Via the threat of new tariffs, the Trump administration should consolidate Australia against any Chinese retaliation over Canberra’s response to Beijing’s new Hong Kong security law.
U.S. action is needed following Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s suspension of an extradition law with Hong Kong, and his grant to allow Hongkongers in Australia to remain for five years beyond their current visa stipulations. These Hongkongers will eventually be able for permanent residency. It’s a welcome development reflective of Morrison’s commitment to freedom and human rights. Moreover, these actions join recent U.S. sanctions on China, and British moves to offer U.K. citizenship to Hongkongers.
But there’s a problem. Because Beijing believes Canberra is particularly dependent on its Chinese economic ties, it sees Australia as a particularly vulnerable target for aggressive retaliation. It’s threatening to bury the Australian economy in retaliation to the land of Oz standing up for that which makes life enjoyable and sacred: freedom.
In turn, and befitting its Uighur concentration camp penchant, Beijing should find American reeducation on that understanding. Australia is an exceptionally close American ally in cultural, diplomatic, economic, intelligence, and military spheres. Morrison has taken significant political risk to further strengthen the U.S.-Australian alliance. At the very least, Morrison and his country deserve the confidence that their most powerful ally stands with them.
The threat to America’s ally is real. China views pressuring American allies as an important arrow in its quiver to gradually undermine the U.S.-led liberal international order. It wants to persuade democratic nations that they must yield to China’s interests or face increasingly uncomfortable economic pressure. And China is banking on the United States being unwilling to consolidate allies in their moment of need. Speaking on Thursday, China’s top foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian warned that Australia’s visa actions are “in serious violation of international law and the basic norms governing international relations. They constitute gross interference in China’s internal affairs, and China doesn’t accept it. We express strong condemnation and reserve the right to make further reaction, and Australia should bear all the consequences.” The Global Times, Beijing’s primary western-focus propaganda/messaging outlet, joined Zhao’s threat with an editorial warning of retaliation. With its usual stench of arrogance, the paper referenced the coronavirus’s catastrophic economic effect on Australia while totally ignoring Beijing’s role in allowing that virus to become a global pandemic. It warned that Chinese retaliation might target “investment, education, and trade sectors, among others, generating immeasurable losses to countless local businesses.” This action, it added, will have a “huge negative impact on the Australian economy, making the issue much more serious than many people would have anticipated.”
President Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo should rebuke this ridiculousness. If China wants to sow the wind, they should say, let them reap the whirlwind. There are many possible means of action here. An expansion of rightly escalating sanctions on Chinese human rights abusers offers one opportunity. More powerful, however, would be Washington’s explicit threat to introduce commensurate tariffs on Beijing for any economic penalties it imposes on Canberra. Doing so will pay outsize effect for the free world: as reflected by their recently requested meeting with Pompeo in Hawaii, the Chinese communists are desperate for a short term improvement in U.S.-China trade ties. Threatening the opposite outcome would grab Xi Jinping’s attention very quickly.
Regardless, the end game here is simple. Australia is a historic and heroic ally of the U.S. Facing this shared adversary, it deserves unhesitating and practical America’s support. If not, let Americans accept that we are only fair-weather friends, newly scared of the communist storm. Put another way: losers.
