Turnbull serves it to China

MALCOLM Turnbull has blasted China’s “heavy-handed” trade crackdown, warning “putting Australia into the freezer” will further damage the relationship.

The former prime minister said China’s “wolf warrior” tactics would not work.

His comments at the Australia China Economic Trade and Investment Expo drew a forceful response from the Communist Party’s top official in Victoria, who claimed China’s trade bans were “beyond reproach” and accused Australia of “unfounded” national security decisions.

Mr Turnbull used his keynote address to declare that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s “wolf-warrior diplomacy has been quite counter-productive”, as he questioned China’s new approach that was “more authoritarian at home and more assertive abroad”.

“Heavyhanded trade diplomacy does not work for China any more than it did for Donald Trump,” Mr Turnbull (pictured) said. “The recent restrictions to Australian exports to China have only served to confirm and worsen existing concerns.

“If putting Australia into the freezer … was designed to extract greater compliance, it will only serve to do the reverse.”

In response, Long Zhou, China’s Consul-General in Melbourne, said he could not accept Mr Turnbull’s comments, and that China “always adhered to the principles of peaceful coexistence”.

Mr Zhou claimed Beijing never interfered in affairs of other countries and called for “mutual respect”.

He argued China was committed to rules-based trading and that restrictions on Australian products were “in line with Chinese laws”.