China suspends economic accord with Australia

BEIJING AFP 6 May 2021 - China said on Thursday it had suspended an economic agreement with Australia, in an apparent tit-for-tat response to Canberra’s scrapping of a Belt and Road infrastructure pact and threat to undo a deal leasing Darwin Port to a Chinese company.   

Relations between the two sides have collapsed into acrimony after Canberra called for an independent probe into the origins of the coronavirus pandemic and banned telecoms giant Huawei from building Australia’s 5G network. 

 
China -- Australia’s biggest trading partner-- has already imposed tariffs on more than a dozen key industries, including wine, barley and coal, decimating exports.    In the latest recrimination, the China-Australia Strategic Economic Dialogue was pulled “based on the current attitude” of the Australian government, China’s National Development and Reform Commission said in a statement Thursday, blaming some officials of a “Cold War mindset” and “ideological discrimination”.   

Beijing will “indefinitely suspend all activities under the framework” of the agreement, the statement added.     The Australian dollar sank 0.6 percent soon after the news.