Five Eyes may help Aust see off China
THE Five Eyes allies are quietly discussing a plan to fight back against China’s aggressive new trade tariffs by introducing joint retaliatory penalties on Chinese goods and produce.
The Sunday Territorian understands officials from some of the Five Eyes nations have been discussing how best to respond to China’s attempts to pressure Australia by harming some of our export markets, notably beef, wine and coal.
One option is that all five nations – Australia, the US, the UK, Canada and New Zealand – respond with their own sanctions on Chinese goods and services.
A second option would be for Australia to respond with retaliatory tariffs on inbound products from China, and that the four allied nations support the move by refusing to buy extra product from China if Beijing looked to make up its losses elsewhere.
Talks are at a preliminary stage, but the idea is gaining traction in Canberra, and is being seriously considered in Washington.
The Sunday Territorian was told the problem had been discussed at high levels within the federal government, but that talks so far remained at the level of officials.
“Five Eyes co-operation is off the charts at the moment,” a source said, pointing out even the Social Services Minister Anne Ruston had a recent Five Eyes link-up with her fellow ministers.
Under options being discussed to respond to China’s trade hostilities, the Five Eyes security agencies would jointly conduct an intelligence assessment of each sanction announced by Beijing on Australian exports.
If the agencies deemed the sanctions to be a coercive economic move designed to pressure Australia for political purposes, a retaliatory sanction would be imposed, to the same or a higher value.
The other Five Eyes nations would then ensure China could not turn to them to make up any shortfall in sales.
Alternatively, each Five Eyes nation could respond with sanctions of their own.
Fergus Hanson, the director of the International Cyber Policy Centre at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, authored a report in September which recommended the Five Eyes nations consider a “collective economic security measure” along the lines of NATO’s article 5, which states that an armed attack against any one NATO country would be treated as an attack against them all.
“The Chinese Communist Party is trying to cause political pain in Australia to attempt to get the Australian government to change some of their decisions,” Mr Hanson said.
He said retaliatory sanctions would “look to do the same thing in China to make sure the CCP realise it’s a two-way street”.
The aim was to “push the CCP into normal ways of doing business” and resolve trade disputes through recognised channels such as the World Trade Organisation or formal negotiations.
“What we are doing now is a failing strategy,’’ Mr Hanson said of Australia’s current decision not to take China to the WTO or publicly accuse Beijing of economic coercion.
“It is absolutely critical we turn the tide on this.
“You’d only have to do it once to demonstrate coercive diplomacy was now too costly.”