As a nation, Australia has ridden the Chinese economic boom, the Chinese demand for our resources and products has benefited the nation immensely. These very same raw resources have also benefited the Chinese. We had beneficial trade between the two nations, this all collapsed during covid, but this was a really shaky relationship well before that.

We have a free trade agreement with China, the ChAFTA entered into force on the 15th of December 2015. This was supposed to provide significant opportunities for Australian companies marketing goods and services in China. Well, China hasn’t honoured their end of the agreement, they have been remiss, they have targeted the imports that won’t hurt them. Australia has taken China to the World Trade Organisation to get this sorted.

This isn’t entirely true, the CCP targeted coal imports from Australia, what a disaster, a real failure of leadership. Yet Australian coal is making its way into China via India, good luck to Indian businessmen jacking up prices, that’s smart business. They have found a niche, they can now exploit this Chinese need for Australian coal and the Chinese desire to pay inflated prices.

There are two basic types of coal, there is coking coal used for steelmaking and thermal coal used for steam and electricity generation. With climate change, countries are looking for ways to reduce their reliance on thermal coal, the use of renewables will increase in the future as technology improves.

Australia relied on China, but they were not our only market. We needed greater diversification, that has been coming. Whilst we may never go back to the relationship we previously claimed, there is no way we could accept the Chinese demand, it would have changed Australian democracy forever. The Chinese political interference is unheralded, they may not like being told by a country of 25 million what to do, but they are finding out our resolve is strong and we are not backing down.