Malcolm Turnbull slams China’s ‘wolf warrior’ trade bans
Malcolm Turnbull says China’s “wolf-warrior” tactics toward Australia will backfire, prompting a forceful response from the Communist Party’s top official in Victoria.
Victoria
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Malcolm Turnbull has blasted China’s “heavy-handed” trade crackdown, warning that “putting Australia into the freezer” will further damage the relationship.
The former prime minister said China’s “wolf-warrior” tactics — harming Australians beef and wine exports — would not work “any more than it did for Donald Trump”.
His comments, at the Australia China Economic Trade and Investment Expo, drew a forceful response from the Communist Party’s top official in Victoria, who claimed China’s trade bans were “beyond reproach” and accused Australia of “unfounded” national security decisions.
Mr Turnbull used his keynote address to declare that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “wolf-warrior diplomacy has been quite counter-productive”, as he questioned China’s new approach that was “more authoritarian at home and more assertive abroad”.
“Heavy-handed trade diplomacy does not work for China any more than it did for Donald Trump,” Mr Turnbull said.
“The recent restrictions to Australian exports to China have only served to confirm and worsen existing concerns. If putting Australia into the freezer … was designed to extract greater compliance, it will only serve to do the reverse.”
In response, Long Zhou, China’s Consul-General in Melbourne, said he could not accept Mr Turnbull’s comments, and that China “always adhered to the principles of peaceful coexistence”.
After delivering his prepared speech, Mr Zhou claimed the Communist Party never interfered in the affairs of other countries as he demanded “mutual respect”.
He argued China was committed to the rules-based multilateral trading system, and that restrictions on Australian products were “in line with Chinese laws and regulations and international customary practices”.
“They are reasonable, legitimate and beyond reproach,” Mr Zhou said.
He also accused the federal government of rejecting at least ten Chinese investments since 2018 on “very ambiguous and unfounded national security concerns”.
“It is perfectly normal for the two sides to have some contradictions and differences,” Mr Zhou said.
“What matters is properly managing them in a constructive manner, rather than imposing one’s own ideas, wills, values or ideology under the pretext of safeguarding national interest.”
Mr Turnbull had called on businesses to push both the Chinese and Australian governments to “dial down the rhetoric” and find areas for co-operation.
Victorian Trade Minister Martin Pakula agreed, saying that as Victorian exporters faced “difficulties”, there was a need to “tone down the nature of the discourse”.
“Don’t turn up the temperature, rather work to turn down the temperature, and that is an obligation on all of us,” he said.
It came after Scott Morrison vowed Australia would never compromise its values as Chinese authorities this week released a list of grievances and blamed the federal government of “poisoning bilateral relations”.
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