Scott Morrison: No trade-off on Chinese list of gripes

Scott Morrison has told an increasingly nervous business community some of its members do not understand ‘what’s really at stake’ in Australia’s relationship with China.

Scott Morrison on China: ‘Some suggest that this all could be fixed by a phone call. I think that doesn’t really appreciate what’s really at stake here.’ Picture: Sarah Matray

Scott Morrison has told an increasingly nervous business community some of its members do not understand “what’s really at stake” in Australia’s relationship with China.

“Some suggest that this all could be fixed by a phone call. I think that doesn’t really appreciate what’s really at stake here,” the Prime Minister said at the annual general meeting of the Business Council of Australia.

This week Beijing escalated its assault on those engaged in Australia’s $149bn export trade to China, as Mr Morrison met his Japanese counterpart Yoshihide Suga in Tokyo.

China’s Foreign Ministry thundered about Australia at its daily press briefings in Beijing, anti-Australian articles were pumped across China’s highly regulated internet, Customs ­officials continued to interfere with Australian imports and China’s Canberra embassy circulated a one-page document listing 14 grievances it has with Australia.

Mr Morrison told Australia’s blue-chip industry lobby he was “very prepared” to talk to President Xi Jinping or ministers in his regime about tensions in the bilateral relationship.

“But I’ll tell you what I’m not prepared to do. I’m not prepared to agree to a meeting on the condition that Australia compromise and trade away any of those things that were frankly listed in that, in that unofficial list of grievances,” Mr Morrison said from the Lodge, where he is doing two weeks of isolation after his Tokyo trip.

Last week former prime minister John Howard said he had advised Mr Morrison on the importance of visiting Beijing.

That was days after former BCA president Graham Bradley said he didn’t know “any business leader who thinks the Australian government has handled the China relationship well” over the past four years.

Reports on China’s 14 grievances — given with a warning by an embassy official that “China is angry” — subsumed an attempt by Josh Frydenberg to improve the strained relationship with a speech at The Australian’s Strategic Forum, which praised China’s coronavirus management and economic rebound.

Asked about the list, an official at China’s embassy said they did not understand why it had been reported as a “threat”. “Just facts and deeds, nothing new and nothing else,” the official told The Australian.

The grievances included banning Huawei from the 5G network; passing foreign interfer­ence legislation; and calling for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus.

As Mr Morrison answered questions from the BCA chairman and chief executives on Thursday evening, the Foreign Ministry in Beijing warned Australia to “be careful not to get poked in the eye” after making comments in a joint statement with its Five Eyes security partners on Hong Kong.