Beijing/Canberra: China announced an indefinite postponement of talks regarding an important economic agreement with Australia. It has accused Australia of harbouring cold war mentality and discrimination against China. Australia said that this Chinese decision is unfortunate. A few days ago, Australia delivered a severe jolt to the Chinese Belt and Road scheme. It is being said that this decision is the Chinese retaliation against that.
China is the largest trading partner of Australia. In 2019, China had a whopping 29% share in the total trade of Australia. The agreement signed between the two countries in 2015, plus the Chinese efforts were responsible for this huge growth. But in the last two years, the Australia-China relations are festering fast and the new Chinese decision is a part of the same festering relations.
China has increased its influence in various sectors in Australia and has even started interfering with that strength. To stop this interference, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his government started a spate of aggressive decisions. Many bills have been passed in the Australian parliament, against China, which mentions the perceived Chinese threat. These actions started by the Morrison government has made China extremely restless. Besides, it is trying to pressurise Australia using its economic and trade might.
China is taking steps to corner Australia with this indefinite postponement of China-Australia dialogue. Before this, China had imposed additional taxes on many Australian products and had even imposed an unannounced ban on some products. China has stopped all the dialogue with the Australian ministers. While announcing the new decision, China accused Australia of the Cold War mentality, indicating a conflict between the two countries.
It has been revealed that the Australian Dollar slid by 0.6% following the Chinese decision.
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