Former PM claims China using its economic power to dominate region

Scott Morrison has claimed China wants to be a “controlling power” in global politics, including over Australia.

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison has claimed China is seeking to dominate parts of the globe, including Australia and its neighbours.

Mr Morrison said China’s method of trade was to inflict its economic power onto other countries to “bash them over the head” into submission.

“There is a bad intent to leverage and indeed punish if they feel that those they’re doing trade with are not signed up to their broader objectives,” he said while speaking to Sharri Markson on Sky News.

“That’s not free trade; I think that’s quite coercive trade and that coercion was applied to Australia.”

Former Prime Minister Scott Morrison said Australia would not be able to stand up to China on its own and would need allies.

Mr Morrison went on to argue China wants to become “the controlling power throughout the Indo Pacific”.

“Whether that’s in the South China Sea, or even further south, [China wants] to be the dominating and controlling influence over the economic strategy in that part of the world,” he said.

The former prime minister went on to issue a dire warning about Australia and its allies’ ability to stand up to the global superpower.

“The question is which, if any, countries in the region, on their own, would be able to resist a country with that military strength?” he asked.

“There’s no country – I would argue almost on Earth – that could say they could, other than the United States.

“I mean, that’s just the reality; we’re a country of just over 25 million people, their defence budget is multiple, multiple, multiple times that of Australia.”

China’s defence budget was worth $338.34 billion in 2021 while Australia’s will reach $52.16 billion in 2023. Photo: Noel Celis / AFP

r Morrison also hit out at workplace vaccine mandates and dismissed claims from one premier that state governments are unable to overturn them.

Mr Morrison revealed his government was opposed to mandating vaccinations outside of “sensitive” settings.

“On vaccination mandates, they were not imposed by the federal government other than for aged care and sensitive health settings, which I don’t think there’s been too much dispute about,” Mr Morrison said while speaking to Sky News.

“The federal government did not support any other mandate at all; all of those mandates were done by state governments.

“That is off the decision of state governments and that is their responsibility.”

His comments come on the back of growing resentment in parts of the community about vaccine mandates in private workplaces and in parts of the public service.

NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet last week said while he supported scrapping vaccine requirements, he did not “have the power” to remove mandates in those parts of the public sector where mandates remained.

“There are certain areas of the public service where I do not have that power,” Mr Perrottet told 2GB’s Ben Fordham last week.

“I’ve made it abundantly clear what my position on this is based on evidence and there is no evidence that vaccines in the current environment have any impact at all on transmission of Covid.”

Dominic Perrottet said there was ‘no evidence’ vaccine mandates stop transmission at this stage of the pandemic. Picture: NCA Newswire / Gaye Gerard

Police officers and teachers are among those in the public sector who work in non-health settings and are still required to be vaccinated.

Many private workplaces also require employees to be double vaccinated or to have an exemption.

Mr Morrison said the Premier’s claim wasn’t entirely true.

“Of course premiers can do something about it,” he said.

“But not once as prime minister did I delegate my authority as prime minister to make decisions to any public servant.

“So any decision that was made by them … well, you had to own and you had the ability to say no. You have to take the consequences of saying no and going against that advice; I accept that.”

Mr Perrottet said that he had repeatedly urged both the private and public sector to end vaccine mandates.

“I have made it very clear, and I couldn’t be clearer to the public service here in NSW to end vaccine mandates and the majority of the public service has done so,” he said

“I have also made it clear to the private sector.

“I have made it clear for the simple reason that there is no evidence that the vaccines stop transmission.”

More to come.