Stress escalates

Diplomatic relations between China and Australia have declined in recent years. Australia accused China of "interfering" in Australia’s education, media and government systems, prompting it to enforce foreign anti-interference laws in 2018.

Similarly to the United States, Australia has banned Huawei, China’s giant telecommunications group from participating in building 5G networks in the country. Canberra is also concerned that Beijing is trying to expand its influence in the Pacific region.

Recently, trade tensions between Australia and China have entered a new phase when Australia led the campaign calling for an investigation into the origin of the Covid-19 pandemic.

Last week, Beijing announced to stop importing meat from four major Australian beef producers, Kilcoy Pastoral, JBS’s Beef City, Dinmore Plants and Northern Cooperative Meat for "technical" reasons.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhao Lijian said stopping the import of beef was "just to ensure the health and safety of Chinese consumers", but Zhao Lijian also criticized Australia’s pursuit of an investigation into the origin of the Covid-19 epidemic originated in China.

On May 18, China’s Ministry of Commerce announced that it would impose anti-dumping and anti-subsidy duties of 80.5% on barley products imported from Australia, starting on 19/5. Beijing accused Australia’s dumping of causing serious damage to China’s domestic industry.

Australian Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said that there was no trade war with China and affirmed that the Chinese investigation process was objective.

Which item will be "attacked"?

However, China’s decision to impose tariffs on Australian barley imports has shown the degree of dependence of some of the country’s industries on Chinese needs. Based on this weakness, China may continue to target "attacks" on many Australian exports, if tensions between the two countries show no signs of cooling.

According to Bloomberg , Chinese officials have compiled a list of potential items that could become targets for Beijing to implement measures such as stricter quality control, investigation or imposition of anti-dumping duties. , adding steps or delaying customs clearance or using state media to urge consumers to boycott.

Kangaroo’s exports are at risk of being targeted by China including alcohol, seafood, oats, fruits and dairy. Goods that are likely to face additional non-tariff barriers such as tightening quality checks, anti-dumping exploration, taxation or customs clearance delay.

The Australian Department of Agriculture also said that the country’s wool producers exported about US $ 3.16 billion of untreated wool (raw wool) to China in 2018-2019. This shows that the Australian wool industry is relatively dependent on China.

Wool Producers, Australian president of Wool Producers Ed Storey, said the company has a close relationship with Chinese importers and is confident that the industry will not be subject to attack by trade restrictions. Chinese trade.

However, Mr. Will Rayner, Managing Director of Rural Bank’s said, China is more import market for raw wool from Australia than the rest of the world combined. Therefore, any tariff will have an immediate impact on the country’s wool exports.

“Barley and wool are two special export sectors that depend on the Chinese market. This concern will only end until tensions between the two countries have temporarily settled down or Australia has found a new market, ”said Will Rayner.

According to Richard McGregor, a senior fellow at the Lowy Institute, there is little hope that the relationship between Australia and China will become better in the near future.

“It is quite clear that the relationship between the two countries has become worse. Australia has warned businesses to diversify their economic relations to avoid becoming dependent on China and so will the world’s second largest economy, ”McGregor said.

According to McGregor, wool, iron ore, education and tourism could be the next industries that China could "attack".

Weihuan Zhou, a senior lecturer at the University of New South Wales (Australia), found that China’s decisions to restrict trade and impose tariffs might prioritize making sure domestic manufacturers can still provide products that people in this country need.

As such, wine, wool and milk are items that China could be targeted after beef and barley.