Tricky situation for Australia as it takes a call on the trade war with China

Australia is in a very tricky situation right now where it has to choose between its economy and its integrity. This comes after the two countries have been having a war of words with an obvious advantage at China’s end.

As soon as Australia got over its recession that happened due to the coronavirus pandemic, people started questioning if it will have a more solid approach towards China. The economist, however, suggests that Australia must avoid taking any such steps.            

The problem is that China is Australia’s biggest export market which essentially means that now whatever the relationship between the two countries remains, Canberra keeps it cordial for it to continue to flourish its growing economy.

It so happened that the country’s economy was at its all time low, a phase of recession that happened for the first time in three decades. This hit Morrisson and its administration hard. The recovery of the economy was credited to the improved household spending that was the result of steady unlock that happened in the country. The covid-19 restricts were slowly lifted with the exception of the state of Victoria, where the restrictions were loosened a while later due to the highest coronavirus cases there.

The differences between the Morrisson and Xi Jinping administered China further worsened on Monday when one of the Chinese government officials posted a morphed image of an Australian troop holding a knife at an Afghan child. The incident created a huge uproar among the political spheres of the two regions.

Australian PM demanded an apology following the incident in which Beijing  refused saying that the former has committed a lot of war crimes while slamming “China’s goodwill with evil”. One of the media outlets in Australia claimed that this was the lowest point in the relationship between the two countries in the last 50 years.

It all started when the Australian side started warning its people and leaders about China’s intentions of influencing politics of the Oceanic country. In 2017, Malcolm Turnbull who is the former Prime Minister banned forugn political donations following the reports of China’s agenda.

As Morrisson took over, Australia became the first country to have banned Chinese tech giant Huawei from its 5G network along with blocking investment deals of 10 companies across infrastructure, agriculture and animal husbandry.

This year too, when the United States president Donald trump was blaming China for the coronavirus eruption and questioned its approach towards handling the virus, Australia also joined the hands and called for inquiries into the origin of the virus. Furthermore, it has also criticised China’s intentions of taking over the South China sea.

But keeping all of this on one side, the Reserve bank treasurer of Australia, Josh Frydenberg said, "China is our number one trading partner. Many Australian jobs rely on trade.” He added that the situation between the two is very serious.

Trade expats on the other hand have said that the tensions have not escalated to the point that two nations let their economy be affected by it.