Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison yesterday said that a Chinese ban on Australian coal imports would breach WTO rules, as his government urged Beijing to resume dialogue to ease a worsening diplomatic dispute.
More than 50 vessels carrying Australian coal have been stranded off China after ports were in October verbally told not to offload such shipments.
The Chinese National Development and Reform Commission on Saturday appeared to formalize the curbs after giving power plants approval to import coal without restrictions, except from Australia, under efforts to tame price rises, the Global Times reported.
Photo: Reuters
If that proved to be correct, such a ban would also breach the free-trade agreement that China and Australia signed in 2015, Morrison told reporters.
“It would be a bad outcome for the trading relationship,” he said, adding that the conflation of political and trade issues could “create a lot of uncertainty for many other trading partners.”
Ties between China and Australia have been fraught since 2018 when Canberra barred Huawei Technologies Co from building its 5G network on national security grounds, and worsened this year after Canberra called for an international inquiry into the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic.
China has hit Australian barley and wine with crippling tariffs, and told traders to stop buying Australian commodities.
Australian Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment Simon Birmingham said a formal coal ban would “indicate discriminatory trade practices.”
The Australian government is concerned that China’s actions do not appear to be consistent with “the letter or the spirit” of the free-trade agreement, he said, adding that it is close to mounting a case against the barley tariffs at the WTO and is considering the avenues open to it for coal.
“The risk profile of trading with China has grown significantly during the course of this year,” Birmingham said.
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