Australia’s inquiry call draws Chinese sanctions

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — Trying to silence criticism over the coronavirus pandemic, China is deploying a well-used weapon: trade sanctions.

Beijing has blocked some imports of Australian beef after Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s government, endorsed by Washington, called for an inquiry into the origins of the outbreak and rebuffed Chinese demands to back off.

The move is the first time Beijing has used access to its markets as leverage in its campaign to deflect blame for the outbreak. But it has used the tactic regularly against governments from Norway to Canada in political disputes over the past decade.

“What China is really doing is sending a political shot across the bows,” said Peter Jennings, the executive director of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, a think tank. “They’re saying to Australia: ‘Don’t make a fuss about an open and independent investigation.’”

China has too much at stake to destroy its trading relationship with Australia entirely, Jennings said, and has left alone its biggest Australian imports such as iron ore and coal because it needs a reliable supplier.

Beijing has suspended beef imports from four Australian slaughterhouses and is threatening tariffs on barley in moves it says are simply about regulations.

But Australia is not backing down. “We are standing our ground on our values and the things that we know are always important,” Morrison told reporters Friday.

China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying that foreign politicians had “insisted on politicizing the epidemic, labeling the virus and smearing the World Health Organization.”