Amid ongoing trade tensions between Canberra and Beijing, some Australian exporters are now so scared of having their products rejected at customs they have stopped shipping to China.
Key points:
- Some Australian exporters fear their products will not make it into China while there are extra checks at the border
- Agriculture Minister David Litteproud says he takes it "on face value" when China says it is not discriminating against Australian products
- After months of escalating tensions, China's foreign ministry spokesman has noted "positive" comments made by Prime Minister Scott Morrison
Exporter Andrew Ferguson recently had three shipments of live lobsters die in China because of lengthy delays in customs testing.
China began more stringent testing because it said high levels of cadmium had been found in some shipments.
But Mr Ferguson has questioned whether he is a casualty of escalating political tensions between the Australian and Chinese governments.
"The lobsters were out of the water too long and they died while they were waiting to be cleared," he said.
"The cost was significant."
He said it was too risky to continue shipping to China.
"Staff are probably my biggest stress," he told 7.30.
"The sooner I can kick something back off and get things going again, it'll make things better for them and we won't lose those staff."
Some Chinese importers have told wine, sugar, wool, copper and coal suppliers their goods will no longer clear customs either.
China notes Australia's 'positive' comments
Amid the prolonged tensions, Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Monday evening said Australia would not back down on its foreign policy agenda.
"The global competition between the US and China presents new challenges," he said in a speech to the British Policy Exchange.
"Like other sovereign nations in the Indo-Pacific, our preference is Australia is not forced into any binary choices."
In what some may have seen as an olive branch, Mr Morrison also praised China's economic and social growth, saying: "No country has pulled more people out of poverty".
In a Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs briefing on Tuesday, spokesman Zhao Lijian said China had "noted Prime Minister Morrison's positive comments on the global influence of China's economic growth and China's poverty alleviation efforts".
"On China-Australia relations, we hope Australia will make independent, objective, sensible choices that serve its own interests," he said.
The Chinese embassy in Australia directed 7.30 to Mr Zhao's briefing when asked to comment on the ongoing trade dispute.
Wine marketer calls for 'urgency'
Whether an apparent softening of tone from China will have an impact on exporters remains to be seen.
Leconfield wine marketer Damien White said he decided to postpone a $130,000 shipment to China out of fear it would be rejected, then had an order cancelled.
"It's been a tough year for everybody and this is a bit of a nail in the coffin really," he said.
"There needs to be some urgency around this topic.
"We need some answers and we need some official responses from Government so we understand what the direction is."
Earlier this year, Australian barley was hit with a hefty tariff, some beef exports were banned and an anti-dumping probe was launched into 10 wine companies.
Research director at Perth USAsia, Jeffrey Wilson, said the economic impact of the dispute was mounting.
Trade data shows 94 per cent of Australia's timber and lobster shipments, 76 per cent of wool and 71 per cent of cotton exports go to China.
"Overall, [China is] Australia's number one trade partner and accounts for about $150 billion worth of exports each year," Dr Wilson said.
Last week the Chinese embassy leaked a long list of grievances against the Federal Government.
"The straw that broke the camel's back was Australia's call for an independent international inquiry into the origins of coronavirus," Dr Wilson said.
"But the reality is there's been a number of difficulties and irritants in the Australia-China relationship that have been brewing over many years, including issues of Chinese foreign interference in Australia, its militarisation of the South China Sea, and a number of human rights abuses as well."
When asked if exporters were being punished for those issues, Agriculture Minister David Littleproud said he hoped that was not the case.
"We'd be very concerned if it was because we have every right as a Government to protect our sovereignty and we will continue to do that," Mr Littleproud said.
"The last formal response we had from China was that they are not discriminating against Australian products, so you can only take them on face value."
Former ambassador and coal director wants 'circuit breaker'
Former Australian ambassador to China, Geoff Raby, said Australia needed to decide whether it saw China as a strategic opponent or a country to cooperate with.
"The relationship has never been in a worse state than it is today," he said.
Mr Raby now runs a Beijing-based business advisory firm and is a director of Yancoal, and he has argued Canberra needs to rethink its relationship with Beijing.
"We are living through the greatest power shift in modern history, a shift of power across the Pacific from the United States to China," Mr Raby said.
"Australia in this new world order has more closely than ever aligned its foreign policy with that of the United States."
Yancoal has several Australian mines. Despite the company having majority Chinese shareholders, it cannot get its iron ore into China.
"Yancoal exports about 20 per cent of its total production to China and there has been some disruption to Yancoal's business in China," Mr Raby said.
"And Yancoal, like many other coal companies, is busily looking at other markets for that 20 per cent that has been going to China.
"What's urgently needed now is some kind of circuit breaker and for both sides to get to a more normal bilateral relationship."
Shadow Foreign Affairs Minister Penny Wong said the Prime Minister needed to solve the issue for exporters who were continuing to lose money.
"We saw [former prime minister] John Howard just recently give Scott Morrison some public advice, which is you're responsible for managing this relationship and you've got to sit down and deal with these issues with President Xi [Jinping]," Senator Wong said.
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2020-11-25 07:32:00Z
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