Australia is under pressure to impose sanctions on Chinese officials for alleged human rights abuses and follow the lead of several other western nations.
Why is Australia staying silent?
It comes after Australia’s Prime Minister Scott Morrison made a declaration that his country should join the US and “develop a best practice targeted sanctions regime.”
However, six months on from this announcement, and the Australian government is yet to pass such laws, and remains non-committal.
Natasha Kassam from the Lowy Institute says that “perhaps the Australian government is concerned about causing even more friction to a relationship that seems to get described at a new rock-bottom on a monthly basis.”
In March, the US, the European Union, the UK. and Canada enacted new laws to sanction Chinese officials involved in alleged human rights abuses in Xinjiang
“The Prime Minister doesn’t have a plan”
Australian Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young told Ticker News she believes the PM doesn’t have a plan when it comes to dealing with China.
Hanson-Young says there’s a huge human rights issues in China, “I think about those, the wages and the camps. I think this is just horrific.“
“Australia does need to be standing up and calling out that behaviour, what’s going on in Hong Kong, the crackdown on free media and the freedom of the press. I think these are all things we need to be, of course, standing up too. But the problem is, the Prime Minister doesn’t have a plan.”
Hanson-Young says Morrison is “very knee jerk in relation to China”
Is Australia putting “too many trading eggs” in China’s basket?
Hanson-Young says “obviously it’s a very difficult issue, and it’s very difficult to thread the needle when we’ve invested so much in China as a trading partner, and probably too much.”
“We put too much of our eggs, trading eggs into China and we needed to be diversifying years ago.”
“That is starting to happen in certain commodities but not across the board. And so there is still a big need for China to be trading with Australia.
Will China agree to a minimum corporate tax rate?
In the wake of G7 member nations agreeing to a minimum global corporate tax rate, there are concerns over China’s willingness to take part.
More than 100 countries will need to agree on the new framework which will impact multinational companies, seeing these corporations taxed at least 15 percent.
Although China already has a corporate tax rate of 25 percent, there are numerous exemptions for most companies, which brings the rate well below the proposed 15 percent.
If Beijing refuses to adopt the agreement, leaders from wealthy nations worry it will be difficult to achieve wider global acceptance.
