Australian trade minister offers compromise” with Communist China over anti-dumping tariffs”

Australia’s trade minister has extended an olive branch to Communist China, suggesting a possible “compromise situation” or “alternative way” to resolve the trade dispute in talks between the two countries.

Since the Albanese government was elected in May, Australia and Communist China have reopened channels of communication, including Deputy Prime Minister Richard Marles, who met with the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) defense minister in Singapore in June. Australia has been complaining about trade sanctions imposed by the CCP on a range of its exports, including meat, crayfish, timber and coal. And WTO is currently investigating trade disputes over imposing anti-dumping tariffs on Australian wine and barley. Penny Wong, the Australian foreign minister, vowed to take every opportunity to demand the Chinese government scrap “unjustified trade strikes”.

Don Farrell, the Australian Minister of Trade, Tourism and Investment confirmed that Wong is in talks with the CCP’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi. When asked if the pair could meet soon, such as at the upcoming G20 meeting in Indonesia, Farrell said, “I don’t exactly know, but it looks like the answer to that is yes. I think there are positive signs.”

Farrell said, despite sticking points on market access and name of rules of origin for agricultural products, Australia’s talks with the EU could produce a free trade agreement “sooner than most people expect”.

The trade minister said the talks had progressed due to two “obstacles out of the way”: one is that Australia now has a more ambitious climate policy with an “almost audible sigh of relief”; the other is that the Morrison government reconnect with France after the cancellation of Australia’s submarine contract by the Morrison government.