The WTO should penalize “bad behavior when it occurs,” Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said yesterday ahead of a G7 leaders’ meeting in the UK where he hopes to garner support in a trade dispute with China.
Morrison said Australia would be “working with others to buttress the role of the World Trade Organization and to modernize its rulebook where necessary.”
“In my discussions with many leaders, I’ve taken great encouragement from the support shown for Australia’s preparedness to withstand economic coercion in recent times,” Morrison said in a speech delivered in Australia’s west coast city of Perth before leaving for the G7 meeting in Cornwall, England.
The Australian government in December last year announced that it would ask the WTO to intervene in its dispute with China over barley and expects other nations to become involved in the case.
China in May last year effectively ended imports of Australian barley by putting tariffs of more than 80 percent on the crop, accusing Australia of breaching WTO rules by subsidizing barley production and selling the grain in China at below production cost.
Trade in Australian seafood, wood, beef, wine and coal has also been disrupted since Australia angered China by requesting an independent inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Geneva, Switzerland-based WTO, which makes rules governing international trade, is facing calls for restructuring and reform as it struggles to forge a long-awaited world trade pact.
“A well-functioning WTO that sets clear rules, arbitrates disputes objectively and efficiently penalizes bad behavior when it occurs. This can be one of the most powerful tools the international community has to counter economic coercion,” Morrison said.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken last month said that the US would not leave Australia alone to face coercion from China, and that such behavior toward US allies would hamper improvement in relations between Washington and Beijing.
Morrison said in his speech that the most practical way to address economic coercion would be to restore the WTO’s binding dispute settlement system.
“Where there are no consequences for coercive behavior, there is little incentive for restraint,” Morrison said.
The G7 meeting “provides an opportunity to point a way forward” at a WTO ministerial conference on trade reforms in November, he said.
Japan and Australia yesterday said they had “serious concerns” about reported human rights abuses against Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang region.
In a joint statement, they also expressed concern about recent moves that they said weakened Hong Kong’s democratic institutions, and grave concerns about the ongoing crisis in Myanmar.
The meeting, between the foreign and defense ministers of both nations, took place via videoconferencing.
Additional reporting by Reuters
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) yesterday announced the launch of the TSMC-UTokyo Lab to promote advanced semiconductor research, education and talent development. The lab is TSMC’s first laboratory collaboration with a university outside Taiwan, the company said in a statement. The lab would leverage “the extensive knowledge, experience, and creativity” of both institutions, the company said. It is located in the Asano Section of UTokyo’s Hongo, Tokyo, campus and would be managed by UTokyo faculty, guided by directors from UTokyo and TSMC, the company said. TSMC began working with UTokyo in 2019, resulting in 21 research projects,
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
Ashton Hall’s morning routine involves dunking his head in iced Saratoga Spring Water. For the company that sells the bottled water — Hall’s brand of choice for drinking, brushing his teeth and submerging himself — that is fantastic news. “We’re so thankful to this incredible fitness influencer called Ashton Hall,” Saratoga owner Primo Brands Corp’s CEO Robbert Rietbroek said on an earnings call after Hall’s morning routine video went viral. “He really helped put our brand on the map.” Primo Brands, which was not affiliated with Hall when he made his video, is among the increasing number of companies benefiting from influencer
RSS