‘All will become victims’: China’s threat to countries that ‘appease’ US in trade war
China has issued a stark warning to the rest of the world, saying “all will become victims” if they come between it and the US in their trade war.
China has threatened countermeasures against any countries who “appease” the United States by making deals with it at Beijing’s expense, as global relations sit on a knife’s edge due to the two nations’ full blown trade war.
While the rest of the world has been hit with a blanket 10 per cent tariff by US President Donald Trump and his administration, China has been walloped with levies of up to 145 per cent on many products – prompting it to respond in kind with duties of 125 per cent on American goods.
Parallel to the duo’s spiralling tariff tit-for-tat, a number of countries are now engaged in negotiations with the Trump administration to lower the levies inflicted on them – prompting Beijing to warn it has no qualms with other nations becoming collateral damage if they act against its interests.
“Appeasement will not bring peace, and compromise will not be respected,” a spokesperson for China’s commerce ministry said in a statement.
“To seek one’s own temporary selfish interests at the expense of others’ interests is to seek the skin of a tiger.”
That approach, it warned, “will ultimately fail on both ends and harm others”.
“China firmly opposes any party reaching a deal at the expense of China’s interests,” the spokesperson said.
“If such a situation occurs, China will never accept it and will resolutely take reciprocal countermeasures.”
The ministry also warned about an international order reverting to the “law of the jungle … Where the strong prey on the weak, all countries will become victims”.
Australia has ‘months’ to make ‘uncomfortable choice’
In an interview with the ABC’s The Business earlier this month, Rabobank global strategist Michael Every warned that, in the “worst-case scenario”, Australia could be asked to choose between our biggest trade partner – China – and our biggest military ally – America – “within months, potentially”.
“If America is going to put forward some new, what they call, Mar-a-Lago accord, saying trade and capital – which is very important, capital – are only going to flow within this new, dollar-centric, US security-backed system along the following lines, and one of those lines is, you tariff China at the same rate we do – and I reiterate that’s the part of the puzzle far too many observers are missing – then Australia has that choice,” Mr Every told the national broadcaster.
“Do you have any defence, and that tariff on China, which will of course see a blowback from China, or do you not have any defence and then you can trade with whoever you want, but no one’s defending you?.”
Australia is in “denial” over coming to terms with such an “uncomfortable choice”, Mr Every added.
“And it’s not only Australia – the same is true for people I speak to right around the world,” he said.
“But there’s understandably real resistance to recognising that having free defence from the US – which is what most people have had for a long time – and a completely free choice of trade partners is a world which is now ended, and you have to choose one or the other.”
In a particularly tense moment during last week’s leaders debate, Anthony Albanese and Peter Dutton squared off over Australia’s dilemma with the foreign superpowers, as election day rapidly approaches.
The Opposition Leader had previously sided with Mr Albanese on the topic of pushing back against Mr Trump, promising that he would always fight to protect Australia’s interests no matter how daunting the task.
Pressed by debate moderator, the ABC’s David Speers, on what the two candidates had planned to offer the US President to scale back the tariffs, the Prime Minister dodged the question, claiming it was too sensitive an issue to discuss on national television.
“We’ll engage diplomatically, not through TV interviews, but we have put forward a proposition to the US,” Mr Albanese said, assuring voters he “won’t budge” on key issues including the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme, the media bargaining code and biosecurity”.
“The US have put forward publicly their complaints about Australia.”
In retaliation, Mr Dutton criticised the Prime Minister for failing to believe Mr Trump would be elected and as a result, putting “nothing into the relationship”. He then claimed the Coalition government would “leverage relationships” within the White House to achieve a beneficial tariff deal for Australia.
Australia will not be ‘holding China’s hand’
The showdown then turned to China where, despite the clear differences between Australia’s and its own interests, Mr Albanese said he trusted the President.
“I have no reason not to. In terms of the discussions we have had one-on-one, they have been important,” he continued.
“China’s our major trading partner. One in four Australian jobs depends on trade. It’s in Australia’s national interest to have a good economic relationship with China.
“We have different political systems – that means different values, and we have very different values to China. What I’ve said is we’ll co-operate where we can and disagree where we must, but we’ll engage in our national interests.”
Mere days before the debate, the Federal Government swiftly rejected China’s offer to “join hands” against Mr Trump’s tariffs, after China’s ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian, insisted it is “the only way” to stop America’s “hegemonic and bullying behaviour”.
Mr Xiao made the remarks in an opinion piece published by The Sydney Morning Herald, with the headline “There is no winner in a tariff war and protectionism benefits no one”.
“The international community, including China and Australia, should firmly say no to unilateralism and protectionism, join hands to defend the multilateral trading system, safeguard a fair and free trading environment and promote the development of economic globalisation in the direction of greater openness, inclusiveness, universality and balance,” he wrote.
Responding to Mr Xiao’s op-ed, the Prime Minister said that Australians would “speak for ourselves”, while Defence Minister Richard Marles said we would not be “holding China’s hand”, adding: “It’s about pursuing Australia’s national interests, not about making common calls with China.”
– with AFP
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