australian wine is a hit in china
every third bottle the chinese import
comes from an australian vineyard
last year that added up to 800 million
euros worth of wine
but this year the numbers are set to dry
up
as china is putting stiff tariffs on
aussie wine
the official reason china accuses the
australian government of subsidizing
their vineyards
thus allowing their product to be sold
cheaper
undermining the chinese market that
according to beijing
made it impossible for chinese vintners
to establish and grow their own business
the australian government disagrees it
is of great concern
that china has taken this action and is
an action that comes
on top of an accumulation of other
actions
during the course of this year in
particular
in fact beijing has previously levied
import taxes on australian barley
and has hindered or stopped imports of
australian coal
and beef to many it seems that beijing
is retaliating
after australia criticized the country
for the coronavirus outbreak
and demanded an investigation chinese
officials have previously stated their
anger
we have said on many occasions that
australia has repeatedly
taken wrong words and deeds on issues
involving china's core
interests and major concerns taking
provocative
and confrontational actions this is the
root cause of the current
difficult situation in china australia
relations
beijing has authored a 14-point memo
explaining to australia how to behave
in order to have more successful trade
relations
it includes no more criticism of china
with regards to kovit
as well as support for china's embattled
telecom equipment maker huawei
australia finds itself between a rock
and a hard place
after all 40 percent of the country's
exports are to china
dig a little deeper into the story with
clifford coonan from dw business
clifford good to have you
um china says it's introducing these
tariffs uh to protect their domestic
market and because
you know australian wine has been
illegally subsidized that's what beijing
says but that's not the whole story is
it
no i think in in recent years we've
become used to socialism with chinese
characteristics
and capitalism with chinese
characteristics and now i think we're
getting a taste of globalization and
free trade with chinese characteristics
i think what they're doing is they're
putting pressure on um
on australia um it's political and the
political always outweighs the financial
when it comes to china
um i think protecting the the chinese
wine industry which is very small
is is uh is not something that you would
you know it doesn't really may add up
when you consider how much australian
wine goes in
and um i think it's definitely a
political thing rather than an economic
thing
the eu and china are currently working
on a trade
agreement does this have any impact the
spat
between china and australia on these
negotiations
with europe well it's interesting um the
eu parliament has just given
um has given us permission for these to
continue now and to actually go ahead
and sign this
this pact uh one thing the australian
said today though was that doing
that trading with china is risky and i
think what this is is a warning that um
the eu can't go sort of
health or leather into into a free trade
deal uh when clearly um
it's not as free trade as as it appears
to to advertise itself and that they
need to
to really consider about um what terms
they're going to be required
to provide goods to china australia and
china
china have a free trade agreement strong
trade ties as we've
seen in the report both are part of the
freshly signed
rcep trade deal for asia
what do the tariffs mean for these
existing
agreements well it was interesting i was
talking to a trade lawyer and they were
saying that
um when when trade deals don't work um
they stay in place it's it's more about
how they actually try and build more
trade
so it won't directly affect these things
but it's certainly going to make people
think about
um how what they're doing letting china
have such a big role in these
uh free trade deals on the one hand it's
calling for globalization and
and for more openness but at the same
time it's doing what's clearly very
protectionist measures
um against australia over its comments
on xinjiang and other aspects
so i think um i think it won't directly
affect them but it will certainly make
them look a lot less attractive
and going forward i think it will make
the whole notion of signing up for big
trade deals a lot less appealing than
it has to date clifford kuhnen from dw
business giving us the lowdown on
chinese australian relations clifford
thank you
you