Latika Bourke December 17, 2020 — 6.42am https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe...r-world-says-john-bolton-20201217-p56o62.html London: Donald Trump's former national security adviser John Bolton says the way China is treating Australia is a "sign of things to come" for the rest of the world. Bolton was speaking to the Henry Jackson Society, a Westminster think tank which takes a hawkish line on China, on Thursday morning AEDT. Describing China as "the existential international affairs question for all of us for the 21st century", Bolton was asked by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age how the West could respond to China's increasing economic and diplomatic aggression toward Australia. Former US National security adviser John Bolton.CREDIT:AP "The way China has treated Australia has been a clear effort to intimidate them and, by brute force, get them to back away [from calling for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic,]" Bolton said. China was trying to separate Australia from its strategic ally the United States, just as it had attempted to do with Canada, when it detained the two Michaels more than two years ago, following the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver, at the United States request, Bolton said. "It was obviously intended to split Canada from the United States, to split Australia from the United States." "This is the way China behaves now. How are they going to behave when they become more powerful? This is a sign of things to come." He said the West should be "emulating" China and producing a long-term strategy exploiting Beijing's dependence on energy. He apologised for the Trump Administration's failure to make enough progress on this work and agreed that President-elect Joe Biden was better suited to the task. "I think Trump was congenitally unable to do that sort of coalition building. I think Biden is probably better at it." "We've got to act now, we can't really waste any more time. It's an opportunity for Biden but it's a big test for him too." China has hit Australia with huge tariffs on barley and wine and banned coal imports, as well as stopped lobster imports from Australia ever since Prime Minister Scott Morrison called for an inquiry into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Embassy officials in Canberra produced a list of 14 grievances they gave to Nine journalists that they said were the reason the bilateral relationship has broken down. At the same time, Chinese officials have refused to accept phone calls from the Australian government. The 14 point list included Australia's world-leading Huawei ban which Bolton said the West was grateful to Australia and New Zealand for, as they were the first to identify the threat the Chinese firm could pose to 5G networks. The World Health Organisation has begun investigations into the source of the virus which emerged in Wuhan, China but Bolton said he doubted the truth would ever be known because of Beijing's cover-up. Bolton backed the idea of demanding China pay for some of the trillions of dollars in costs incurred by governments in trying to fight the virus which originated in Wuhan, China, possibly by funding some of the cost of vaccinating the world's population. Bolton, a loyal Republican who fell out with Trump after a year-and-a-half as his national security adviser, has a reputation not just for his hawkish foreign policy views but willingness to speak frankly about the shortcomings of the President he served.
China Accuses Australia of Economic Coercion as Ties Deteriorate By Jason Scott 30 April 2021 https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...oercion-as-ties-deteriorate?srnd=premium-asia Beijing blames Morrison’s government for souring relations Remarks comes after Canberra official warns of ‘drums of war’ China’s top diplomat in Canberra blamed Australia for deteriorating ties between the nations, accusing it of economic coercion and “provocations” in a wide-ranging speech that painted Beijing as a victim. Citing Australia’s decision last week to cancel agreements between Beijing’s flagship Belt and Road Initiative and Victoria state among a litany of “negative moves,” Ambassador Cheng Jingye said the country’s perception of China as a “threat and challenge” had hurt relations. He called claims of Chinese economic coercion “ridiculous and irrelevant.” “If there is any coercion, it must have be done by the Australian side,” Cheng told business leaders in a video address Thursday, according to a transcript. “What China has done is only aimed to uphold its legitimate rights and interests, prevent bilateral ties from further plunging and move them back onto the right track.” The remarks come days after Australia’s Home Affairs Secretary Michael Pezzullo ramped up tensions by telling staff that “in a world of perpetual tension and dread, the drums of war beat.” While he didn’t directly mention China, he said free nations were watching “worryingly the militarization of issues that we had, until recent years, thought unlikely to be catalysts for war.” The battle of words shows there’s no obvious circuit-breaker to help mend relations that have been in freefall for a year after Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government called for independent investigators to enter Wuhan to probe the origins of the coronavirus. Beijing has since inflicted a range of trade reprisals, including crippling tariffs on Australian barley and wine, while blocking coal shipments China last week slammed Australia’s decision to use new laws to cancel the Belt-and-Road agreements, which Morrison’s government described as “inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy or adverse to our foreign relations.” There has been increasing speculation Morrison may use the laws, passed in December, to scrap long-term leases held by Chinese companies at the ports in Darwin and Newcastle. “In relation to the Port of Darwin, if there is any advice that I receive from the Department of Defence or intelligence agencies that suggest there are national security risks there, then you would expect the government to take action on that,” Morrison said in a radio interview Friday. While the prime minister told reporters earlier this week he hadn’t received any such advice, Morrison’s comments could be seen by Beijing as a threat against China’s interests in Australia. “Some Australians no longer regard China as a cooperative partner,” Ambassador Cheng said in his speech on Thursday. “They have no interest in managing bilateral differences on the basis of mutual respect, nor are they interested in maintaining and enhancing political mutual trust.” Cheng specifically identified “increasing discriminatory restrictions imposed over investment from Chinese enterprises” as one of the catalysts of the deteriorating relationship. In an apparent swipe against Morrison’s bid to rally what he calls “like-minded democracies” in forums such as the Five Eyes and Quad, Cheng said “teaming up in small group against China will not work.” “Clinging to ideological bias as well as Cold War mentality and regarding China as a threat will lead nowhere,” Cheng said. Other examples of coercion identified by Cheng included: “Unjustified” blocks on Chinese high-tech firms,” such as Australia’s ban on Huawei Technologies Co. from helping build 5G networks “Gross interference” in Beijing’s internal affairs “based on disinformation and ideological bias” “Deliberately hyping up ‘China threat’ by some politicians” “Unbridled defamation and attack against the Australian Chinese by certain media outlets, politicians and security agencies, and the ensuing racial discrimination as well as violence”
China Halts Australia Economic Dialogue in Latest Retaliation Bloomberg News 6 May 2021 Largely symbolic suspension to meeting last held in 2017 China blames ‘Cold War mindset’ of some Australian official China announced that it was suspending a regular economic dialogue with Australia, in a largely symbolic move intended to signal Beijing’s growing frustration with Canberra. The National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement Thursday it was indefinitely halting all activities under the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue. While the two sides have held three rounds of talks under the mechanism since 2014, it hasn’t convened since September 2017. The Australian dollar fell as much as 0.6% to 77 U.S. cents. The Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade didn’t immediate respond to a request for comment. Australia decided last month to cancel agreements between China’s Belt and Road Initiative and Victoria state, in the latest blow to ties with the country’s largest trading partner. Relations between the two sides have deteriorated as Beijing curbs imports from Australia after efforts by Canberra to restrict access by Huawei Technologies Co. and its seek a probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Some Australian government officials took action to disrupt the normal exchanges and cooperation between China and Australia out of a “Cold War mindset” and ideological discrimination, the NDRC said. Australia is also reviewing whether to force a Chinese company to sell a lease to a strategically important port used by U.S. Marines, a move that could further stoke tensions with Beijing. China and Australia haven’t held ministerial level meetings since the foreign ministers met in Beijing in January 2019. — With assistance by Brendan Scott, Jing Jin, James Mayger, Jing Li, Rebecca Jones, Hwee Ann Tan, and Jason Scott https://www.bloomberg.com/news/arti...ith-australia-amid-tensions?srnd=premium-asia
.......“In terms of diplomatic signalling, this is definitely retribution for the events of the past few weeks,” said trade expert Jeffrey Wilson from the Perth USAsia Centre. “They were looking for something to make a point, and have run out of exports to sanction, so have suspended this. “Basically, it shows China has run out of ammunition. By going ‘thermonuclear’ on trade in 2020, they now have no substantive ways to punish Australia anymore, and have to scrap around for impact-free acts of pure symbolism.” https://www.smh.com.au/world/asia/c...ic-dialogue-indefinitely-20210506-p57phc.html
China’s miscalculation on trade deal helps Biden rebuild the Western Front Stephen Bartholomeusz Senior business columnist May 6, 2021 When, on the final day of 2020, China signed a trade pact with the European Union its leadership would have congratulated themselves on their cleverness in sidelining the EU from the escalating confrontation with the US before the incoming Biden administration had a chance to enter the White House. They don’t look quite so clever now. China’s eagerness to execute the “Comprehensive Agreement on Investment” was underscored by the 11th-hour concessions it made to the EU, including “sustained efforts” to comply with international conventions on forced labour (an indirect reference to the controversies about the treatment of the Uighurs in Xinjiang province). The deal that China was desperate to lock in had been given greater urgency because, unlike Donald Trump, who actively sought to damage the multilateral institutions and relationships in the West in pursuit of his “America First” policies, Biden had made it clear he wanted to re-establish those relationships and alliances and present a united, and far more powerful, Western Front to China...... .......Almost from the moment Biden was inaugurated he dispatched envoys to America’s traditional allies, seeking to re-establish traditional alliances and create common ground and a more unified pushback to China across a range of issues, from its economic policies, its Belt and Road initiative to its human rights abuses in Xinjiang and its treatment of Hong Kong. In March those efforts bore fruit, with the EU joining the US, UK and Canada in sanctioning Chinese individuals and entities for their treatment of the Uighurs. Almost reflexively, China retaliated, imposing its own “tit-for-tat” sanctions on a number of EU lawmakers and other individuals and several EU think tanks. That was a miscalculation. Targeting members of the European Parliament that were being asked to ratify the trade deal infuriated fellow parliamentarians and has played into the hands of those in Europe who want to side with the US in the collision with China. After seven years of negotiation and despite the last-minute concessions the EU has made it clear that it won’t approve the agreement while the sanctions on its officials remain in place....... ..........The frosty relationship between the Europeans and Americans during the Trump presidency is thawing faster than could have been anticipated. The speed at which the Biden administration has moved and the degree of success it is having in rebuilding the relationships with disgruntled former allies that Trump fractured will have taken China’s leadership aback. In Europe, they haven’t helped themselves. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe...ebuild-the-western-front-20210506-p57pfg.html
This is from today. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...-New-Chinese-threat-bomb-Australian-soil.html