More hits expected after Hong Kong haven rap
China is considering retaliatory measures targeting Britain and Australia after Beijing hit out at Scott Morrison’s offer of safe haven to Hong Kong citizens.
China is considering retaliatory measures targeting Britain and Australia — expected in the form of increased tariffs on exports — after Beijing hit out at Scott Morrison’s offer of safe haven to Hong Kong citizens.
The Weekend Australian understands the government was expecting Beijing to pull additional levers targeting Australian exports in response to the Morrison government’s increasingly assertive foreign and defence policy positions.
Chinese authorities imposed an 80 per cent tariff on Australian barley in May, and this week increased duties on Australian beef to 12 per cent. They are now looking at other products, including whole milk powder.
The Morrison government’s plan to consider fast-tracking resettlement for Hongkongers through the skilled visa program, in tandem with Australia’s push for a global investigation into the origins of COVID-19 and pushback against foreign interference, has soured relations with Beijing.
Trade Minister Simon Birmingham said the government, which is expected to discuss the Hong Kong plan at a cabinet meeting next Wednesday, would consider options put forward by the departments of Home Affairs and Foreign Affairs and Trade.
He said they were working closely with international partners, including Britain and Canada, to uphold the one country, two systems structure.
“The Prime Minister has sought to make sure that we are prepared for any eventualities, that’s why he’s asked for certain work to be done, options to be brought forward,’’ the minister said. “We’ll look at those to make sure that as a country we are prepared for any eventualities.’’
In an essay published by the John Curtin Research Centre, Victorian senator Kimberley Kitching urged Labor to rethink its approach on China given Beijing’s tactic to “use its economic power to bully and intimidate its regional neighbours into compliance”.
Senator Kitching, a member of the pro-US Wolverines parliamentary group, declared China had stopped abiding by global trading rules under President Xi Jinping’s leadership.
“We need to accept this truth: that while many of us hoped and expected that global trade would change China, it is China that has changed global trade,” Senator Kitching wrote in the Labor-aligned think tank’s publication, The Tocsin.
She accused China of covering up the extent of the COVID-19 problem when it originated out of Wuhan and for unfairly punishing Australia for calling for an inquiry into the origins of the pandemic. “It is clear that the initial response of the regime — as is always the case with authoritarian regimes — was to cover up the problem,” she wrote.
“Authoritarian governments’ first instinct is always to protect themselves, not their citizenry. It is to the Australian government’s credit … that it has led the international demands for an inquiry.
“It is hard to see the recent imposition of selective tariffs on Australian exports through any other lens than as a punishment for our temerity, as are suggestions that Chinese students should not return to Australia when that becomes possible … it has become increasingly difficult to maintain a normal relationship with China.”
Senator Kitching added: “While some Australian billionaires, a few appeasing academics and shills-for-hire urge our leaders to ‘just shut up and take the money’, our values are non-negotiable, and we must never capitulate to intimidation and threats.”
ADDITIONAL REPORTING: RICHARD FERGUSON
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