Australia urges China to drop tariffs if it wants to improve ties

SYDNEY • Australia's Economy Minister called on China yesterday to drop punishing trade tariffs if it wants to thaw frozen relations, after Beijing sent a message signalling it is ready to improve ties.

China - Australia's biggest trading partner - imposed tariffs and disrupted more than a dozen key industries, including wine, barley and coal, as relations deteriorated sharply in the past two years.

Canberra had irked Beijing by calling for an independent probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and by banning telecoms giant Huawei from building Australia's 5G network.

Treasurer Jim Chalmers said Australia felt the pain of the Chinese trade squeeze, calling for the measures to be lifted as soon as possible. "They are damaging our economy. They are making life harder for some of our employers and workers here in Australia," he told public broadcaster ABC.

"Obviously, we would like to see those measures lifted. That would be a really great start, when it comes to how we manage what is a really complex relationship, a relationship that has become more complex over time."

Chinese Premier Li Keqiang sent a congratulatory note to newly elected Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese on Monday, the most significant high-level contact between Beijing and Canberra in at least two years.

Mr Li's letter said China was ready to work with Australia to "review the past, look into the future" and promote a "comprehensive strategic partnership", the state-run Xinhua news agency said.

Mr Albanese said Australia would respond "appropriately".

Mr Chalmers also said Canberra would deal in a "considered, sober, non-partisan way" with Beijing's "more aggressive and more assertive" stance in the Pacific region. "The stronger the region is, the more cohesive the region is, the safer it is, the more prosperous it is," he said.

Australia's former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull said he expected there would be "a reset" in relations between Canberra and Beijing under Mr Albanese, calling his own Liberal Party's earlier rhetoric on the Chinese government "frenzied" and "unhelpful".

Speaking to Bloomberg yesterday, Mr Turnbull also said China had "overreached in its bullying of Australia", including the imposition of tariffs and enforced customs delays on Australian exports.

Now the election of Mr Albanese presented "the opportunity for an elegant dismount", he said.

"The big difference with the Labor government will be that they will not crank up the political rhetoric in the rather frenzied way that (former prime minister Scott) Morrison and particularly (former defence minister) Peter Dutton did," Mr Turnbull said.

"And they did that for domestic political purposes and that was really unhelpful for Australia. It was absolutely the wrong thing to do."

However, Mr Turnbull added that he did not expect major differences in Canberra's overall China policy and, so far, Mr Albanese has been adamant any improvement in the relationship with Beijing will depend on the Chinese government's willingness to compromise.

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, BLOOMBERG