After the Australian government abrogated the “Belt and Road” agreement signed between the Victorian government and the Chinese Communist Party on April 21, its grape exports to China have been delayed by Chinese customs, taking five to 10 days longer than normal to clear customs.
Jeff Scott, executive director of the Australian Table Grape Association, said on April 23, Reuters, “Table grapes have been experiencing long delays at the port for the past three weeks. About 400 or 500 containers have taken five to 10 days longer than normal to clear customs.”
Scott said most of the customs clearance delays occurred in southern Chinese ports, most notably Shenzhen, where exporters were not given an explanation for the delays, while exporters from other countries did not suffer the same delays. Australian exporters have to bear the associated costs.
Some commentators have suggested that the Australian government was retaliated by the Chinese authorities after it annulled the “Belt and Road” agreement signed between the Victorian government and the Chinese Communist Party on April 21.
On April 21, Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne issued a statement deciding to cancel four agreements that were inconsistent with Australia’s foreign policy or detrimental to diplomatic relations, including two Belt and Road cooperation agreements signed between Victoria and the Communist Party’s Development and Reform Commission in 2018 and 2019. The agreement was deemed inconsistent with the country’s foreign policy.
Australia’s decision was supported by its own senators, and the U.S. government also issued a statement in solidarity on the 22nd.
The Chinese Embassy in Australia issued a statement on its website on the evening of the 21st expressing “strong dissatisfaction and resolute opposition”.
The Australian government angered the Chinese Communist Party last year by publicly calling for an independent international investigation into the origins of the new coronavirus, and was retaliated against by the Chinese Communist Party.
The Communist Party has since increased tariffs or banned imports of coal, barley, wine, seafood, sugar, timber, meat, lobster and other goods exported from Australia to the mainland.
On November 30 last year, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian even tweeted a false image ridiculing the indiscriminate killing of civilians by Australian soldiers in Afghanistan, a move that provoked a public outcry in Australia and brought relations between the two countries to a low point.
But the ban on Australian imports has also damaged the mainland economy, especially the ban on mainland coal imports, which has led to soaring coal prices on the mainland, and the lack of coal has led to power restrictions and blackouts in some parts of the mainland, forcing foreign trade processing plants in Jiangsu and Zhejiang to stop work and affecting the timely delivery of products.
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