The Chinese authorities take as a personal offense a refusal of any country to cooperate with Huawei. After the United States has found out about the high tech giant’s ties with China’s intelligent service and the subsequent espionage scandal, many countries have terminated cooperation with Huawei. For this reason, China’s government uses any economic leverage at its disposal to fight back against any country that dares openly retaliate.
Australia is currently the number one opponent of China. Australia has recently banned Huawei’s equipment from the market as well as demanded an international investigation of the coronavirus origin. In response, China decided to stop buying coal, copper, lumber, barley, sugar, wine, and lobster from Australia. Curiously enough, there is no official ban but a strong recommendation to stop purchasing these goods. Naturally, for Australia, these measures are tough, as the lion’s share of the country’s imports accounts for the Chinese market. However, national security and the safety of citizens’ personal data are much more important. In addition, China is also dependent on supplies from Australia. It imports more than 60% of iron ore, 60% of coking coal, almost 25% of thermal coal, and over 50% of liquefied natural gas. That is why Beijing did not announce an official ban on imports because it is well aware that this is a temporary measure aimed at showing Australia its discontent.
As practice shows, such retaliatory measures of China do not bring the expected result. More and more countries prevent Huawei from participating in the development of 5G networks regardless of China’s attempts to regain trust. In particular, after the Swedish authorities banned Huawei from the domestic market, China said that Swedish companies in China would undergo a very thorough inspection too.
