Think "Canberra is Beijing's whipping boy"? Check the facts
Warwick Powell | 鲍韶山 | CEO, Beefledger
Incomplete or partial reportage of trade sanctions invariably leads to distorted responses.
Much mainstream media coverage of recent trade measures imposed by China on a select number of Australian sectors neglects to mention that Australia has actually been a long-standing master of these measures over the past decade-plus, is in the world’s top 3 in the use of so-called anti-dumping measures and during this period has targeted products from China in about 1/3 of the measures it has imposed. In 2020 alone, well before China’s suspension of abattoirs and the measures on barley, Australia had introduced numerous sanctions against Chinese products.
See this analysis from David Uren for a useful overview. And if you're interested in the empirical data, check out this half yearly report to June 2020 from the WTO re Australian anti-dumping actions.