NewsBite

Aussie coal aboard a ‘floating Chinese jail’

China is preventing an Indian vessel packed with Australian coal from leaving Chin­ese waters.

Graphic for coal ship story
Graphic for coal ship story

Chinese authorities are preventing an Indian vessel packed with Australian coal from leaving Chin­ese waters, even after Japan agreed to purchase the black-listed­ cargo to end a more than five- month standoff.

The Australian has confirmed the 160,000 tonnes of coking coal, which left Gladstone on May 26, was from Anglo-American’s Queensland mines.

Abdulgani Y Serang, the general­ secretary of the National Union of Seafarers of India, said the bulk carrier had been turned into a “floating prison”.

“Efforts to take the ship to another­ country or any other Chinese port is also being resisted by the Chinese with (the) arrest of the ship and seafarers onboard,” Mr Serang said in a statement.

The Indian-flagged and owned MV Jag Anand sailed into a diplomatic storm when it arrived­ in China’s Bohai Sea on June 13. Two days after the 291m-long Great Eastern Shipping Company vessel arrived in China’s northeastern shipping waters, 20 Indian soldiers were killed in their deadliest clash with the People’s Liberation Army in almost 50 years.

The two nuclear powers have still not resolved that bloody dispute­ on their mountainous border.

Three weeks earlier, an Aust­ralian government-championed resolution calling for an independent inquiry into the origins of COVID-19 passed in the World Health Assembly.

Beijing responded with widespread sanctions across much of Australia’s $149bn export trade to China, including coal.

Mr Serang said the 23 Indian seafarers — who are suffering from severe fatigue and stress — had been caught in the diplomatic crossfire of Beijing’s deep rift with the Morrison government.

“In the politics between Australia and China, our Indian seafarers and their families are suffering,” he said.

The Modi administration and Indian embassy in Beijing have been trying to release the Indian sailors.

The Morrison government — under pressure from China-expose­d businesses to improve relations with Beijing — declined to directly comment on the unfoldin­g situation.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister ­Narendra Modi met virtually on Tuesday for a scheduled meeting of the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation dialogue. China’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said the country had clear port regulations to manage COVID-19.

“As much as the regulations allow, we are providing convenience for these crew members,” he said on Tuesday at a regular briefing in Beijing.

Some of the trapped seafarers have been onboard for nearly 20 months of continuous service, according­ to the National Union of Seafarers of India.

“We have at hand a humanit­arian crisis on board,” said Mr Seran­g, a director of the Inter­national Transport Workers ­Federation, the world’s peak transport union

The Great Eastern Shipping Company said it had offered to deviate the ship to Japan at its own cost.

“We succeeded in obtaining Japanese port authorities’ permission for a crew change in Japan under these distress conditions,” the company said in a statement.

People familiar with the fraught situation said a re-route to Japan remained the most likely diplomatic resolution.

Dirk van der Kley, a researche­r at the Australian Nationa­l University’s College of Asia and the Pacific, said the unusual situation demonstrated the complications of trade retaliation in a globalised economy.

“It shows how there can be unintende­d consequences for bilateral­ trade tensions,” he said.

The Australian confirmed the coking coal — a key ingredient for making steel — was from Anglo American’s mines in central Queensland and sold to an undisclosed buyer in late April, weeks before it sailed for China.

An Anglo American spokesman declined to comment.

There are now more than 20 ships held up in Jingtang, where the Indian vessel has been detained­, with more than three million tonnes of coal awaiting Customs clearance, according to Chinese newspaper reports.

It is unclear how much of that coal is from Australia.

Add your comment to this story

To join the conversation, please Don't have an account? Register

Join the conversation, you are commenting as Logout

Original URL: https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/aussie-coal-aboard-a-floating-chinese-jail/news-story/5410c221acbf1190cddaaa91bb5b5889