Aussie China News

A weekly roundup of your favourite (and least favourite) Australian digital media coverage of China.

(ABC: Bec Whetham)

Hello everyone and welcome to a new issue of Aussie China News!

This post covers Australian digital news and commentary on China between Thursday 6th April and Friday 14th April.

News

Politics

While the world was distracted by French President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Beijing, here in Canberra it was all about the trade talks:

• Australia inks deal to wind back China’s barley tariffs as trade relations thaw
  Matthew Elmas, The New Daily, Tue 11 Apr 2023
  China’s decision to review its trade restrictions on Australian barley has created a “face-saving off-ramp” towards the removal of billions of dollars worth of export bans, a leading expert says.

• Australia and China reach breakthrough in trade dispute
  Catie McLeod, news.com.au, Tue 11 Apr 2023
  Australia has reached an agreement with China to resolve trade blockages on barley exports its hopes will be followed by the removal of similar tariffs on wine.

  Foreign Minister Penny Wong announced on Tuesday the two nations had reached a partial breakthrough in their longrunning trade dispute over Chinese sanctions on Australian products worth an estimated $20bn a year.

• Talks between China's vice minister of foreign affairs and DFAT focus on trade, human rights and 'strategic competition'
  Erin Handley, ABC, Wed 12 Apr 2023
  Ma Zhaoxu was the highest level Chinese official to visit Australia in six years. He discussed human rights, strategic competition and trade with DFAT secretary Jan Adams. The statement did not directly mention AUKUS, which China has said will fuel an arms race.

• EXPLAINER:
  China-Australia barley trade next step still unclear after halt to WTO action
  Kath Sullivan, ABC, Wed 12 Apr 2023
  Australia's relationship with China took a turn this week, with the Acting Prime Minister Penny Wong announcing the federal government has asked the World Trade Organization to suspend its appeal on Beijing's decision to apply tariffs to Australian barley. 

• Cautious optimism as Aust-China trade dispute thaws
  Andrew Brown and Dominic Giannini, The Canberra Times, Wed 12 Apr 2023
  The head of the Department of Foreign Affairs has wrapped up talks with key Chinese officials, as hopes grow for a breakthrough in the trade dispute between the countries.

• Australia’s trade minister hopeful China bans will end but warns against putting ‘all our eggs in one basket’
  Daniel Hurst, The Guardian, Thu 13 Apr 2023
  The Australian trade minister says he wants a quick return to normal trade with China but has warned exporters not to put “all of our eggs in one basket”.

  In an interview with Guardian Australia, Don Farrell was bullish about the prospect of Australia succeeding in its international challenge against Beijing’s tariffs on Australian barley, saying he thought “we would ultimately win that”.

Economics and trade

And after barley, will come the wine. Maybe.

(Reuters)

Chinese wine importers looking to re-sign contracts with Australian growers amid government talks
Eden Hynninen, Kellie Hollingworth, and Emile Pavlich, ABC, Fri 14 Apr 2023
The wine grower says Chinese wine importers are confident trade will soon resume. The federal government has agreed to suspend its appeal to the WTO over Chinese tariffs on barley. The Australian wine industry hopes it will benefit from government negotiations.

• Australian winemakers hopeful of breakthrough on $1.2bn China trade but still plan to diversify markets
  Daniel Hurst, The Guardian, Wed 12 Apr 2023
  Australian wine producers hope Beijing could soon remove tariffs that slashed the $1.2bn trade by 99% – but say they are wary about relying too heavily on the Chinese market.

• China says it’s open to negotiating an end to wine tariffs
  Michael Smith, AFR, Wed 12 Apr 2023
  China has confirmed it is willing to work with the Albanese government to resolve tariff disputes over both wine and barley exports, paving the way for the removal of $20 billion worth of trade sanctions against Australia.

• Aussie farmers hopeful of Chinese trade thawing, but must look beyond one market
  Ellen Ransley, The Herald Sun, Wed 12 Apr 2023
  Australian exporters need to be less reliant on Chinese exporters, Foreign Minister Penny Wong says, as the two countries take a major step in mending fractured trade relations. The federal government announced on Tuesday it had paused its World Trade Organisation dispute against Beijing for imposing hefty tariffs on barley.

• SA spirits soar at influential Chinese market
  Government of South Australia, Thu 13 Apr 2023
  South Australian spirits, beer and non-alcoholic beverages will be centre stage at China’s biggest and most influential food and drinks event starting today, fuelling opportunities with the State’s largest export market.

Will everything take a turn for the better? Some are more optimistic than others.

The rule book is the winner in the China trade war
Shiro Armstrong, AFR, Wed 12 Apr 2023
Australia’s faith in global trade rules is paying off as China looks to back away from trade sanctions. The World Trade Organisation (WTO) panel decision on Chinese restrictions on imports of Australian barley worth around $1.5 billion a year was due in a matter of days when agreement was reached for Canberra to suspend its appeal, and Beijing to expedite a review of the measures. This is how the WTO is supposed to work – resolve cases through negotiation, with the trade umpire as a backstop.

Security

Meanwhile in Darwin, an eye on the minerals:

China may be cut from critical minerals deals
Peter Ker and Elouise Fowler, AFR, Thu 13 Apr 2023
Resources Minister Madeleine King says “like-minded” foreign investors will be welcome to invest in Australian critical minerals projects, as those developing the next generation of Australian mines warn against excluding China. The Albanese government will soon release a critical minerals strategy to address national interest concerns over China’s dominance of supply chains for minerals like rare earths.

• Australia aims to boost critical minerals processing to hedge against China’s dominance
  Jonathan Barrett, The Guardian, Thu 13 Apr 2023
  Australia needs to develop processing capabilities that would hedge against China’s dominant position over minerals crucial to clean energy and defence technologies, the resources minister, Madeleine King, said on Thursday. Speaking to a Darwin audience that included key allies and trading partners, King said the concentration of the critical minerals market in China posed a strategic challenge to Australia.

Tech

China Inches Closer to SpaceX Tech With Successful Vertical Landing Demo
Passant Rabie, Gizmodo AU, Fri 7 Apr 2023
Guangzhou-based company CAS Space recently flew a small rocket outside a Chinese coastal city before landing it upright on a sea-based platform. The successful test flight and landing could eventually change the game for the Chinese rocket industry.

Crypto mogul is playing a risky game with China
Zheping Huang, Suvashree Ghosh and Olga Kharif, Sydney Morning Herald, Fri 7 Apr 2023
Even by the to-the-moon standards of the crypto world, Justin Sun is known for making bold bets. There’s the 2017 initial coin offering in his native China, completed days before the government banned such deals. The $US4.6 million ($6.9 million) he paid in 2019 for lunch with Warren Buffett, which irked authorities back home. And the stablecoin he launched last year, just as a similar instrument crashed in such spectacular fashion that it took down large swathes of the cryptoasset universe.

Apple triples India’s iPhone output to $10b in shift from China
Sankalp Phartiyal, AFR, Thu 13 Apr 2023
pple assembled more than $US7 billion ($10 billion) of iPhones in India last fiscal year, tripling production in the world’s fastest-growing smartphone arena after accelerating a move beyond China. The US company now makes almost 7 per cent of its iPhones in India through expanding partners from Foxconn Technology to Pegatron, people familiar with the matter said. That is a significant leap for India, which accounted for an estimated 1 per cent of the world’s iPhones in 2021.

China’s Great Firewall Comes for Generative AI, and Experts Are Worried
Mack DeGeurin, Gizmodo AU, Thu 13 Apr 2023
China’s top digital regulator proposed bold new guidelines this week that prohibit ChatGPT-style large language models from spitting out content believed to subvert state power or advocate for the overthrow of the country’s communist political system. Experts speaking with Gizmodo said the new guidelines mark the clearest signs yet of Chinese authorities’ eagerness to extend its hardline online censorship apparatus to the emerging world of generative artificial intelligence. China’s Great Firewall now encircles AI.

Society

Why Chinese families are burning money for their deceased loved ones
Sophie Bennett, SBS News, Fri 7 Apr 2023
The Qingming festival was officially marked on 5 April though celebrations can take place before or after that date. Families show respect to their ancestors by visiting their graves, offering food and burning symbolic money.

Six people jailed over horror bride trafficking case of chained woman Xiaohuamei in China
The Chronicle, Sun 9 Apr 2023
A video showing a Chinese woman with a chain around her neck has reverberated around the country and led to the conviction of six people. The harrowing story of a woman named “Xiaohuamei” first made headlines last year when a blogger stumbled across the tragedy. Now, six people have been jailed over the torture of the woman who was brutally kept in a dirt-floor hut with an iron chain around her neck and forced to have eight children.

National investment in China studies needed to lift expertise
The Australian, Wed 12 Apr 2023
University of Sydney China Studies Centre director David Goodman has called for a national strategy to encourage China studies at Australian universities.

Opinion and analysis

China's Overseas Ports Acquisition Program
Genevieve Donnellon-May, Australian Institute of International Affairs, Thu 6 Apr 2023
China is a powerhouse in global trade. Its rapid growth has been significantly fuelled by decades of rising exports, bringing new emphasis to the role ports play in trade and strategic relations.

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More hot takes on the TikTok ban:

Australia cracks down on TikTok
Martin McKenzie-Murray, The Saturday Paper, Sat 8 Apr 2023
As Australia follows the US and other countries to ban TikTok on government devices, will the next move be a total veto of the Chinese-controlled social media app?

Activists dancing to China’s tune
Kevin Andrews, The Spectator, Sat 8 Apr 2023
The decision of the Australian government to ban TikTok on devices issued to employees is a recognition of the dangers to national security posed by the app. For millions of people worldwide, TikTok is a popular social media site that allows them to upload their favourite video clips. Ranging from just three seconds to ten minutes, the videos are shared by a multitude of people each day, of which 40 per cent are aged 16 to 24. In addition to individuals sharing their activities, the platform is used by businesses to promote their products.

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China and Hong Kong: a tale of caution
Frances An, The Spectator, Sun 9 Apr 2023
Recent instances of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) censorship indicate its global and persistent efforts to block any pipelines of dissent in Hong Kong. For example, there was the unexplained screening cancellation of the movie Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey and the removal of artwork subtly honouring jailed Hong Kong protesters. Beyond Hong Kong, America, and Australia have faced concerns about the alleged proliferation of CCP propaganda, disinformation, and online censorship via apps like WeChat and TikTok, which these companies stringently deny.

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Australian opinions on the man of the hour:

Emmanuel Macron has warned against joining a US-China war. Where does Australia stand?
Isabelle Lane, SBS News, Tue 11 Apr 2023
Emmanuel Macron has warned against following the US into a potential war with China. Accelerating a crisis over Taiwan would be a "great risk" for Europe, he said. On Saturday, China launched three days of military drills around Taiwan.

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Russia and China are edging out the US in the Middle East
Amin Saikal, The Strategist, Wed 12 Apr 2023
The strategic landscape of the Middle East is changing rapidly, but not in favour of the United States as the traditional powerful actor in the region. Continued adversarial US–Iranian relations and regional Arab states’ growing concerns about Washington’s reliability as an ally have widened the arena for Russia and China to expand their strategic footprints in the region.

What does China want in Ukraine?
Ved Shinde, The Interpreter, Wed 12 Apr 2023
Strategic clarity arises in a crisis. When the world is relatively stable, the strategic calculations of the major powers are deliberately couched and clouded. Conflicts clear our minds. The ongoing crisis in Ukraine is resulting in havoc. However, it also allows us to step back and see where everyone stands.

Australia’s delicate dance with the United States and China
Philipp Ivanov, The Interpreter, Wed 12 Apr 2023
Could Canberra’s deft management of its Beijing relationship influence policy in Washington?

Preventing the new cold war from becoming hot
John McCarthy, The Strategist, Thu 13 Apr 2023
Cold wars don’t begin with a starting pistol. They grind into action. We are no longer waiting for one. We are there. The problem is that cold wars are either interspersed with hot ones or turn into them.

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