China says Australia is ‘sick’, needs to ‘take medicine’
China’s foreign ministry hits back after our top diplomat said Beijing wanted to compromise key Australian interests.
China’s foreign ministry has said Australia is “sick” and suggested Canberra needs to “take medicine” after the Morrison government’s most senior diplomat said Beijing wanted to compromise key Australian interests.
Speaking in Beijing on Tuesday evening, China’s foreign ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said Australia was entirely responsible for the deterioration of the relationship.
Mr Wang cited Canberra’s ban on Chinese telco Huawei from Australia’s 5G network, rejections of Chinese investment in Australia-based companies on national security grounds and the federal government’s tearing up of Victoria’s Belt and Road agreement.
“Australia is sick, however it is asking others to take medicine, which will not solve the problem at all,” he said.
“We hope that the Australian side will view China and China’s development objectively and rationally, and do more to enhance mutual trust between the two countries and promote pragmatic cooperation, instead of going further and further down the wrong path.”
The comments come after a week in which the Morrison government has demonstrated it is no hurry to repair the strained relationship with Australia’s biggest trading partner.
Despite an almost 12-month trade retaliation campaign by Beijing, Australia’s total exports to China remain at record highs because of the elevated prices of iron ore and liquid natural gas.
That has emboldened the Morrison government, although it has led to widespread economic pain in rural Australia, particularly in the lobster, wine and timber industries.
Last week, Foreign Minister Marise Payne announced the federal government was annulling Victoria’s cooperation agreement with China’s Belt and Road infrastructure-led foreign policy, saying it was not in the national interest.
Over the weekend, Defence minister Peter Dutton warned a war could not be ruled out between China and Taiwan and in an extraordinary ANZAC Day message to staff, Home Affairs secretary Michael Pezzullo said the “drums of war” were beating and Australia must be prepared “to send off, yet again, our warriors to fight”.
Some senior military officials in Beijing have mocked Australia’s capacity to influence the situation in the Taiwan Strait.
China’s foreign ministry spokesman’s medicinal comments on Tuesday were in response to a recent speech by Australia’s most senior foreign ministry bureaucrat.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Frances Adamson told a University of Adelaide graduating class that China wanted Australia to “compromise on key national interests” before it would resume dialogue and cooperation with the federal government.
“As China adopts a more authoritarian approach domestically and asserts itself internationally in ways which challenge and undermine those rules, Australia is experiencing a range of difficulties in its bilateral relationship with China,” said Secretary Adamson.
“The Australian government wants a constructive relationship with China where we can discuss differences and work for mutual benefit,” she said.
“Governments of other countries want the same or similar, but China expects compromise on key national interests in exchange for dialogue and cooperation.”
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