TheJakartaPost
Please Update your browser
Your browser is out of date, and may not be compatible with our website. A list of the most popular web browsers can be found below.
Just click on the icons to get to the download page.
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search results
Popular Reads
Top Results
No results found. Please check your search term and try again
Can't find what you're looking for?
View all search resultsAustralian PM on China tensions: Country won't trade values in response to 'coercion'
Change text size
Gift Premium Articles
to Anyone
Share the best of The Jakarta Post with friends, family, or colleagues. As a subscriber, you can gift 3 to 5 articles each month that anyone can read—no subscription needed!
The national flags of Australia and China are displayed before a portrait of Mao Zedong facing Tiananmen Square, during a visit by Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard in Beijing on April 26, 2011. The trip is Gillard's first to China, Australia's top trading partner, and comes at a time when the communist country is waging its toughest crackdown on dissent in years. (AFP/Frederic J. Brown)
A
ustralian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that he would not be intimidated or give into coercion when asked on Thursday whether Australia would keep taking hits on exports from major trading partner China.
Diplomatic tensions between China and Australia have worsened after Australia called for an international inquiry into the source and spread of the coronavirus, angering Beijing.
The World Health Assembly last month voted to support an independent review into the pandemic after Australia and the European Union led lobbying.
On Tuesday, China's Ministry of Education said students should reconsider choosing to study in Australia, threatening Australia's fourth-largest export industry, international education, worth A$38 billion ($26 billion) annually.
"We are an open-trading nation, mate, but I'm never going to trade our values in response to coercion from wherever it comes," Morrison told radio station 2GB on Thursday.
China has in recent weeks banned Australian beef imports and imposed tariffs on Australian barley.
The warning for students followed a similar warning last week from Beijing for Chinese tourists to avoid Australia.
In both cases, officials in Beijing said the warnings were due to racist attacks against Asians during the pandemic.
"That's rubbish. It's a ridiculous assertion and it's rejected. That's not a statement that's been made by the Chinese leadership," Morrison said in a separate interview on 3AW.
Australia lodged a protest with the Chinese foreign ministry in Beijing, and the Chinese embassy in Canberra, about China's travel and student warnings, said a spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
The Australian government rejected the assertion it was unsafe to visit or study in Australia, a statement said.
"Australia provides the best education and tourism products in the world," Morrison told 2GB. "The ability for Chinese nationals to be able to choose to come to Australia [has] substantively been their decision. And I'm very confident in the attractiveness of our product."
The coalition representing Australia's elite universities, the Group of Eight, has said international education was "being used as a political pawn". China is Australia's largest trading partner, with two-way trade worth A$235 billion a year.
