brought the world to its knees.

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The fact they have chosen, in this case, to do it in response to the virus that emanated from their own country is a sick irony – albeit a clever up yours.

This is a trade war, however, that has hurt Australia while our allies have profited from us doing their dirty work.

Federal Trade Minister Dan Tehan says he has called on China to follow “proper processes and procedures” when it comes to these abattoir bans. Big deal.

According to a study by the University of Technology Sydney last year, the biggest beneficiaries of China’s trade war against us have, in fact, been our biggest allies – including the US, Canada and New Zealand.

While our Chinese exports dropped by $17.3bn in the first nine months of 2021, the US increased theirs by $6.3bn.

Meanwhile, we’ve signed up to AUKUS and have been strengthening our ties with the US.

The West has not, according to the numbers, reduced its economic reliance on China at all. Australia is doing all the heavy lifting when it comes to standing up to China while our allies capitalise on the cost.

Australia’s great crime was to lead the west in calls for an investigation into the origins of Covid.

Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne called for an independent inquiry in April 2020.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison, just days later, began lobbying world leaders, including then US President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, to support the creation of a worldwide organisation with the power to investigate and monitor disease outbreaks.

All this was done in light of growing concern about Covid and its origins.

The lab leak theory was, at the time, dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

US President Joe Biden. Picture: AFP

US President Joe Biden has since launched an investigation into the claims – thanks in no small part to the hard work of journalist Sharri Markson.

There was also much consternation about the World Health Organisation’s links to China.

The genii at the World Health Organisation took China’s word at face value that Covid was not a threat. The organisation tweeted, in January 2020, that “preliminary investigations conducted by the Chinese authorities have found no clear evidence of human-to-human transmission” of Covid-19.

They then waited until March 11 to declare a global pandemic – two weeks after Australia declared its own pandemic.

The EU then put up a motion at the World Health Assembly calling for a “comprehensive, independent and impartial” investigation into how the pandemic started – supported by 137 countries.

Australia was not alone in its concern over China – we were simply the first country to have the guts to do something about it.

Backing down is not an option. We cannot cave into China’s bullying because it would simply signal that it has carte blanche to do whatever it pleases.

But it should not be down to us, alone, to stand up to the harassment.

If China will not play fair, we are left with no choice but to impose trade sanctions of our own.

First, though, Mr Tehan needs to get on the phone to Mr Biden and find out whether the US is truly with us or just happy for us to be the sacrificial lamb.