Australia sent a complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO) for China due to wine, hitting the country in the trade war. As clarified in a message published on the organization’s website, we are talking about the duties on the Australian wines that introduced Beijing.
Now the parties have 60 days to resolve contradictions. Otherwise, this will be engaged in the Special WTO Commission. Australia is no longer the first time with China. In December 2020, Canberra complained about China’s actions against the import of barley.
Beijing began a conflict with Canberra in the fall of 2020, after the latter called for an international investigation of the origin of coronavirus. First, the PRC decided to stop buying at least seven commodity categories from Australia: coal, copper, lumber, barley, sugar, wine and lobster. Prior to this, China suspended the supply of Australian beef and barley, raised duties for cereals to 80 percent, detained the supply of lobsters and prevented the import of wood.
Then the PRC raised duty on Australian wines to 212 percent. In Australia, such actions were called unfair and unreasonable measure. At the same time, China was one of the largest importers of Australian wine.
In addition, Beijing actually forbade the supply of Australian coal. This situation wanted to take advantage of Russian companies, waiting for an increase in imports in the PRC to dozens of times over several years. Coal is the second largest export product of Australia.