“The East is rising and the West is declining,” China’s President Xi Jinping said in March. The BRI,which sweeps across Asia,the Pacific and into Europe,connecting trade,transport,digital networks and infrastructure,is the embodiment of that ethos.
Australia has already infuriated China by banning Huawei and implementing world-leading foreign interference legislation. On Wednesday it set a global precedent by tearing up an agreement similar to one that China has signed with dozens of other countries.
Australia’s relationship with China was already broken. This decision pushes the repair job out by years,if not decades.
Witness China’s deputy ambassadorWang Xining at the National Press Club on Wednesday three years after the Huawei decision:“Australia was the first to ban Huawei in the domestic telecommunication industry and then Australia even persuaded others to follow suit,” he said.
“By doing so I think Australia connived with the United States in a very unethical,illegal,immoral suppression of Chinese companies.”
Beijing’s wrath over the BRI decision will be sharper and longer. After nearly four months of relative calm in the rollicking Australia-China relationship,the temptation for the Morrison government must have been to let the agreement sit and gather dust.