Australia tells exporters to diversify from top trade partner China

As the two nations announced a trade dispute resolution on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Penny Wong said Australia wants exporters to diversify markets and grow less reliant on China because it cannot separate economic and geopolitical partnerships.

On Tuesday, Australia suspended a WTO action and China accelerated a tariff review on Australian exports to end their barley dispute. read on

Wong told Sky News that diversifying export markets is crucial to national resilience.

“And the government will support that because we want diversified export markets.”

China, Australia’s largest trading partner, lifted restrictions on a variety of Australian commodity exports in 2020 due to a diplomatic conflict.

“We’re not going back to where we were 15 years ago,” Wong told media.

“We want a more solid relationship with China, but we realize we can’t continue to divide our economic and strategic relationship,” she told Nine’s Today Show.

She noted that as a “big power in the world,” China and Australia would have different interests.

Wong labeled China’s recent military drills around Taiwan “destabilizing” and recommended deescalation.

“Australia’s position is, very clearly, no unilateral alteration to the status quo,” she told Sky News in the interview.

On Wednesday, Chinese executive vice minister of foreign affairs Ma Zhaoxu and Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade secretary Jan Adams met in Canberra.

The department stated that “commerce, consular, human rights, strategic competitiveness, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine” were discussed.