The latest victims of China’s shock and awe campaign against Australia are Victorian lamb exporters as well as South Australian and Tasmanian timber producers.
Bans on timber exports from Victoria and Queensland have been in place for months.Australian cotton and wheat farmers are also bracing for what Beijing has in store for them with reports that they are next.Since Australia had the temerity to suggest that there should be an independent investigation into the origins of the coronavirus China has introduced hefty tariffs on a range of our exports, placed restrictions on Australian wine, cotton and other goods and suspended trade with a number of abattoirs.It’s been devastating for Australian farmers and producers who have become heavily reliant on the export trade to China.
We are in a free-trade agreement with China but only one side is abiding by its conditions.Given how the Chinese government treats its own people we shouldn’t be surprised at their campaign of intimidation and economic coercion against Australia.This is after all a country that is currently engaged in ethnic genocide of its Uighur population, runs forced labour camps, imprisons, tortures and even kills political dissidents and harvests the organs of prisoners and carries our forced abortions and sterilisations.Then there is Beijing’s assault against Hong Kong citizens and the threat the CCP poses to Taiwan.By any measure China is a rogue state but one that has been allowed to prosper and grow its global influence.The coronavirus pandemic was a wake-up call for much of the world to the threat China poses.Smaller countries are finally taking a stand and it’s worth noting that Australia’s motion for anindependent investigation into origins of COVID-19 was backed by more than 100 countries.And, increasingly consumers are taking a stand too and boycotting Chinese made and ownedproducts.
After China imposed tariffs of up to 212 per cent on Australian wine, a list of Chinese-ownedwineries in Australia began circulating on social media with some consumers choosing to boycott producers that send their profits back to Beijing.China is an economic superpower and it would be naive to think that they are not an important part of Australia’s trade relationships but we cannot afford to become so heavily reliant on one market, particularly when it is controlled by a brutal communist dictatorship.
Rita Panahi is a Herald Sun columnist
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