According to the Observer.com report on May 11, since the Sino-Australian relationship has fallen into a low ebb, Australia's commodity exports have been severely hit, and various commodity fields in Australia are uneasy, for fear that they will be implicated due to the current tension between China and Australia. And Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan also began to "seek dialogue" with China. However, news that worried Australian merchants still came.
reported that on May 10, local time, the US media Bloomberg said in a report that at least two smaller Chinese LNG importers have been told to suspend imports from Australia. Bloomberg believes that this is another example of the impact on bilateral trade after the deterioration of Sino-Australian relations. However, the report also pointed out that the purchase plans of other large and small Chinese importers have not changed.
It is important to note that China is one of the largest buyers of Australian LNG. If China banned the import of Australian gas, it would be a "death blow" for Australia. In fact, as early as the end of 2020, an Australian energy giant revealed that the company's deal negotiations with Chinese companies had been put on hold, which made them "scared". Some Australian media believe that the deterioration of Sino-Australian relations has affected the natural gas field.
According to relevant data, Australia is one of the world's largest LNG suppliers, and more than 40% of China's LNG is imported from this country. According to data released by the General Administration of Customs of China, in 2020, China imported about 29 million tons of liquefied natural gas from Australia, accounting for about 46% of total imports.
It should be noted that although most of China's natural gas was imported from Australia before, China's natural gas supply does not depend on Australia. If it does not import natural gas from Australia, China can still import from , Russia, and other countries. .But if Australian gas loses its big buyer, China, it will be hard to find a buyer that can rival China.
According to previous reports, in order to seek diversification of China's energy imports, Sino-Russian natural gas cooperation has become a new direction. According to data from the General Administration of Customs of China, in June 2020, Russia exported 396,000 tons of LNG to China, a month-on-month increase of 420.7%. During the same period, China imported 340,000 tons of liquefied natural gas from the United States, an increase of 2.4% month-on-month. In addition, in November last year, Gazprom announced that the company's average daily volume of natural gas exported to China in early October increased by nearly 17% month-on-month, and after that, the company's natural gas exports to China Climb again.
In fact, China is Australia's largest trading partner, and the two countries could have cooperated well for a win-win situation. However, the Morrison government has acted as a pawn of the United States, repeatedly disrupting the normal cooperation between the two countries, forcing China to fight back. On May 6, China's National Development and Reform Commission announced that it will indefinitely suspend all activities under the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue mechanism jointly led by the National Development and Reform Commission and relevant departments of the Australian federal government.
On the same day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Wang Wenbin said that China always believes that a healthy and stable China-Australia relationship is in the fundamental interests of both countries. For a period of time, the Australian side has disregarded China's solemn position and repeated representations, abused the so-called national security reasons, and intensified restrictions and suppression of China-Australia cooperation projects in the fields of economy, trade, people-to-people and cultural engagement and existing achievements, which seriously damaged the mutual trust between China and Australia. Undermined the basis of normal exchanges and cooperation. The Chinese side has to make necessary and legitimate responses, and the Australian side must take full responsibility for this.
