Australia's Deputy PM Urges Caution With 'Confrontational' China

Australian Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce said the government needs to treat China with more caution after relations with its largest trading partner hit new lows.

“They have made the world look at them in a different light -- their actions in the South China Sea, their actions pertinent to the Uyghur people, their actions in northern India,” Joyce said in an interview with Bloomberg on Wednesday. “They seem more confrontational.”

“We have to be more cautious,” he added. “We wish that was not the case. I don’t think that is a win-win situation for the world. I think that is a bad situation because it means people’s attention and resources and attitudes are taken down a different track to what is beneficial for all.”

Australia-China relations have been in freefall since April 2020, when Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s conservative government called on Beijing to allow independent investigators into Wuhan to probe the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. That’s had repercussions for Australia’s trade relationship with China, which has imposed tariffs and other restrictions on a range of goods including coal, barley and wine.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-08-11/australia-s-deputy-pm-urges-caution-with-confrontational-china