Amid growing hostilities, China hit Australian industries with a raft of trade sanctions and accusations against Australian products.

In a shock move, Chinese authorities claimed a sample of a rock lobster contained excessive levels of the heavy metal cadmium. 

Trade was effectively shut down, with tonnes of live lobster worth millions of dollars stranded on the tarmac in China awaiting clearance.

“I was extremely surprised that southern rock lobster, being a cold-water species, would have cadmium levels in them,” Mr Blake says. 

Four Corners understands testing by Australian government agencies has found no evidence of contamination in southern rock lobster.

...

Lobster is just one of a raft of industries hit by China’s trade sanctions, including beef, wine and barley. 

Professor Rory Medcalf, who heads the National Security College at ANU, believes China is trying to coerce Australia into “essentially supporting China’s interests”. 

Although China maintains its actions are legitimate, there is a widespread view that the sanctions are being used as a weapon – to punish Australia for adopting policies and positions that China doesn’t like.

 “It looks very much like punishment to me,” says Professor Jane Golley, director of the Centre on China in the World at ANU.

Read more:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-26/the-collateral-damage-of-australia-trade-war-with-china-/100071952

Please note that the US have been using trade sanctions as punishment for years. Now we should realise how this is impacting "our" productions. Many "sanctioned" countries have reinvented the wheel...

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Ahead of a government meeting, a group of Uighurs sent a letter to New Zealand’s authorities calling on them to declare the situation in the Xingjian region a genocide. “We understand that New Zealand is not a military superpower, or a trade superpower, however, New Zealand is a moral superpower”, read the letter.

New Zealand’s Parliament has expressed concern over China’s alleged mistreatment of Uighurs during a plenary session that took place on 4 May. In a move that is likely to raise eyebrows in Washington and London, the Parliament did not support a motion proposed by the ACT party that would have labelled the reported abuses of Uighurs as a genocide.

Deputy leader of ACT, Brooke van Velden, told reporters that she had to drop the word "genocide" from the motion and replace it with "severe human rights abuses" in order to receive support from the governing Labour Party.

New Zealand’s Trade Minister Damien O’Connor told reporters that the use of the word "genocide" would have impacted the trade ties between the countries. He was echoed by opposition leader Judith Collins, who said that bilateral trade was “the elephant in the room” during the discussion.

Beijing is Wellington’s largest trading partner. According to New Zealand's Foreign Ministry, China’s economy offers significant opportunities for the country’s businesses with two-way trade – exports and imports of goods and services – exceeding $23.7 billion.

Following China’s diplomatic rift with Australia, Beijing introduced tariffs and issued warnings to its citizens not to travel to Australia. According to a study conducted by the Perth USAsia Centre, the row disrupted Australia’s exports by up to a $19 billion a year.

New Zealand’s move is likely to upset Wellington’s allies – the UK, Canada, and the United States. The said countries have called the situation with the Uighurs in the Xinjiang region a genocide, a claim Beijing denies. New Zealand has been under pressure from its allies to take a tougher stance on China. In April, British lawmakers criticised Wellington's position on the Uighur issue, with MP Bob Seely saying PM Jacinda Ardern is in a "hell of an ethical mess".

New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Nanaia Mahuta defended the government’s decision to not use the term genocide, arguing that Wellington had previously raised concerns with China about the alleged mistreatment of Uighurs.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/asia/202105051082810346-new-zealand-voices-concern-over-chinas-treatment-of-uighurs-stops-short-of-calling-it-genocide/

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Note: all the posturing by the Five-Eyes (minus NZ) about the Uighurs's fate is irrelevant until JULIAN ASSANGE IS FREED FROM PRISON. See: 

Scott Morrison has incorrectly characterised Australia’s policy on Taiwan in a radio interview in which he also declared he “stood for freedom”.

Despite Australian government figures publicly warning about the risk of war in the region, the prime minister appeared to endorse a formula for Taiwan that is actually Beijing’s stated vision for unification with the currently self-governed island.

When speaking about Taiwan, Morrison referred to “one country, two systems” – the principle that China pledged to apply when Hong Kong was returned to Beijing’s control in 1997. But this is not Australia’s policy in relation to Taiwan, and both sides of Taiwanese politics reject the idea.

The prime minister made the blunder on the same day a Chinese government agency suspended a form of economic dialogue with Australia – in what experts described as a mainly symbolic move indicative of the worsening relationship between the two countries.

The freeze is seen as Beijing’s first concrete response to the Australian government’s decision last month to tear up Victoria’s belt and road-related agreements, and confirmation this week of a defence department review of the Port of Darwin lease.

During the Thursday morning interview on Melbourne radio station 3AW, Morrison was asked whether Australia stood with Taiwan, after the island’s foreign minister, Joseph Wu, renewed his calls for help to defend it against Xi Jinping’s “expansionism”.

“We’ve always honoured all of our arrangements in the Indo-Pacific, particularly our alliance with the United States,” Morrison told the broadcaster Neil Mitchell.

“We’re very cognisant of the uncertainties in our region, Neil, and I’m not one to speak at length on these things, because I don’t wish to add to any uncertainty. But that’s why we have the security arrangements we have in place.

“We have always understood the ‘one system, two countries’ arrangement, and we will continue to follow our policies there … ‘one country, two systems’, I should say.”

Pressed again on whether Australia stood with Taiwan, Morrison said: “We always have stood for freedom in our part of the world.”

It appears Morrison had meant to note Australia’s “one China policy”, in which it does not recognise Taiwan as a country in the international system but pursues cooperation with the island in areas such as trade, culture and education.

Labor’s foreign affairs spokeswoman, Penny Wong, said that “in diplomacy, especially on issues of our national security, words matter”.

“There are few more sensitive issues for our security than Taiwan and Mr Morrison’s lack of focus on detail is enough to keep you up at night,” Wong told Guardian Australia.

“Days after his government was beating the drum for conflict over Taiwan, today Mr Morrison appears to have shifted Australia’s bipartisan position to abandoning Taiwan entirely.

“‘One Country, Two Systems’ has never been Australia’s position on Taiwan – it would put Taiwan in the same category as Hong Kong.”

Dr Mark Harrison, a senior lecturer in Chinese studies at the University of Tasmania, said “One Country Two Systems” referred to “a schema for unification between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China first proposed by Beijing [in] 1982”.

“It holds that Taiwan will become part of the PRC but maintain a degree of autonomy in a Two Systems phase that over time will evolve into a single system as development and modernisation between Taiwan and mainland China converged,” he said.

Harrison said the idea had been “applied ultimately to the reversion of Hong Kong to PRC sovereignty”.

After Beijing intensified its crackdown on dissent in Hong Kong last year, Taipei’s leaders raised fears that China was trying to “turn Taiwan into the next Hong Kong”.

Harrison said the One Country Two Systems formula for unification with Taiwan had been reaffirmed by Xi in a major speech in January 2019 – but it had “always been rejected by both sides of Taiwan’s politics”.

“Australia conducts relations with Taiwan under a One China Policy, which is distinct from Beijing’s One China Principle,” Harrison said.

“Australia does not recognise Taiwan as a state in the international system but only goes so far as to acknowledge the position of Beijing that Taiwan is a province of the People’s Republic of China.

“On the basis of this deliberate ambiguity over Taiwan’s sovereignty, Australia maintains good relations with Taiwan in areas of trade, culture and education and wide range of cooperation on global governance issues.”

The Australian government has been increasingly vocal in recent times in pushing for Taiwan’s participation in forums such as the World Health Assembly, and some Coalition and Labor backbenchers have been calling for a free trade agreement with Taipei.

Morrison said on Thursday Australia wanted to “keep the South China Sea free and open for transit” and would work with “whoever is in favour” of a “free and open Indo-Pacific”.

The prime minister also told 3AW it was “not the case” that the defence minister, Peter Dutton, had authorised remarks by Michael Pezzullo, head of his former department of home affairs, to speak about the increasing drumbeat to war.

read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/may/06/scott-morrison-accidentally-endorses-beijing-policy-for-taiwan-in-foreign-policy-blunder

This "blunder" may actually have been a discreet way for Scomo to tone down the rarah noise of war drum beats from the mad people out there...

MEANWHILE:

China has “indefinitely” suspended all activity under a China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue, its state economic planner said in the latest setback for their strained relations.

“Recently, some Australian Commonwealth Government officials launched a series of measures to disrupt the normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Australia out of Cold War mindset and ideological discrimination,” China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) said in a short statement on Thursday about the decision.

https://www.aljazeera.com/economy/2021/5/6/china-suspends-economic-dialogue-with-australia-as-ties-worsen

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Australia is to take action in the World Trade Organisation over China’s imposition of anti-dumping duties on wine.

The decision to commence a dispute resolution process was taken following extensive consultation with Australian wine makers, Trade Minister Dan Tehan says.

He says the process is available to any WTO member as a means to resolve trade disputes in a respectful manner.

Mr Tehan says the decision is consistent with the government’s previous use of the WTO and aligns with Australia’s support for a rules-based trading system.

At the same time, Australia remains open to engaging directly with China to resolve this issue.

Australia has already complained to the WTO over China’s blocking of barley, one of several commodities that have become entangled in the growing rift between the countries.

Mr Tehan said last month the government was considering whether to act on its complaint over China putting huge tariffs on wine exports, a move which had virtually wiped out exports.

“We’ve always said that we would take a very principled approach when dealing with these trade disputes, and if we think our industry has been harmed or injured, we will take all necessary steps and measures to try to address that,” he told the ABC at the time.

Asked whether Beijing’s possible retaliation to such actions was part of the government’s considerations, Mr Tehan said China and all other countries use the dispute settlement mechanism of the WTO.

“This is a normal course of dealing with these disputes,” he said.

“So, what we want to do is make sure that we have a very strong legal case to be able to take to the World Trade Organisation, because obviously if you take a case, you want to do your best to try to win it.”

-AAP

Read more:

https://thenewdaily.com.au/news/national/2021/06/19/australia-china-wine-wto/

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Peter Hartcher on the ABC presented China’s list of grievances as if they were some kind of official demarche made on the Australian Government. He intones repeatedly about these ‘demands’ as if they had the status of Martin Luther’s 95 theses nailed to the chapel door at Wittenberg University which started the Reformation. That is a serious misreading

Tom Switzer’s Between the Lines, like many, quality ABC programs, follows the Australia-China debate and tries to contribute to an informed public understanding of the issues. Switzer is clear about his own aggressive realist position which he attributes to John Mearsheimer. Essentially, it can be reduced to the inevitability of the US’ meeting China’s challenge with armed conflict.

This modern rendering of the Thucydides Trap has its serious supporters and equally serious opponents. It is, after all, possible to take a realist view on international relations without concluding that war is inevitable. Throughout history, great power shifts have occurred which did not end in war. The most recent was that which occurred at the start of the twentieth century between Britain and the US.

Graham Allison in his book, Destined for War counted the number of times power shifts resulted in armed conflict. His research team concluded war was frequent, but most power shifts occurred without war.

It also can be seen that at times the ascendant power does not want to replace the dominant power. It does not want, for example, to shoulder the responsibility for providing global public goods, such as security.

The danger in the Mearsheimer reductionist view is that war may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Recently, we have seen senior ministers and bureaucrats fall for this fallacy. This view rules out discussion of the practicality of war, its costs, and what ‘victory’ might look like if ever it were achievable.

Crucially, what is also almost never addressed in such discussions is China’s capacity to wage war. This is less about military hardware, war experience, and technological capability – those things are important – but about strategic constraints. As argued in my book, China is a constrained superpower. It is Prometheus Bound.

China’s freedom to engage in conflict is constrained by its geography, history with major unresolved territorial issues inside its borders, and most importantly, its utter dependence on foreign markets to supply most of the raw materials and energy it needs if it were to sustain a war effort.

The constraints facing China are far greater than those faced by the United States when it rose to global pre-eminence.

While nearly all outcomes may be possible, policymakers need to assign probabilities to various outcomes. War between the US and China should be among the lowest-ranked – not impossible, but not inevitable. For senior ministers and officials, it should be regarded as a low-order priority in terms of strategic planning, especially in terms of public pronouncements that stoke community fears unnecessarily.

It is the lack of context and proportionately in the discussion of the China Threat in Australia that renders the debate so dispiriting and skewed against finding constructive policy settings beyond the zero-sum place we now find ourselves in.

This was on display again in Switzer’s recent interview on ABC Radio with Peter Hartcher and David Brody, both of whom have just published books on the internal China Threat to Australia.

Hartcher warns darkly of the threat to Australia’s democracy from the nefarious activities of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department. Brody argues that the threat has been exaggerated and is doing damage not only to Australia’s relations with China but to our own ethnic Chinese communities.

In the Switzer discussion, however, two outlandish assertions by Hartcher were left unchallenged by both the moderator and Brody, presumably because they either agreed with Hartcher or did not know enough about the subject to respond.

The first was when it was suggested by the moderator that several commentators on the relationship point out that Australia’s relations with China are far worse than those of any other state. The conclusion drawn is that Australia has badly mishandled the diplomacy of managing its differences with China.

Hartcher dissembled by rambling through an extensive list of countries that have difficulties in their relations with China. He could have added many more. In doing so, he actually supported the argument that Australia has indeed fluffed its China diplomacy.

Those who criticise the government’s handling point out that many countries have even more difficult relations with China than did Australia before things turned to custard. Yet they have managed to maintain full diplomatic engagement and avoid trade reprisals. The longer the list of countries reeled off having difficulties with China the more the point is made. Australia alone has had its diplomatic relations frozen. Presumably, none of the participants were aware of this.

Lessons for Australia are there to be learnt, but that will only happen when analysts put ideology to one side and recognise that we have managed to manoeuvre ourselves into a position of being an outlier among liberal democracies in their dealings with China.

This conversation of course was occurring at the same time senior US and Chinese officials were meeting in Tianjin (the second high-level official meeting in as many months) and when the Finnish Foreign Minister was meeting his Chinese counterpart in Chongqing. The European Union has had several high-level official meetings with China over the past month.

The second assertion that was allowed to go through to the keeper was the list of fourteen points someone in the Chinese Embassy passed across to a Channel Nine reporter who seems to have been unable to remember what was upsetting the Chinese side.

Hartcher presents this as if it were some kind of official demarche made on the Australian Government. As he intones repeatedly about this document it begins to take on the status of Martin Luther’s 95 theses nailed to the chapel door at Wittenberg University which started the Reformation.

In commenting on diplomacy and foreign policy it is helpful to know the difference between a demarche and an aide memoire. The French makes it a little difficult for sure, but the former is a demand by one government on another to take or desist from certain actions, the latter is a note to assist one side or the other to recall matters discussed.

An aide memoire is scarcely a threat to Australia’s democracy. Although giving such a thing to a journalist simply invites the sensationalist response it has received. The participants in Between the Lines could have contributed to the public’s understanding by pointing this out. Not to take on this assertion suggests that Switzer and Brody also do not know, as Hartcher seems not to, that passing on an aide memoire is normal diplomatic practice.

In the discussion, Hartcher was challenged by Switzer over his recent warning for Australia to be careful about following the US into war. Whether this caution would extend to a war with China was not explored but it did put him at odds with the moderator’s and Mearsheimer’s view of the inevitability of war with China in which Australia must be involved alongside the US.

This sounds like advocacy for something of an independent foreign policy. Recently former Foreign Minister Downer asserted, without a shred of evidence, that calls for an independent foreign policy for Australia were really a ‘Leftie’ ruse for ending the US alliance. Presumably, Downer would now regard Hartcher as a fellow ‘leftie’ traveller. Australia is in a generational foreign policy crisis. The public deserves better than this.

Read more:

https://johnmenadue.com/geoff-raby-australia-deserves-a-more-sensible-discussion-of-our-relations-with-china/

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYfvm-JLhPQ

Meet the Press takes over the NBC News Washington Bureau to stage a full-day war game between the U.S. and China. »

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