Meat in the Sandwich !

 What an interesting new development in world politics.  China has inflicted a tariff wall on certain Australian exports in retaliation for our demand that the origin of the coronavirus be scientifically investigated, and new American president, Joe Biden has weighed in with support for its Australian ally.

There is an independent referee for these type of trade disputes and that is the World Trade Organization - and this one looks like being decided by the WTO.      But the investigation will be time consuming and China has already ignored a reverse finding on its occupation and claim to ownership of the South China sea.

 Joe Biden seems to be suggesting that the free world curb its imports from China as a way of disciplining the world's most populous country, but the authoritarian Communist government would probably use its " information control " to promote nationalism.  The situation could quickly turn to the surrogate clash of arms that existed between Washington and Moscow during the years of the cold war.

At least relations between these two super powers ha not quite degenerated to that cold war level and they are still speaking to one another.  China's relationship with the rest of the world tends to be quixotic. The power of Xi Jinping is absolute and yet he is mistrustful of his masses.  What he fears is any commercial downturn that create unemployment.  There is unrest amongst his perimeter Islamic people and the residents of Hong Kong clearly want to break away from Beijing control and that could spread internally if unemployment increased.

Of course this Australian goods embargo would swiftly dissolve if Australia decided to toe the Beijing dialogue.  The Chinese are desperate to avoid blame for the coronavirus pandemic which has killed millions of people worldwide.  It started in China and the Chinese government instituted a cover up which allowed it to escape to the rest of the world.

Australia has been singled out for a trade embargo because it had the temerity to suggest an international investigation to stop a similar outbreak happening elsewhere in the future.  Australia poses no military threat to China and it therefore feels it can get away with a selective trade embargo while continuing to import raw materials essential to national development.

These difficulties could disappear as swiftly as they originated if Beijing feels it has made its point, but if American imports of Chinese goods becomes reliant on Australian exports receiving justice it could take the issue to a very new level. That would be a situation that could extend for a number of years.

The one thing that would be to Australia's disadvantage would be for this trade issue to evolve into a dispute between the great powers.  We will quickly find new markets for the majority of the goods rejected by Beijing and this will simply become an irritant rather than a crisis.   It is in our interests to keep it low level.

That is the disadvantage of being a " middling power " on the world stage.  Sometimes we get dragged into issues which are not in our best interests !