Australia reserves the right to take China to the WTO amid growing trade dispute, Simon Birmingham says
Simon Birmingham has warned China’s “unpredictable” trade interventions may force Australian producers to sell to other markets and diversification is to be encouraged given the “risk” of trade with China.
The trade minister told ABC’s Insiders on Sunday that Australia reserves its right to take China to the World Trade Organisation, and revealed he is still yet to hear back from his Chinese counterpart about the growing trade dispute. He said his call “ought to be returned”.
After Australia called for an independent investigation into the origins of Covid-19, the Chinese ambassador in Australia, Cheng Jingye, threatened a consumer boycott against Australian goods.
Since then, China has raised an 18-month-old dispute relating to Australia’s barley exports and imposed a ban on beef from four abattoirs.
On Sunday Birmingham said that he can understand why – given the ambassador’s “very unhelpful remarks” – links have been drawn and questions asked about whether the issues are related.
But Birmingham said Australia will “take at face value” China’s claims the trade disputes are genuine and respond in good faith.
“Our government has now lodged a comprehensive response in Beijing to the Chinese authorities in relation to their claims of dumping of barley in the Chinese market,” he said.
Birmingham said Australian barley producers “operate free of government subsidy”, rejecting the claim that government upgrades to “irrigation infrastructure in the Murray-Darling Basin in any way impacts on barley prices in China”.
He noted Australian barley is “largely a product of dry land irrigation … it’s not coming out of the irrigated areas of the Murray-Darling Basin”.
Birmingham said there was “no justification for duties to be applied on any of the barley products”, rejecting the suggestion Australia could settle for a tariff on low-grade barley.
Birmingham defended Australia’s growing reliance on trade with China, noting it was the largest economy in the region, had grown dramatically in recent decades, and it was a commercial decision of Australian businesses to trade with China.
“Now they need to balance the risk and reward of whom they trade with.
