Ever since Australia’s new Prime Minister Albanese came to power, there have been voices that believe that China-Australia relations will usher in a period of relaxation. Especially at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue , the long-lost meeting between China and Australia was called an "ice-breaking trip" by many media, and it also gave many people hope.
But what is surprising is that the Australian Prime Minister continued to make wrong remarks related to China. He first told China that in order to change China-Australia relations, China first needs to show its performance; and before going to Spain to participate in NATO On the way to the summit, the Australian Prime Minister also threatened that China needs to learn a lesson, causing the relationship between the two countries to once again fall into uncertainty and embarrassment.
I don’t know if the Australian Prime Minister’s remarks were too outrageous. In an interview on July 3, Australia’s new Defense Minister Mars once again spoke to China, seeking to ease the relationship between the two countries.
Mars said that the Albanese government hopes to make changes in its relations with China and change the previous government's behavior of only yelling. This is the second time since the Australian Defense Minister took office that he has released a signal to improve relations with China.
Originally at the previous Hong Kong meeting, Albanese also expressed appreciation for the active communication between China and Australia. He said this was a good thing and claimed that the two countries "need to contact each other. This is a positive step." , but compared with the Australian Defense Minister's calmness at the previous Shangri-La Dialogue, this time, he is obviously a little anxious.
At the end of last month, the Australian Wine Association announced that it would close its only entity in China, the Shanghai office, which means that Australian wine, which has been entrenched in the Chinese market for many years, has finally come to an end. Australian media even believe that Australian wine may completely withdraw from the Chinese market.
This is a huge loss for Australia. You must know that before 2020, China had always been the largest market for Australian wine. The annual trade volume between the two parties was as high as 1.2 billion Australian dollars. Now this number has dropped to less than 200 million Australian dollars.
The reason is that the former Australian government repeatedly made wrong statements on China-related issues and continued to undermine relations between the two countries. For this reason, China had to make counterattacks.
On the one hand, China is investigating Australia's dumping of cheap wine, and at the same time, it has imposed high anti-dumping duties , making Australian wine uncompetitive in China. In addition, consumer products such as lobster and barley from Australia have also been subject to a series of trade restrictions, causing heavy losses to related industries in Australia. In fact, China not only imposes restrictions on these consumer goods, but also has the courage to say no in the resource areas on which it is very dependent.
According to US media reports, in the past year, due to the sharp increase in coal demand, China has cleared its backlog of Australian coal inventories and will not continue to import
In fact, after the deterioration of Sino-Australian relations in 2020, China has not Re-import Australian coal. China currently has ample coal reserves and has found sellers outside of Australia. China has signed coal supply agreements with Indonesia, Russia, Mongolia and other countries, and will begin to import coal from the above three countries in large quantities in 2021. Even after Australian coal was squeezed out of the market, allied countries such as the United States and Canada also joined in.
Moreover, as China's industrial upgrading and energy consumption structure continue to optimize, some heavily polluting resources will be gradually phased out, so it is unlikely that Australian coal will return to the Chinese market.
This time the Australian Defense Minister stood up and spoke softly. It cannot be ruled out that he saw the embarrassment that Australia's competitive products are being gradually abandoned by the Chinese market, and had to compromise with China.
It is certainly a good idea for Australians to hope to ease relations between the two countries, but we must listen to their words and watch their actions. Advocating threat theory while coveting the Chinese market, this kind of double-standard rhetoric will not work in today's China.
